Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age.
—Walter Savage Landor
What is companionship where nothing that improves the intellect is communicated, and where the larger heart contracts itself to the model and dimension of the smaller?
—Walter Savage Landor
Ambition has but one reward for all: A little power, a little transient fame; A grave to rest in, and a fading name!
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Ambition
Familiarities are the aphides that imperceptibly suck out the juices intended for the germ of love.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Familiarity
The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing
A man’s vanity tells him what is honor, a man’s conscience what is justice.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Justice, Vanity
A smile is ever the most bright and beautiful with a tear upon it.—What is the dawn without its dew?—The tear, by the smile, is made precious above the smile itself.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Tears
The foundation of domestic happiness is faith in the virtue of woman.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Woman
There is no funeral so sad to follow as the funeral of our own youth, which we have been pampering with fond desires, ambitious hopes, and all the bright berries that hang in poisonous clusters over the path of life.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Youth
Wherever there is excessive wealth, there is also in its train excessive poverty, as where the sun is highest, the shade is deepest.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Wealth
We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Appreciation, Blessings, Happiness, Worth, Gratitude
Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in another.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Kindness
An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Praise, Merit, Worth
Although men of eminent genius have been guilty of all other vices, none worthy of more than a secondary name has ever been a gamester. Either an excess of avarice, or a deficiency of excitability, is the cause of it; neither of which can exist in the same bosom with genius, patriotism, or virtue.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Gambling
I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Dying, Death
In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Politics, Politicians
There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Humankind, Humanity
There is a gravity which is not austere, nor captious, which belongs not to melancholy nor dwells in contraction of heart, but arises from tenderness and hangs on reflection.
—Walter Savage Landor
Children are what the mothers are; no fondest father’s fondest care can so fashion the infant’s heart, or so shape the life.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Mother
As the pearl ripens in the obscurity of its shell, so ripens in the tomb all the fame that is truly precious.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Fame
We enter our studies, and enjoy a society which we alone can bring together. We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in preference to another: we give no offense to the most illustrious by questioning him as long as we will, and leaving him as abruptly. Diversity of opinion raises no tumult in our presence; each interlocutor stands before us, speaks or is silent, and we adjourn or decide the business at our leisure.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Libraries
Music is God’s gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Music, Gift
Friendship may sometimes step a few paces in advance of truth.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Candor, Friendship
Great men always pay deference to greater.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Greatness & Great Things, Greatness
Moroseness is the evening of turbulence.
—Walter Savage Landor
Those who are quite satisfied sit still and do nothing; those who are not quite satisfied are the sole benefactors of the world.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: People
Modesty, when she goes, is gone forever.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Modesty
Consult duty, not events.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Events, Duty
Such is our impatience, our hatred of procrastination in everything but the amendment of our practices and the adornment of our nature, one would imagine we were dragging time along by force, and not he us.
—Walter Savage Landor
We talk on principle, but we act on interest.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Motivation
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Matthew Arnold English Poet, Critic
- Leigh Hunt British Author
- Philip James Bailey English Poet
- Matthew Prior English Poet, Diplomat
- Ford Madox Ford English Novelist, Poet, Critic
- Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford English Poet, Courtier
- Francis Quarles English Religious Poet
- John Keats English Poet
- Arthur Henry Hallam English Essayist, Poet
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti British Poet, Artist
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