Inspirational Quotes by Walter Savage Landor (English Writer)

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

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

We talk on principal, but act on motivation.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Motivation, Motivational

I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Death, Dying

Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age.
—Walter Savage Landor

Joining in the amusements of others is, in our social state, the next thing to sympathy in their distresses, and even the slenderest bond that holds society together should rather be strengthened than snapt.
—Walter Savage Landor

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

We talk on principle, but we act on interest.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Motivation

I should entertain a mean opinion of myself if all men, or the most part, praised and admired me; it would prove me to be somewhat like them.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Praise

We fancy we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Ingratitude, Gratitude

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

Of all studies, the most delightful and useful is biography.—The seeds of great events lie near the surface; historians delve too deep for them.—No history was ever true; but lives which I have read, if they were not, had the appearance, the interest, the utility of truth.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Biography

Wrong is but falsehood put in practice.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Right, Rightness

Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Poetry, Poets

There is no outward sign of politeness which has not a deep, moral reason. Behavior is a mirror in which every one shows his own image. There is a politeness of the heart akin to love, from which springs the easiest politeness of outward behavior.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Politeness

We often say things because we can say them well, rather than because they are sound and reasonable.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Talking

A mercantile democracy may govern long and widely; a mercantile aristocracy cannot stand.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Government

To say nothing of its holiness or authority, the Bible contains more specimens of genius and taste than any other volume in existence.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Bible

O what a thing is age! Death without death’s quiet.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Aging, Age

The monument of the greatest man should be only a bust and a name.—If the name alone is insufficient to illustrate the bust, let them both perish.
—Walter Savage Landor

There are proud men of so much delicacy that it almost conceals their pride, and perfectly excuses it.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Pride

Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.
—Walter Savage Landor

Clear writers, like clear fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid seem the most profound.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Style, Failure, Inspiration, Perseverance

There is no easy path leading out of life, and few are the easy ones that lie within it.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Acceptance

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Humankind, Humanity

A solitude is the audience-chamber of God.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Solitude, One liners, Audiences

We cannot conquer fate and necessity, yet we can yield to them in such a manner as to be greater than if we could.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Necessity, Acceptance

A man’s vanity tells him what is honor, a man’s conscience what is justice.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Justice, Vanity

Friendship may sometimes step a few paces in advance of truth.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Friendship, Candor

The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Anger

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