Best George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron Byron Quotes

The dead have been awakened -- shall I sleep? The world's at war with tyrants -- shall I crouch? the harvest's ripe -- and shall I pause to reap? I slumber not; the thorn is in my couch; Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine ear, its echo in my heart.

The king-times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.

The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity.

I am always most religious upon a sunshiny day...

My attachment has neither the blindness of the beginning, nor the microscopic accuracy of the close of such liaisons.

This sort of adoration of the real is but a heightening of the beau ideal.

I should be very willing to redress men wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes, had not Cervantes, in that all too true tale of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.

What a strange thing is the propagation of life! A bubble of seed which may be spilt in a whore's lap, or in the orgasm of a voluptuous dream, might (for aught we know) have formed a Caesar or a Bonaparte -- there is nothing remarkable recorded of their sires, that I know of.

I like his holiness very much, particularly since an order, which I understand he has lately given, that no more miracles shall be performed.

Science is but the exchange of ignorance for that which is another kind of ignorance.

I should like to know who has been carried off, except poor dear me -- I have been more ravished myself than anybody since the Trojan war.

Society is now one polished horde, formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.

I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.

Sleep hath its own world, and a wide realm of wild reality. And dreams in their development have breath, and tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy.

There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.

If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.

Sincerity may be humble, but she cannot be servile.

It is true from early habit, one must make love mechanically as one swims; I was once very fond of both, but now as I never swim unless I tumble into the water, I don't make love till almost obliged.

Self-love for ever creeps out, like a snake, to sting anything which happens to stumble upon it.

I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.

I by no means rank poetry high in the scale of intelligence --this may look like affectation but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.

Opinions are made to be changed --or how is truth to be got at?

Roll on, deep and dark blue ocean, roll. Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. Man marks the earth with ruin, but his control stops with the shore.

The good old times -- all times when old are good.

As long as I retain my feeling and my passion for Nature, I can partly soften or subdue my other passions and resist or endure those of others.

Switzerland is a curst, selfish, swinish country of brutes, placed in the most romantic region of the world.

Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil.

We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.

Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure.

The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.

Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then altogether, then inarticulate, and then drunk. When we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling.

There is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?

As to Don Juan, confess that it is the sublime of that there sort of writing; it may be bawdy, but is it not good English? It may be profligate, but is it not life, is it not the thing? Could any man have written it who has not lived in the world? and tooled in a post-chaise? in a hackney coach? in a Gondola? against a wall? in a court carriage? in a vis a vis? on a table? and under it?

Whenever I meet with anything agreeable in this world it surprises me so much -- and pleases me so much (when my passions are not interested in one way or the other) that I go on wondering for a week to come.

There is no sterner moralist than pleasure.

Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates -- but pages might be filled up, as vainly as before, with the sad usage of all sorts of sages, who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore! The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.

What makes a regiment of soldiers a more noble object of view than the same mass of mob? Their arms, their dresses, their banners, and the art and artificial symmetry of their position and movements.

Though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen.

I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting.

In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love.

I have imbibed such a love for money that I keep some sequins in a drawer to count, and cry over them once a week.