Walter Savage Landor
Walter Savage Landor
Walter Savage Landorwas an English writer and poet. His best known works were the prose Imaginary Conversations, and the poem Rose Aylmer, but the critical acclaim he received from contemporary poets and reviewers was not matched by public popularity. As remarkable as his work was, it was equalled by his rumbustious character and lively temperament...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth30 January 1775
procrastination practice hatred
Such is our impatience, such our hatred of procrastination, to 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.
lying heart produce
The worse of ingratitude lies not in the ossified heart of him who commits it, but we find it in the effect it produces on him against whom it was committed.
men long age
Vast objects of remote altitude must be looked at a long while before they are ascertained. Ages are the telescope tubes that must be lengthened out for Shakespeare; and generations of men serve but a single witness to his claims.
beautiful tears dawn
A smile is ever the most bright and beautiful with a tear upon it. What is the dawn without the dew? The tear is rendered by the smile precious above the smile itself.
kindness air deals
There is a vast deal of vital air in loving words.
thinking sorrow affliction
We fancy that our afflictions are sent us directly from above; sometimes we think it in piety and contrition, but oftener in moroseness and discontent.
air fame
Fame, they tell you, is air; but without air there is no life for any; without fame there is none for the best.
style spirit language
Every good writer has much idiom; it is the life and spirit of language.
time dust sublime
The sublime is contained in a grain of dust.
men house mind
I would recommend a free commerce both of matter and mind. I would let men enter their own churches with the same freedom as their own houses; and I would do it without a homily or graciousness or favor, for tyranny itself is to me a word less odious than toleration.
friendship precious-stones broken
Let me take up your metaphor. Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat or violence or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after. The more graceful and ornamental it was, the more clearly do we discern the hopelessness of restoring it to its former state. Coarse stones, if they are fractured, may be cemented again; precious stones, never.
looks easy difficulty
It is easy to look down on others; to look down on ourselves is the difficulty.
gone modesty
And Modesty, who, when she goes, Is gone for ever.
greatness law bird
It appears to be among the laws of nature, that the mighty of intellect should be pursued and carped by the little, as the solitary flight of one great bird is followed by the twittering petulance of many smaller.