Lord Byron

The best way will be to avoid each other without appearing to do so -- or if we jostle, at any rate not to bite.
Lord Byron

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

Here lies interred in the eternity of the past, from whence there is no resurrection for the days -- whatever there may be for the dust -- the thirty-third year of an ill-spent life, which, after a lingering disease of many months sank into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D. leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its existence.
Lord Byron

The mind can make substance, and people planets of its own with beings brighter than have been, and give a breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
Lord Byron

We have progressively improved into a less spiritual species of tenderness -- but the seal is not yet fixed though the wax is preparing for the impression.
Lord Byron

And yet a little tumult, now and then, is an agreeable quickener of sensation; such as a revolution, a battle, or an adventure of any lively description.
Lord Byron

The Angels were all singing out of tune, and hoarse with having little else to do, excepting to wind up the sun and moon or curb a runaway young star or two.
Lord Byron

What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, is much more common where the climate's sultry.
Lord Byron

No more we meet in yonder bowers Absence has made me prone to roving; But older, firmer hearts than ours, Have found monotony in loving.
Lord Byron

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.
Lord Byron

So much alarmed that she is quite alarming, All Giggle, Blush, half Pertness, and half Pout.
Lord Byron

Keep thy smooth words and juggling homilies for those who know thee not.
Lord Byron

The reason that adulation is not displeasing is that, though untrue, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce people to lie.
Lord Byron

A bargain is in its very essence a hostile transaction do not all men try to abate the price of all they buy? I contend that a bargain even between brethren is a declaration of war.
Lord Byron

He scratched his ear, the infallible resource to which embarrassed people have recourse.
Lord Byron

Alas! how deeply painful is all payment!
Lord Byron

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.
Lord Byron

Are we aware of our obligations to a mob? It is the mob that labor in your fields and serve in your houses -- that man your navy, and recruit your army -- that have enabled you to defy the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob; but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people.
Lord Byron

I stood among them, but not of them; in a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts.
Lord Byron

So for a good old-gentlemanly vice, I think I must take up with avarice.
Lord Byron

Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.
Lord Byron

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.
Lord Byron

Sighing that Nature formed but one such man, and broke the die.
Lord Byron

My great comfort is, that the temporary celebrity I have wrung from the world has been in the very teeth of all opinions and prejudices. I have flattered no ruling powers; I have never concealed a single thought that tempted me.
Lord Byron

As falls the dew on quenchless sands, blood only serves to wash ambition's hands.
Lord Byron

This place is the Devil, or at least his principal residence, they call it the University, but any other appellation would have suited it much better, for study is the last pursuit of the society; the Master eats, drinks, and sleeps, the Fellows drink, dispute and pun, the employments of the undergraduates you will probably conjecture without my description.
Lord Byron

Of all the barbarous middle ages, that which is most barbarous is the middle age of man! it is -- I really scarce know what; but when we hover between fool and sage, and don't know justly what we would be at -- a period something like a printed page, black letter upon foolscap, while our hair grows grizzled, and we are not what we were.
Lord Byron

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

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.
Lord Byron

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.
Lord Byron

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

Dreading that climax of all human ills the inflammation of his weekly bills.
Lord Byron

Think not I am what I appear.
Lord Byron

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?
Lord Byron

Thy decay's still impregnate with divinity.
Lord Byron

A lady of a ''certain age,'' which means certainly aged.
Lord Byron

I am as comfortless as a pilgrim with peas in his shoes -- and as cold as Charity, Chastity or any other Virtue.
Lord Byron

Posterity will never survey a nobler grave than this: here lie the bones of Castlereagh: stop, traveler, and piss.
Lord Byron

Hatred is the madness of the heart.
Lord Byron

The way to be immortal (I mean not to die at all) is to have me for your heir. I recommend you to put me in your will and you will see that (as long as I live at least) you will never even catch cold.
Lord Byron

What an antithetical mind! -- tenderness, roughness -- delicacy, coarseness -- sentiment, sensuality -- soaring and groveling, dirt and deity -- all mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay!
Lord Byron

There is no sterner moralist than pleasure.
Lord Byron

And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in masquerade.
Lord Byron

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.
Lord Byron

What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now.
Lord Byron

Your letter of excuses has arrived. I receive the letter but do not admit the excuses except in courtesy, as when a man treads on your toes and begs your pardon -- the pardon is granted, but the joint aches, especially if there is a corn upon it.
Lord Byron

Constancy... that small change of love, which people exact so rigidly, receive in such counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal.
Lord Byron

Adversity is the first path to truth.
Lord Byron

With just enough of learning to misquote.
Lord Byron

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.
Lord Byron