Bayard Taylor (1825–78) was an American poet, literary critic, translator, travel author, and diplomat. Taylor was born on January 11, 1825, in Kennett Square in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth son, the first to survive to maturity, of the Quaker couple, Joseph and Rebecca Taylor. His father was a wealthy farmer. Bayard received his early instruction in an academy at West Chester, Pennsylvania, and later at nearby Unionville. At the age of seventeen, he was apprenticed to a printer in West Chester. The influential critic and editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold encouraged him to write poetry. The volume that resulted, Ximena, or the Battle of the Sierra Morena, and other Poems, was published at in 1844 and dedicated to Griswold.
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Love’s humility is love’s true pride.
—Bayard Taylor
Topics: Humility
Opportunity is rare, and a wise man will never let it go by him.
—Bayard Taylor
Topics: Opportunity
Pardon, not wrath, is God’s best attribute.
—Bayard Taylor
Topics: Faith, Forgiveness, God
From the desert I come to thee, On a stallion shod with fire; And the winds are left behind In the speed of my desire.
—Bayard Taylor
Topics: Desires, Desire
Fame is what you have taken, character is what you give. When to this truth you awaken, then you begin to live.
—Bayard Taylor
Topics: Character
The loving are the daring.
—Bayard Taylor
Topics: Risk
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