George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788–1824,) known as Lord Byron, was an English poet. He not only was English literature’s first celebrity superstar, but also gained notoriety for his many love affairs.
Born in London, Byron’s clubfoot had a great effect on his future disposition. He spent his early years in Aberdeen, and was educated at Cambridge. He took an expedition of Portugal, Spain, Albania, Greece, and Constantinople. The striking scenery and the exotic cultures that he experienced on this tour formed the basis for the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1809,) which made him famous overnight. Facing mounting pressure because of his failed marriage, scandalous (and incestuous) relationships, and vast debts, Byron left England in 1816 and never returned.
In 1819, while staying in Venice, Byron wrote some of his most celebrated works, including Don Juan (1819–24.) In 1823, he left Italy to join the Greek revolutionaries in their fight for independence against the Ottoman Empire. He caught marsh fever and died at Missolonghi in 1824.
Byron’s poetry was extremely popular, despite being widely criticized for moral reasons. Much of his poetry and drama exerted great influence on the Romantic Movement. His legacy of inspiration in European poetry, music, the novel, opera, and painting, has been colossal.
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The power of Thought,–the magic of the Mind!
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Thoughts, One liners
In giving advice seek to help, not to please, your friend.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Advice
It is not for minds like ours to give or to receive flatter; yet the praises of sincerity have ever been permitted to the voice of friendship.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Praise
Most men, until by losing rendered sager, will back their opinions by a wager.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Women hate everything which strips off the tinsel of sentiment, and they are right, or it would rob them of their weapons.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Women
It is useless to tell me not to reason but to believe—you might as well tell a man not to wake but sleep.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Faith
Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart. ‘Tis women’s whole existence.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Love
In solitude, where we are least alone.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Solitude, One liners
Grief should be the instructor of the wise: sorrow is knowledge; they who know the most must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth, — the tree of knowledge is not that of life.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Sorrow
It is very iniquitous to make me pay debts, you have no idea, of the pain it gives one.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Debt
Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Letters
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 (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Flattery
On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined; no sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet to chase the glowing hours with flying feet.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Dance, Parties
Such hath it been— shall be— beneath the sun The many still must labor for the one.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Men are the sport of circumstances, when the circumstances seem the sport of men.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Chance, Men
Be hypocritical, be cautious, be not what you seem but always what you see.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Hypocrisy
Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Thinking
The busy have no time for tears.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Business, Sorrow, Occupation
Adversity is the first path to truth: He who hath proved war, storm or woman’s rage, whether his winters be eighteen or eighty, has won the experience which is deem’d so weighty.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Adversity, Difficulties
The past is the best prophet of the future.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Reflection, Past
Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven;
A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Allah given
To lift from earth our low desire.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
There’s music in the sighing of a reed;
There’s music in the gushing of a rill;
There’s music in all things, if men had ears:
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Kindness, Cries, Crying
As soon
Seek roses in December, ice in June;
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;
Believe a woman or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that’s false, before
You trust in critics.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Confidence
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.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Sleep, Dreams
With just enough of learning to misquote.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Education, Learning, Quotations
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