Every good writer has much idiom; it is the life and spirit of language.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Style
As there are some flowers which you should smell but slightly to extract all that is pleasant in them … so there are some men with whom a slight acquaintance is quite sufficient to draw out all that is agreeable; a more intimate one would be unsafe and unsatisfactory.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Friendship
Every great writer is a writer of history, let him treat on what subjects he may.—He carries with him, for thousands of years, a portion of his times.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Writing, History
Politeness is not always the sign of wisdom, but the want of it always leaves room for the suspicion of folly.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Politeness
There is a gravity which is not austere, nor captious, which belongs not to melancholy nor dwells in contraction of heart, but arises from tenderness and hangs on reflection.
—Walter Savage Landor
The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Writers, Writing, Authors & Writing
When the mind loses its feeling for elegance, it grows corrupt and grovelling, and seeks in the crowd what ought to be found at home.
—Walter Savage Landor
I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Death, Dying
There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Humankind, Humanity
What is companionship where nothing that improves the intellect is communicated, and where the larger heart contracts itself to the model and dimension of the smaller?
—Walter Savage Landor
Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Greatness
What is reading, but silent conversation.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Books, Reading
How sweet and sacred idleness is!
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Idleness
We cannot conquer fate and necessity, yet we can yield to them in such a manner as to be greater than if we could.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Acceptance, Necessity
Literature is the effort of man to indemnify himself for the wrongs of his condition.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Literature
Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Poets, Poetry
I should entertain a mean opinion of myself if all men, or the most part, praised and admired me; it would prove me to be somewhat like them.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Praise
We talk on principle, but we act on interest.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Motivation
Great men always pay deference to greater.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Greatness & Great Things, Greatness
Ambition has but one reward for all: A little power, a little transient fame; A grave to rest in, and a fading name!
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Ambition
We enter our studies, and enjoy a society which we alone can bring together. We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in preference to another: we give no offense to the most illustrious by questioning him as long as we will, and leaving him as abruptly. Diversity of opinion raises no tumult in our presence; each interlocutor stands before us, speaks or is silent, and we adjourn or decide the business at our leisure.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Libraries
No ashes are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Praise
Modesty, when she goes, is gone forever.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Modesty
Solitude is an audience-chamber with God
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Solitude
The monument of the greatest man should be only a bust and a name.—If the name alone is insufficient to illustrate the bust, let them both perish.
—Walter Savage Landor
A smile is ever the most bright and beautiful with a tear upon it.—What is the dawn without its dew?—The tear, by the smile, is made precious above the smile itself.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Tears
Friendship may sometimes step a few paces in advance of truth.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Friendship, Candor
The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Anger
There is no outward sign of politeness which has not a deep, moral reason. Behavior is a mirror in which every one shows his own image. There is a politeness of the heart akin to love, from which springs the easiest politeness of outward behavior.
—Walter Savage Landor
Topics: Politeness
Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in another.
—Walter Savage Landor
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Matthew Arnold English Poet, Critic
- Leigh Hunt British Author
- Philip James Bailey English Poet
- Matthew Prior English Poet, Diplomat
- Ford Madox Ford English Novelist, Poet, Critic
- Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford English Poet, Courtier
- Francis Quarles English Religious Poet
- John Keats English Poet
- Arthur Henry Hallam English Essayist, Poet
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti British Poet, Artist
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