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
offending language flattery
The habit of pleasing by flattery makes a language soft; the fear of offending by truth makes it circuitous and conventional.
principles morality ethics
Principles do not mainly influence even the principled; we talk on principle, but we act on interest.
death life-and-death dying
Life and death appear more certainly ours than whatsoever else; and yet hardly can that be called ours, which comes without our knowledge, and goes without it.
perseverance men littles
Dignity, in private men and in governments, has been little else than a stately and stiff perseverance in oppression; and spirit, as it is called, little else than the foam of hard-mouthed insolence.
compassion suffering cuckoos
Cruelty is no more the cure of crimes than it is the cure of sufferings; compassion, in the first instance, is good for both; I have known it to bring compunction when nothing else would.
poetry sculpture painting
Sculpture and painting are moments of life; poetry is life itself.
arms steps gone
To my ninth decade I have totter'd on, And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady; She, who once led me where she would, is gone, So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready.
contentment way sometimes
As we sometimes find one thing while we are looking for another, so, if truth escaped me, happiness and contentment fell in my way.
tyrants earth palaces
Tyrants never perish from tyranny, but always from folly,-when their fantasies have built up a palace for which the earth has no foundation.
philosopher fortune
A true philosopher is beyond the reach of fortune.
envy morality speak
Those who speak against the great do not usually speak from morality, but from envy.
flower cities soul
The sweetest souls, like the sweetest flowers, soon canker in cities, and no purity is rarer there than the purity of delight.
rocks world ascending
The spirit of Greece, passing through and ascending above the world, hath so animated universal nature, that the very rocks and woods, the very torrents and wilds burst forth with it.
appreciation men would-be
Do not expect to be acknowledged for what you are, much less for what you would be; since no one can well measure a great man but upon the bier.