Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron), (1788-1824), English Poet Quotes

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.

As to "Don Juan," confess that it is the sublime of that 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?

Opinions are made to be changed -- or how is truth to be got at?

There is something to me very softening in the presence of a woman, some strange influence, even if one is not in love with them, which I cannot at all account for, having no very high opinion of the sex. But yet, I always feel in better humor with myself and everything else, if there is a woman within ken.

It is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases to be constantly before us. A year impairs, a luster obliterates. There is little distinct left without an effort of memory, then indeed the lights are rekindled for a moment -- but who can be sure that the Imagination is not the torch-bearer?

I know that two and two make four -- and should be glad to prove it too if I could -- though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert and into five it would give me much greater pleasure.

It has been said that the immortality of the soul is a "grand peut-tre" -- but still it is a grand one. Everybody clings to it; the stupidest, and dullest, and wickedest of human bipeds is still persuaded that he is immortal.

Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of God in his main-spring of Mind. But God help us all! It is at present a sad jar of atoms.

I have had, and may have still, a thousand friends, as they are called, in life, who are like one's partners in the waltz of this world -- not much remembered when the ball is over.

I have always laid it down as a maxim, and found it justified by experience, that a man and a woman make far better friendships than can exist between two of the same sex -- but then with the condition that they never have made or are to make love to each other.