The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe.

‘Beppo’ (1818) st. 19

In short, he was a perfect cavaliero, And to his very valet seemed a hero.

‘Beppo’ (1818) st. 33.

Our cloudy climate, and our chilly women.

‘Beppo’ (1818) st. 49

A pretty woman as was ever seen, Fresh as the Angel o’er a new inn door.

‘Beppo’ (1818) st. 57

His heart was one of those which most enamour us, Wax to receive, and marble to retain.

‘Beppo’ (1818) st. 34

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, And all, save the spirit of man, is divine.

‘The Bride of Abydos’ (1813) canto 1, st. 1

Such was Zuleika, such around her shone

The nameless charms unmark’d by her alone— The light of love, the purity of grace,

The mind, the Music breathing from her face, The heart whose softness harmonized the whole, And oh! that eye was in itself a Soul!

‘The Bride of Abydos’ (1813) canto 1, st. 6

I have looked out

In the vast desolate night in search of him; And when I saw gigantic shadows in

The umbrage of the walls of Eden, chequered By the far-flashing of the cherubs’ swords,

I watched for what I thought his coming: for With fear rose longing in my heart to know

What ’twas which shook us all—but nothing came.

‘Cain’ (1821) act 1, sc. 1, l. 266

The laughing dames in whom he did delight, Whose large blue eyes, and snowy hands, Might shake the saintship of an anchorite.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 1, st. 11

Adieu, adieu! my native shore Fades o’er the waters blue.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 1, st. 13

Lo! where the Giant on the mountain stands,

His blood-red tresses deep’ning in the sun, With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands, And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 1, st. 39

Here all were noble, save Nobility.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 1, st. 85

Cold is the heart, fair Greece! that looks on thee, Nor feels as lovers o’er the dust they lov’d; Dull is the eye that will not weep to see

Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed By British hands.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 2, st. 15

None are so desolate but something dear, Dearer than self, possesses or possessed

A thought, and claims the homage of a tear.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 2, st. 24

Dark Sappho! could not verse immortal save That breast imbued with such immortal fire? Could she not live who life eternal gave?

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 2, st. 39

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more! though fallen, great!

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 2, st. 73

Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not

Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 2, st. 76

What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life’s page, And be alone on earth, as I am now.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 2, st. 98

Once more upon the waters! yet once more! And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 2

The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 3

Years steal

Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb;

And life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 8

Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends; Where roll’d the ocean, thereon was his home; Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends,

He had the passion and the power to roam.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 13

The very knowledge that he lived in vain, That all was over on this side the tomb, Had made Despair a smilingness assume.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 16

He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 23

The earth is covered thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,

Rider and horse,—friend, foe,—in one red burial blent!

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 28

But life will suit

Itself to Sorrow’s most detested fruit, Like to the apples on the Dead Sea’s shore, All ashes to the taste.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 34

Quiet to quick bosoms is a hell.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 42

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 69

I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me,

High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 72

His love was passion’s essence:—as a tree On fire by lightning, with ethereal flame Kindled he was, and blasted.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 78

Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 107 (of Edward Gibbon)

I have not loved the world, nor the world me; I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed To its idolatries a patient knee.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 113

I stood

Among them, but not of them; in a shroud Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 3, st. 113

The moon is up, and yet it is not night; Sunset divides the sky with her—a sea Of glory streams along the Alpine height Of blue Friuli’s mountains; Heaven is free

From clouds, but of all colours seems to be Melted to one vast Iris of the West, Where the day joins the past eternity.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 27

Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 42

Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul!

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 78

Alas! our young affections run to waste, Or water but the desert.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 120

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 122

Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift

My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 130

But I have lived, and have not lived in vain: My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, And my frame perish even in conquering pain; But there is that withini me which shall tire Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 137

There were his young barbarians all at play, There was their Dacian mother—he, their sire, Butchered to make a Roman holiday.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 141

A ruin—yet what ruin! from its mass Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 143

While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;

And when Rome falls—the World.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 145

The Lord of the unerring bow, The God of life, and poesy, and light.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 161

Oh! that the desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair spirit for my minister,

That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her!

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 177

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea and, music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the universe, and feel

What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 178

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 179

Dark-heaving;—boundless, endless, and sublime— The image of eternity.

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ (1812-18) canto 4, st. 183 (the sea)

The glory and the nothing of a name.

‘Churchill’s Grave’ (1816)

Such hath it been—shall be—beneath the sun The many still must labour for the one.

‘The Corsair’ (1814) canto 1, st. 8

There was a laughing devil in his sneer. That raised emotions both of rage and fear; And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,

Hope withering fled, and Mercy sighed farewell!

‘The Corsair’ (1814) canto 1, st. 9

Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells, Lonely and lost to light for evermore,

Save when to thine my heart responsive swells,

Then trembles into silence as before.

‘The Corsair’ (1814) canto 1, st. 14 ‘Medora’s Song’

The spirit burning but unbent,

May writhe, rebel—the weak alone repent!

‘The Corsair’ (1814) canto 2, st. 10

Oh! too convincing—dangerously dear— In woman’s eye the unanswerable tear!

‘The Corsair’ (1814) canto 2, st. 15

And she for him had given

Her all on earth, and more than all in heaven!

‘The Corsair’ (1814) canto 3, st. 17

He left a Corsair’s name to other times, Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes.

‘The Corsair’ (1814) canto 3, st. 24

Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run, Along Morea’s hills the setting sun;

Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright, But one unclouded blaze of living light.

‘The Curse of Minerva’ (1812) l. 1 and ‘The Corsair’ (1814) canto 3, st. 1

A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.

‘The Curse of Minerva’ (1812) l. 138 (of Scotland)

Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain,

Till, burst at length, each wat’ry head o’erflows, Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows.

‘The Curse of Minerva’ (1812) l. 139 (of Scotland)

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ (1815) st. 1

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed.

‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ (1815) st. 3

And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, But, like a hawk encumber’d with his hood, Explaining metaphysics to the nation—

I wish he would explain his explanation.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, dedication st. 2

The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, dedication st. 11

My way is to begin with the beginning.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, st. 7

But—Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual,

Inform us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all?

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, st. 22

Married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, st. 59 (Donna Julia)

What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,

Is much more common where the climate’s sultry.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, st. 63

Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded That all the Apostles would have done as they did.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, st. 83

He thought about himself, and the whole earth, Of man the wonderful, and of the stars,

And how the deuce they ever could have birth; And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars, How many miles the moon might have in girth, Of air-balloons, and of the many bars

To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies; And then he thought of Donna Julia’s eyes.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, st. 92

’Twas strange that one so young should thus concern His brain about the action of the sky;

If you think ’twas philosophy that this did, I can’t help thinking puberty assisted.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, st. 93

A little still she strove, and much repented,

And whispering ‘I will ne’er consent’—consented.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, st. 117

Sweet is revenge—especially to women.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, st. 124.

Pleasure’s a sin, and sometimes sin’s a pleasure.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, st. 133

Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart, ’Tis woman’s whole existence.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, st. 194

A panoramic view of hell’s in training, After the style of Virgil and of Homer,

So that my name of Epic’s no misnomer.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, st. 200

So for a good old-gentlemanly vice, I think I must take up with avarice.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 1, st. 216

There’s nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms As rum and true religion.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 2, st. 34

A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry

Of some strong swimmer in his agony.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 2, st. 53

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 2, st. 178

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; The best of life is but intoxication;

Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunk The hopes of all men, and of every nation.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 2, st. 179

They looked up to the sky, whose floating glow Spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright; They gazed upon the glittering sea below,

Whence the broad moon rose circling into sight; They heard the wave’s splash, and the wind so low, And saw each other’s dark eyes darting light

Into each other—and, beholding this, Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 2, st. 185

And thus they form a group that’s quite antique, Half naked, loving, natural, and Greek.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 2, st. 194

Alas! the love of women! it is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing!

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 2, st. 199

In her first passion woman loves her lover, In all the others all she loves is love.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 3, st. 3

’Tis melancholy, and a fearful sign Of human frailty, folly, also crime,

That love and marriage rarely can combine,

Although they both are born in the same clime; Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine— A sad, sour, sober beverage—by time

Is sharpened from its high celestial flavour, Down to a very homely household savour.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 3, st. 5

Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch’s wife, He would have written sonnets all his life?

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 3, st. 8

All tragedies are finished by a death, All comedies are ended by a marriage; The future states of both are left to faith.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 3, st. 9

Dreading that climax of all human ills, The inflammation of his weekly bills.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 3, st. 35

He was the mildest mannered man That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat, With such true breeding of a gentleman, You never could divine his real thought.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 3, st. 41

But Shakespeare also says, ’tis very silly ‘To gild refined gold, or paint the lily.’

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 3, st. 76.

The mountains look on Marathon— And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone,

I dreamed that Greece might still be free.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 3, st. 86 (3)

For what is left the poet here?

For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 3, st. 86 (6)

Milton’s the prince of poets—so we say; A little heavy, but no less divine.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 3, st. 91

A drowsy frowzy poem, called the ‘Excursion’, Writ in a manner which is my aversion.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 3, st. 94

We learn from Horace, Homer sometimes sleeps; We feel without him: Wordsworth sometimes wakes.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 3, st. 98.

Ave Maria! ’tis the hour of prayer! Ave Maria! ’tis the hour of love!

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 3, st. 103

Now my sere fancy ‘falls into the yellow Leaf,’ and imagination droops her pinion, And the sad truth which hovers o’er my desk Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 4, st. 3.

And if I laugh at any mortal thing, ’Tis that I may not weep.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 4, st. 4

‘Whom the gods love die young’ was said of yore. And many deaths do they escape by this.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 4, st.12.

I’ve stood upon Achilles’ tomb,

And heard Troy doubted; time will doubt of Rome.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 4, st. 101

When amatory poets sing their loves In liquid lines mellifluously bland,

And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves. They little think what mischief is in store.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 5, st. 1

And is this blood, then, form’d but to be shed? Can every element our elements mar?

And air—earth—water—fire live—and we dead? We, whose minds comprehend all things?

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 5, st. 39

That all-softening, overpowering knell, The tocsin of the soul—the dinner bell.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 5, st. 49

Why don’t they knead two virtuous souls for life Into that moral centaur, man and wife?

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 5, st. 158

There is a tide in the affairs of women,

Which, taken at the flood, leads—God knows where.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 6, st. 2.

A lady of a ‘certain age’, which means Certainly aged.

‘Don Juan’ (1819-24) canto 6, st. 69