Walter Savage Landor Quotes
Born: January 30, 1775
Walter Savage Landor, a titan of 19th-century letters, forged a philosophy of unyielding resilience and razor-sharp focus from the crucible of a tumultuous life. Exiled, estranged, and often at war with convention, he channeled his fierce independence into prose and poetry that championed the indomitable human spirit. Landor believed that true strength lay not in avoiding conflict, but in maintaining clarity of purpose amidst chaos. His words—direct, unflinching, and elegantly defiant—offer a bracing tonic for the distracted soul. Today, his quotes resonate because they speak to the quiet, stubborn power of holding one’s course, a timeless lesson in fortitude.
Walter Savage Landor Quotes (36)
"Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven."
— Walter Savage Landor"The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love."
— Walter Savage Landor"Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in another."
— Walter Savage Landor"We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier."
— Walter Savage Landor"Delay in justice is injustice."
— Walter Savage Landor"My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them."
— Walter Savage Landor"Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age."
— Walter Savage Landor"Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws."
— Walter Savage Landor"Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked."
— Walter Savage Landor"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"There is delight in singing, though none hear beside the singer."
— Walter Savage Landor"An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof."
— Walter Savage Landor"There is no easy path leading out of life, and few easy ones that lie within it."
— Walter Savage Landor"The Siren waits thee, singing song for song."
— Walter Savage Landor"Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who think differently from him."
— Walter Savage Landor"A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice."
— Walter Savage Landor"I strove with none; for none was worth my strife."
— Walter Savage Landor"The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander."
— Walter Savage Landor"The wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of Power, whose lamps make every face the same colour."
— Walter Savage Landor"There is nothing on earth divine except humanity."
— Walter Savage Landor"In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always."
— Walter Savage Landor"Great men always pay deference to greater."
— Walter Savage Landor"Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in excess."
— Walter Savage Landor"Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes them good."
— Walter Savage Landor"Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend."
— Walter Savage Landor"Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much."
— Walter Savage Landor"We talk on principal, but act on motivation."
— Walter Savage Landor"Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce."
— Walter Savage Landor"No thoroughly occupied person was ever found really miserable."
— Walter Savage Landor"We think that we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love."
— Walter Savage Landor