Lord Byron, formally George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron Byron

This is the age of oddities let loose.

Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose. This is true criticism, and you may kiss, Exactly as you please, or not, the rod.

The proof of gold is fire.

The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed. I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

The world was void, the populous and the powerful was a lump, seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-- a lump of death--a chaos of hard clay.

There is a very life in our despair.

There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.

These two hated with a hate Found only on the stage.

This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.

Thou true magnetic pole, to which all hearts point duly north, like trembling needles!

The quiet night, now dappling, 'gan to wane, Dividing darkness from the dawning main.

The torture we desire is the greatest of all.

The would-be wits and can't-be gentlemen, I leave them to their daily "tea is ready," smug coterie and literary lady.

There is an order of mortals on the earth, who do become Old in their youth, and die ere middle age.

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.

They accuse me--Me--the present writer of The present poem--of--I know not what,-- A tendency to under-rate and scoff At human power and virtue, and all that; And this they say in language rather rough. Good God! I wonder what they would be at! I say no more than has been said in Dante's Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes; By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault; By Fenelon, by Luther and by Plato; By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau, Who knew this life was not worth a potato. 'Tis not their fault, nor mine, if this be so-- for my part, I pretend not to be cato, nor even diogenes.--we live and die, but which is best, you know no more than I.

This is the way that physicians mend or end us, Secundum artem: but although we sneer In health--when ill, we call them to attend us, Without the least propensity to jeer.

Thou who hast the fatal gift of beauty.

The reading or non-reading a book will never keep down a single petticoat.

The tree of knowledge is not that of life.

The...dog, a best friend, the first to welcome, foremost to defend.

There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, Adversity is the first path to truth

There is, in fact, no law or government at all [in Italy]; and it is wonderful how well things go on without them.

They did not know how hate can burn in hearts once changed from soft to stern nor all the false and fatal zeal the convert of revenge can feel.

This is to be along; this, this is solitude!