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A. E. Housman

61 quotes

“The most important truth which has ever been uttered, and the greatest discovery ever made in the moral world.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The house of delusions is cheap to build, but draughty to live in, and ready at any instant to fall.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introductory Lecture" delivered on October 3, 1892 at University College, London
“Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Saturae of Juvenal (Cambridge University Press, [1905] 1931) p. xi
“My heart always warms to people who do not come to see me, especially Americans, to whom it seems to be more of an effort.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Neilson Abeel" (October 4, 1935)
“Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Additional Poems, No. 18, st. 1 (1937)
“Nature, not content with denying to Mr — the faculty of thought, has endowed him with the faculty of writing.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a list of insults drafted by A E Housman, and posthumously published in Laurence Housman's A. E. H. (1937) pp. 89-90. The name was left blank in the original, but was intended to be filled in and used when a suitab…
“Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Clay lies still, but blood's a rover; Breath's a ware that will not keep. Up, lad: when the journey's over There'll be time enough to sleep.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, "Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, "The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; 'Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue." And I am two-and-twenty And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh, when I was in love with you Then I was clean and brave, And miles around the wonder grew How well did I behave. And now the fancy passes by And nothing will remain, And miles around they'll say that I Am quite myself again.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To-day, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high, we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The bells they sound on Bredon And still the steeples hum. "Come all to church, good people," — Oh, noisy bells, be dumb; I hear you, I will come.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man, The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But from my grave across my brow Plays no wind of healing now, And fire and ice within me fight Beneath the suffocating night.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There, like the wind through woods in riot, Through him the gale of life blew high; The tree of man was never quiet: Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From far, from eve and morning And yon twelve-winded sky, The stuff of life to knit me Blew hither; here am I.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge, Gold that I never see; Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge That will not shower on me.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Into my heart an air that kills From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what farms are those? That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went And cannot come again.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle, Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Far in a western brookland That bred me long ago The poplars stand and tremble By pools I used to know.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There, by the starlit fences, The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipt maiden And many a lightfoot lad. By brooks too broad for leaping The lightfoot boys are laid; The rose-lipt girls are sleeping In fields where roses fade.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack, And leave your friends and go. Oh never fear, man, nought's to dread, Look not to left nor right: In all the endless road you tread There's nothing but the night.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man. Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink For fellows whom it hurts to think.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill, And while the sun and moon endure Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure I’d face it as a wise man would, And train for ill and not for good.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“accuracy is a duty and not a virtue”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Addenda to I of Astronomicon of Manilius, Lib I. (The Richards Press, [1903]) p. 105. 'p. xxii II. 27 sqq. I did not praise Berchert's accuracy, because accuracy is a duty and not a virtue ; but if I could have foreseen…
“A man who possesses common sense and the use of reason must not expect to learn from treatises or lectures on textual criticism anything that he could not, with leisure and industry, find out for himself. What the lectures and treatises can do for him is to save him time and trouble by presenting to him immediately considerations which would in any case occur to him sooner or later.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A textual critic engaged upon his business is not at all like Newton investigating the motions of the planets: he is much more like a dog hunting for fleas. If a dog hunted for fleas on mathematical principles, basing his researches on statistics of area and population, he would never catch a flea except by accident.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The difference between an icicle and a red-hot poker is really much slighter than the difference between truth and falsehood or sense and nonsense; yet it is much more immediately noticeable and much more universally noticed, because the body is more sensitive than the mind.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most men are rather stupid, and most of those who are not stupid are, consequently, rather vain.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is supposed that there has been progress in the science of textual criticism, and the most frivolous pretender has learned to talk superciliously about "the old unscientific days". The old unscientific days are everlasting; they are here and now; they are renewed perennially by the ear which takes formulas in, and the tongue which gives them out again, and the mind which meanwhile is empty of reflexion and stuffed with self-complacency.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And, what is worse, the reader often shares the writer's prejudices, and is far too well pleased with his conclusions to examine either his premises or his reasoning. Stand on a barrel in the streets of Bagdad, and say in a loud voice, 'Twice two is four, and ginger is hot in the mouth, therefore Mohammed is the prophet of God', and your logic will probably escape criticism; or, if anyone should by chance criticise it, you could easily silence him by calling him a Christian dog.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be a textual critic requires aptitude for thinking and willingness to think; and though it also requires other things, those things are supplements and cannot be substitutes. Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders and brains, not pudding, in your head.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away, The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers. Pass me the can, lad; there’s an end of May.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We for a certainty are not the first Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The troubles of our proud and angry dust Are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Could man be drunk for ever With liquor, love, or fights, Lief should I rouse at mornings And lief lie down of nights. But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts, And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Now I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And how am I to face the odds Of man’s bedevilment and God’s? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He stood, and heard the steeple Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town. One, two, three, four, to market-place and people It tossed them down. Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour, He stood and counted them and cursed his luck; And then the clock collected in the tower Its strength, and struck.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Happy bridegroom, Hesper brings All desired and timely things. All whom morning sends to roam, Hesper loves to lead them home. Home return who him behold, Child to mother, sheep to fold, Bird to nest from wandering wide: Happy bridegroom, seek your bride.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth’s foundations fled, Followed their mercenary calling And took their wages and are dead. Their shoulders held the sky suspended; They stood, and earth’s foundations stay; What God abandoned, these defended, And saved the sum of things for pay.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tell me not here, it needs not saying, What tune the enchantress plays In aftermaths of soft September Or under blanching mays, For she and I were long acquainted And I knew all her ways.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Good literature continually read for pleasure must, let us hope, do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. [...] and perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source