Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Algernon Charles Swinburne
104 quotes
“Rhyme is the native condition of lyric verse in English; a rhymeless lyric is a maimed thing.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Essays and Studies (1875), "Matthew Arnold's New Poems", p. 162
“The small dark body's Lesbian loveliness That held the fire eternal.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) first seen 1880 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Cliffs". Songs of the Springtides (1880)
“Sweet Love, that art so bitter.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tristram of Lyonesse, sec. 6. Tristram of Lyonesse and Other Poems (1882)
“There was a bad poet named Clough, Whom his friends all united to puff. But the public, though dull, Has not quite such a skull As belongs to believers in Clough.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reported in G. K. Chesterton, Robert Browning (1903) ch. 3, p. 56
“I can truly say with Shelley that I have been fortunate in friendships: that I have been no less fortunate in my enemies than in my friends.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dedicatory Epistle to Poems, vol. 1 (1904) p. xxiii
“God by God flits past in thunder, till His glories turn to shades; God to God bears wondering witness how His gospel flames and fades. More was each of these, yet they were, than man their servant seemed: Dead are all of these, and man survives who made them while he dreamed.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Altar of Righteousness", in Harper's Monthly (June 1904)
“Maiden, and mistress of the months and stars Now folded in the flowerless fields of heaven.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nightingale amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus, For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, The tongueless vigil and all the pain.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For winter’s rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And soft as lips that laugh and hide The laughing leaves of the tree divide, And screen from seeing and leave in sight The god pursuing, the maiden hid.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran, Pleasure with pain for leaven, Summer with flowers that fell, Remembrance fallen from heaven, And Madness risen from hell, Strength without hands to smite, Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And Life, the shadow of death.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His speech is a burning fire.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For words divide and rend; But silence is most noble till the end.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wilt thou fear that, and fear not my desire?”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Superflux of pain.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ah, ah, thy beauty! like a beast it bites, Stings like an adder, like an arrow smites.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold, A bitter God to follow, a beautiful God to behold?”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Though these that were Gods are dead, and thou being dead art a God, Though before thee the throned Cytherean be fallen, and hidden her head, Yet thy kingdom shall pass, Galilean, thy dead shall go down to thee dead.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the glass of the years is brittle wherein we gaze for a span; A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man. So long I endure, no longer; and laugh not again, neither weep. For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather, Blown fields or flowerful closes, Green pasture or grey grief; If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We shift and bedeck and bedrape us, Thou art noble and nude and antique.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Change in a trice The lilies and languors of virtue For the raptures and roses of vice.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O splendid and sterile Dolores, Our Lady of Pain.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ah beautiful passionate body That never has ached with a heart!”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Despair the twin-born of devotion.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose’s, And love is more cruel than lust. Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She hath wasted with fire thine high places, She hath hidden and marred and made sad The fair limbs of the Loves, the fair faces Of gods that were goodly and glad. She slays, and her hands are not bloody; She moves as a moon in the wane, White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy, Our Lady of Pain.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I shall remember while the light lives yet And in the night time I shall not forget.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Forget that I remember And dream that I forget.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Time found our tired love sleeping, And kissed away his breath; But what should we do weeping, Though light love sleep to death? We have drained his lips at leisure, Till there's not left to drain A single sob of pleasure, A single pulse of pain.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dream that the lips once breathless Might quicken if they would; Say that the soul is deathless; Dream that the gods are good; Say March may wed September, And time divorce regret; But not that you remember, And not that I forget.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And lo, between the sundawn and the sun His day's work and his night's work are undone: And lo, between the nightfall and the light, He is not, and none knoweth of such an one.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ah, yet would God this flesh of mine might be Where air might wash and long leaves cover me; Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers, Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Marvellous mercies and infinite love.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our way is where God knows And Love knows where: We are in Love's hand to-day.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no man lives forever, That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Though one were fair as roses His beauty clouds and closes.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pale, beyond porch and portal, Crowned with calm leaves, she stands Who gathers all things mortal With cold immortal hands.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For in the days we know not of Did fate begin Weaving the web of days that wove Your doom.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I remember the way we parted, The day and the way we met; You hoped we were both broken-hearted And knew we should both forget.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And the best and the worst of this is That neither is most to blame, If you have forgotten my kisses And I have forgotten your name.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O bitterness of things too sweet!”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gone deeper than all plummets sound.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ah that such sweet things should be fleet, Such fleet things sweet!”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those eyes the greenest of things blue The bluest of things grey.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow, How can thine heart be full of the spring? A thousand summers are over and dead. What hast thou found in the spring to follow? What hast thou found in thine heart to sing? What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Till life forget and death remember, Till thou remember and I forget.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Change lays not her hand upon truth.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source