Alfred Tennyson > Quotes

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.”
― Alfred Tennyson

“Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam

“Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering 'it will be happier'...”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson

“I am a part of all that I have met.”
― Alfred Tennyson, The Complete Poetical Works of Tennyson

“Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King and a Selection of Poems

“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depths of some devine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson

“I will drink life to the lees.”
― Alfred Tennyson

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson

“A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.”
― Alfred Tennyson

“Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Complete Works of Alfred Tennyson

“Sometimes the heart sees what's invisible to the eye.”
― Tennyson

“Half the night I waste in sighs,
Half in dreams I sorrow after
The delight of early skies;
In a wakeful dose I sorrow
For the hand, the lips, the eyes,
For the meeting of the morrow,
The delight of happy laughter,
The delight of low replies.”
― Alfred Tennyson, Maud, and other poems

“Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?”
― Lord Alfred Tennyson

“Be near me when my light is low,
When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
And tingle; and the heart is sick,
And all the wheels of Being slow.

Be near me when the sensuous frame
Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust;
And Time, a maniac scattering dust,
And Life, a fury slinging flame.

Be near me when my faith is dry,
And men the flies of latter spring,
That lay their eggs, and sting and sing
And weave their petty cells and die.

Be near me when I fade away,
To point the term of human strife,
And on the low dark verge of life
The twilight of eternal day.”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam

“The words 'far, far away' had always a strange charm.”
― Alfred, Lord Tennyson

“Come friends, it's not too late to seek a newer world.”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson

“The quiet sense of something lost”
― Tennyson

“I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

Verse XXVII”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam

“Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die”
― Lord Tennyson Alfred

“No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not work those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson

“There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.”
― Alfred, Lord Tennyson

“T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Mov’d earth and heaven, that which we are, we are:
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
― Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses

“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
― Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King and a Selection of Poems

“Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.”
― Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam

“I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.

In Memoriam A.H.H. Section 5”
― Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam

“Sweet is true love that is given in vain, and sweet is death that takes away pain.”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson

“I am half-sick of shadows,' said The Lady of Shalott.”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott

“The shell must break before the bird can fly.”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson

“I remain
Mistress of mine own self
and mine own soul”
― Tennyson

“So runs my dream, but what am I?
An infant crying in the night
An infant crying for the light
And with no language but a cry.”
― Lord Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam