Alfred Tennyson Quotes

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.

~ Alfred Tennyson

It is better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all.

~ Alfred Tennyson

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

~ Alfred Tennyson

Half the night I waste in sighs,Half in dreams I sorrow afterThe delight of early skies;In a wakeful dose I sorrowFor the hand, the lips, the eyes,For the meeting of the morrow,The delight of happy laughter,The delight of low replies.

~ Alfred Tennyson

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depths of some devine despairRise 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 Tennyson

HopeSmiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering 'it will be happier'...

~ Alfred Tennyson

I am a part of all that I have met.

~ Alfred Tennyson

Come friends, it's not too late to seek a newer world.

~ Alfred Tennyson

Thine are these orbs of light and shade;Thou madest Life in man and brute;Thou madest Death; and lo, thy footIs on the skull which thou hast made.

~ Alfred Tennyson

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

~ Alfred Tennyson

T is not too late to seek a newer world.Push off, and sitting well in order smiteThe sounding furrows; for my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the bathsOf 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 daysMov’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 willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

~ Alfred Tennyson

But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills,And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me,And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’dTo dwell in presence of immortal youth,Immortal age beside immortal youth,And all I was, in ashes. - Tithonus

~ Alfred Tennyson

Let me go: take back thy gift:Why should a man desire in any wayTo vary from the kindly race of men,Or pass beyond the goal of ordinanceWhere all should pause, as is most meet for all?...Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,And make me tremble lest a saying learnt,In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true?‘The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.’- Tithonus

~ Alfred Tennyson

I came in haste with cursing breath,And heart of hardest steel;But when I saw thee cold in death,I felt as man should feel.For when I look upon that face,That cold, unheeding, frigid brown,Where neither rage nor fear has place,By Heaven! I cannot hate thee now!

~ Alfred Tennyson

Dear as remembered kisses after death,And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'dOn lips that are for others; deep as love,Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;O Death in Life, the days that are no more!

~ Alfred Tennyson

Though much is taken, much abides; and thoughWe are not now that strength which in old daysMoved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;One equal temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

~ Alfred Tennyson

Once in a golden hour I cast to earth a seed. Up there came a flower, The people said, a weed.

~ Alfred Tennyson

So runs my dream, but what am I?An infant crying in the nightAn infant crying for the lightAnd with no language but a cry.

~ Alfred Tennyson

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!As tho’ to breathe were life!

~ Alfred Tennyson

For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see,Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.

~ Alfred Tennyson

And this gray spirit yearning in desireTo follow knowledge like a sinking star,Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

~ Alfred Tennyson

Matched with an aged wife, I mete and doleUnequal laws unto a savage race,That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

~ Alfred Tennyson

I fain would follow love, if that could be; I needs must follow death, who calls for me; Call and I follow, I follow! let me die.

~ Alfred Tennyson

I myself beheld the King Charge at the head of all his Table Round, And all his legions crying Christ and him, And break them; and I saw him, after, stand High on a heap of slain, from spur to plume Red as the rising sun with heathen blood, And seeing me, with a great voice he cried, They are broken, they are broken! for the King, However mild he seems at home, nor cares For triumph in our mimic wars, the jousts— For if his own knight cast him down, he laughs Saying, his knights are better men than he— Yet in this heathen war the fire of God Fills him: I never saw his like: there lives No greater leader.

~ Alfred Tennyson

Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and for ever.

~ Alfred Tennyson

There rolls the deep where grew the treeO earth, what changes hast thou seen!There where the long street roars hath been.The stillness of the central sea.

~ Alfred Tennyson

Boldly they rode and well,Into the jaws of Death,Into the mouth of hell.

~ Alfred Tennyson

O love, O fire! once he drewWith one long kiss my whole soul throughMy lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.

~ Alfred Tennyson

That loss is common would not makeMy own less bitter, rather more:Too common! Never morning woreTo evening, but some heart did break.

~ Alfred Tennyson

Forgive my grief for one removedThy creature whom I found so fairI trust he lives in Thee and thereI find him worthier to be loved.

~ Alfred Tennyson

And at the closing of the dayShe loosed the chain, and down she lay;The broad stream bore her far away,The Lady of Shallot.

~ Alfred Tennyson

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 who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.

~ Alfred Tennyson

He makes no friends who never made a foe.

~ Alfred Tennyson

Yet all experience is an arch wherethroughGleams that untraveled world whose margin fadesForever and forever when I move.How dull it is to pause, to make an end,To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!As though to breathe were life!

~ Alfred Tennyson

Forerun thy peers, thy time, and letThy feet, millenniums hence, be set In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet.

~ Alfred Tennyson

All precious things discovered lateTo those that seek them issue forth,For Love in sequel works with Fate,And draws the veil from hidden worth

~ Alfred Tennyson

I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.

~ Alfred Tennyson

I wither slowly in thine arms; here at the quiet limit of the world, a white hair'd shadow roaming like a dream.

~ Alfred Tennyson

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves a shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,and slips into the bosom of the lake:So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip into my bosom and be lost in me.

~ Alfred Tennyson

Behold, we know not anything;I can but trust that good shall fallAt last -- far off -- at last, to all,And every winter change to spring.

~ Alfred Tennyson