A.E. Housman quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by A.E. Housman

A.E. Housman Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from A.E. Housman on Wise Famous Quotes.

Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.

Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.

Tomorrow, more's the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.

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.

Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.

A moment's thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.

The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.

When the bells justle in the tower
The hollow night amid,
Then on my tongue the taste is sour
Of all I ever did.

Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure.

Malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man.

There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.

The laws of God, the laws of man he may keep that will and can; not I: let God and man decree laws for themselves and not for me.

Look not in my eyes, for fear
They mirror true the sight I see,
And there you find your face too clear
And love it and be lost like me.

The tree of man was never quiet:
Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.

Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's aware that will not keep.
Up, lad: when the journey's over then there'll be time enough to sleep.

...down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.

Give me a land of boughs in leaf
A land of trees that stand;
Where trees are fallen there is grief;
I love no leafless land.

Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man's deceiver Was never mine.

White in the moon the long road lies.

I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.

In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again.

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.

Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.

They put arsenic in his meat And stared aghast to watch him eat; They poured strychnine in his cup And shook to see him drink it up.

Three minutes thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.

Tis the old wind in the old anger,
But then it threshed another wood.

I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.

Who made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed.

Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.

Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.

With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.

Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber
Sunlit pallets never thrive;
Morns abed and daylight slumber
Were not meant for man alive.

Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge,
Gold that I never see;
Lie long high snowdrifts in the hedge
That will not shower on me.

Some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.

Oh I have been to Ludlow fair, and left my necktie God knows where. And carried half way home, or near, pints and quarts of Ludlow beer.

On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;The wind it plies the saplings double, And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

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.

I have seldom written poetry unless I was rather out of health.

Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack And leave your friends and go.

I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.

To justify God's ways to man.

Ten thousand times I've done my best and all's to do again.

They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.

There's this to say of love and breath
They give a man a taste for death.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.

The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough.

And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.

His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.

This is for all ill-treated fellows Unborn and unbegot, For them to read when they're in trouble And I am not.

June suns, you cannot store them To warm the winter's cold, The lad that hopes for heaven Shall fill his mouth with mould.

Good religious poetry ... is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.

Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking
Spins the heavy world around.

All knots that lovers tie
Are tied to sever.
Here shall your sweetheart lie,
Untrue for ever.

Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is, and we were young.

When the journey's over/There'll be time enough to sleep.

The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.

Stone, steel, dominions pass,
Faith too, no wonder;
So leave alone the grass
That I am under.

Lie you easy, dream you light,
And sleep you fast for aye;
And luckier may you find the night
Than ever you found the day.

We now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.

They say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man's.