Remarks by Alfred Lord Tennyson | V2Melody Quotations

“Well, Gosse, would you like to know what I think of Churton Collins? I think he’s a Louse on the Locks of Literature.”

Delivering a sharply comic judgement upon an antagonistic literary critic · Conversation recorded by Edmund Gosse

Art
Fame

“Poetry looks better, more convincing, in print.”

Observing that typography and the printed page affect the reception of verse · Recorded conversation, 1873

Art
Poetry

“Do you think I could make it more poetical?”

Showing his instinct to transform even a powerful narrative through poetic art · Conversation recorded by F. T. Palgrave

Art
Poetry

“He is a kind of Australian poet; has long tracts of gravel, with immensely large nuggets imbedded.”

Characterising Pindar’s unevenness through a vivid geological comparison · F. T. Palgrave’s recollections

“I can see every scene in my poems in the mind’s eye: had I been trained to draw, I could set them all down according to my own idea of each.”

Describing the vivid visual imagination underlying his poetry · F. T. Palgrave’s recollections

“There was no natural congruity between the rhymes thus alphabetically grouped together.”

Explaining why mechanical lists of rhymes cannot generate organic poetry · F. T. Palgrave’s recollections

Art
Poetry

“Action and reaction are the law of the world, for which one sometimes hates the world, though such a law is, I believe, in the main wholesome for the common weal.”

Accepting conflict and reversal as difficult but necessary forces in society · Letter to William Gladstone, 1874

Time
Truth

“I feel that the dead lives whatever the pseudo-savants say.”

Affirming personal faith in survival after death despite sceptical arguments · Letter to Jane Brookfield, 1874

“The poet can scarcely be judged with fairness in one age or another. He must abide the judgment of the ages.”

Recognising that literary reputations require the perspective of time · Written acknowledgement in the Memoir

“I think public opinion much more likely to be influenced by steady firm action than by much talking and writing.”

Valuing consistent conduct above rhetoric as an instrument of change · Letter to a correspondent, 1889

Truth

“As a general rule, however, I think it wisest in a man to do his work in the world as quietly and as well as he can, without much heeding the praise or the dispraise.”

Advocating conscientious work without dependence on public approval · Public letter on his eightieth birthday, 1889

Fame
Truth

“The longer I live the more I value kindness and simplicity among the sons and daughters of men.”

Placing increasing value on humane and unpretentious qualities · Letter to Queen Victoria, 1883

Love
Truth

“It is hard to believe in God; but it is harder not to believe. I believe in God, not from what I see in Nature, but from what I find in man.”

Grounding religious belief in human consciousness rather than natural evidence · Recorded conversation, 1890

“You must love Wordsworth ere he will seem worthy of your love.”

Suggesting that appreciation of Wordsworth requires patience and sympathy · Recorded literary conversation in the Memoir

“Of course, Byron’s merits are on the surface. This is not the case with Wordsworth.”

Contrasting Byron’s immediate appeal with Wordsworth’s less obvious depths · Recorded literary conversation in the Memoir

Art
Poetry

“I am not blasé, I see the nothingness of life, I know its emptiness, but I believe in Love, and Virtue, and Duty.”

Balancing awareness of life’s emptiness with commitment to moral values · Recorded conversation in the Memoir

“You see a great deal of mankind, but it is mankind sick — the devil a saint would be. Do you therefore think you know mankind?”

Warning that a professional view of people in distress may distort judgement · Conversation with a doctor, 1888

Truth

“Beware of breaking up the soil of any Faith, when you have no better seed to sow.”

Warning against destroying belief without offering a sustaining alternative · Chance saying recorded in the Memoir, 1888

“The benefit of most translations from poetry, except they be by true poets, seems to me mainly to rest with the translators.”

Questioning whether literal translation can preserve the life of poetry · Chance saying recorded in the Memoir, 1888

Art
Poetry

“True progress is gradation.”

Arguing that lasting improvement usually develops by measured stages · Chance saying recorded in the Memoir, 1888

Time
Truth

“To decry one original poet in order to magnify another is like despising an oak-tree because you prefer a beech, and almost as sensible.”

Defending the distinct value of different poetic imaginations · Chance saying recorded in the Memoir, 1888

“It is the authors, more than the diplomats, who make nations love one another.”

Affirming literature’s power to create sympathy across national boundaries · Chance saying recorded in the Memoir, 1888

“I am afraid patriotism is very rare.”

Distinguishing genuine devotion to one’s country from political display · Chance saying recorded in the Memoir, 1888

“Time is nothing: are we not all part of Deity?”

Questioning ordinary divisions of time through a mystical sense of unity · William Allingham’s diary

Faith
Time

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