Quote

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

A. E. Housman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

A. E. Housman
Age: 77 †
Born: 1859
Born: January 1
Died: 1936
Died: January 1
Classical Philologist
Classical Scholar
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Worcs
A. E. Housman
Choose
Word
Wrong
Right

More quotes by A. E. Housman

Image
Stars, I have seen them fall, But when they drop and die No star is lost at all From all the star-sown sky. The toil of all that be Helps not the primal fault It rains into the sea And still the sea is salt.
A. E. Housman
Image
You smile upon your friend to-day, To-day his ills are over You hearken to the lover's say, And happy is the lover. 'Tis late to hearken, late to smile, But better late than never: I shall have lived a little while Before I die for ever.
A. E. Housman
Image
Could man be drunk for ever With liquor, love, or fights, Lief should I rouse at morning And lief lie down of nights. But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts, And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts.
A. E. Housman
Image
Housman is one of my heroes and always has been. He was a detestable and miserable man. Arrogant, unspeakably lonely, cruel, and so on, but and absolutely marvellous minor poet, I think, and a great scholar.
A. E. Housman
Image
The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.
A. E. Housman
Image
Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
A. E. Housman
Image
Wanderers eastward, wanderers west, Know you why you cannot rest? 'Tis that every mother's son Travails with a skeleton. Lie down in the bed of dust Bear the fruit that bear you must Bring the eternal seed to light, And morn is all the same as night.
A. E. Housman
Image
The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.
A. E. Housman
Image
In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
A. E. Housman
Image
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.
A. E. Housman
Image
These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled, Followed their mercenary calling And took their wages and are dead. The British regulars who made the retreat from Mons, beginning August 24, 1914.
A. E. Housman
Image
If a man will comprehend the richness and variety of the universe, and inspire his mind with a due measure of wonder and awe, he must contemplate the human intellect not only on its heights of genius but in its abysses of ineptitude.
A. E. Housman
Image
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A. E. Housman
Image
Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.
A. E. Housman
Image
But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts. And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts
A. E. Housman
Image
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.
A. E. Housman
Image
The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
A. E. Housman
Image
Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill
A. E. Housman
Image
Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again.
A. E. Housman
Image
The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A. E. Housman