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Existence is not itself a good thing, that we should spend a lifetime securing its necessaries: a life spent, however victoriously, in securing the necessaries of life is no more than an elaborate furnishing and decoration of apartments for the reception of a guest who is never to come. Our business here is not to live, but to live happily.

A. E. Housman

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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
Securing
Thing
Spent
Elaborate
Good
Lifetime
Decoration
Never
However
Life
Spend
Reception
Victoriously
Existence
Guest
Necessaries
Business
Happily
Furnishing
Live
Guests
Apartments
Come
Apartment

More quotes by A. E. Housman

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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.
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Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.
A. E. Housman
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June suns, you cannot store them To warm the winter's cold, The lad that hopes for heaven Shall fill his mouth with mould.
A. E. Housman
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That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
A. E. Housman
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Tomorrow, more's the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
A. E. Housman
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Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
A. E. Housman
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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
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There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
A. E. Housman
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The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.
A. E. Housman
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The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
A. E. Housman
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Ten thousand times I've done my best and all's to do again.
A. E. Housman
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Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.
A. E. Housman
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And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.
A. E. Housman
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Good night ensured release, Imperishable peace, Have these for yours. * While sky and sea and land And earth's foundations stand And heaven endures. *These three lines are on the tablet over Housman's grave in the parish church at Ludlow, Shropshire, England
A. E. Housman
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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.
A. E. Housman
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Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
A. E. Housman
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Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure.
A. E. Housman
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Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
A. E. Housman
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And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
A. E. Housman
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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.
A. E. Housman