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I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist) and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history.
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
Personal
Pessimist
Philosophy
Trivial
History
Optimist
Anything
Founded
World
Irrelevant
George
Observation
Historical
Eliot
More quotes by A. E. Housman
Ten thousand times I've done my best and all's to do again.
A. E. Housman
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
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.
A. E. Housman
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
Tomorrow, more's the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
A. E. Housman
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A. E. Housman
And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
A. E. Housman
I sought them far and found them, The sure, the straight, the brave, The hearts I lost my own to, The souls I could not save They braced their belts about them, They crossed in ships the sea, They sought and found six feet of ground, And there they died for me.
A. E. Housman
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.
A. E. Housman
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
He would not stay for me, and who can wonder? He would not stay for me to stand and gaze. I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder, And went with half my life about my ways.
A. E. Housman
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
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
All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use.
A. E. Housman
A moment's thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.
A. E. Housman
Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill
A. E. Housman
The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.
A. E. Housman
The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
A. E. Housman
In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
A. E. Housman
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
