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Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.
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
Literature
Discrimination
Though
Opinions
Dull
Quicken
Must
Perception
Rawness
Great
Reader
Sharpening
Good
Personal
Sharpen
Stupid
Mellow
Opinion
Blunt
More quotes by A. E. Housman
Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again.
A. E. Housman
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
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.
A. E. Housman
Tomorrow, more's the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
A. E. Housman
Good religious poetry... is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
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
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
To justify God's ways to man.
A. E. Housman
Stone, steel, dominions pass, Faith too, no wonder So leave alone the grass That I am under.
A. E. Housman
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.
A. E. Housman
Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.
A. E. Housman
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
A moment's thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.
A. E. Housman
Mithridates, he died old. Housman's passage is based on the belief of the ancients that Mithridates the Great [c. 135-63 B.C.] had so saturated his body with poisons that none could injure him. When captured by the Romans he tried in vain to poison himself, then ordered a Gallic mercenary to kill him.
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
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
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A. E. Housman
Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man's deceiver Was never mine.
A. E. Housman
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
A. E. Housman
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
