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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

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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
Decree
God
Laws
Law
Keep
May
Men

More quotes by A. E. Housman

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Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
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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Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.
A. E. Housman
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On Wenlock Edge the wood's in troubleHis forest fleece the Wrekin heavesThe wind it plies the saplings double, And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
A. E. Housman
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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
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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
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The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.
A. E. Housman
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Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour, He stood and counted them and cursed his luck And then the clock collected in the tower Its strength, and struck.
A. E. Housman
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Good religious poetry... is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
A. E. Housman
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Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.
A. E. Housman
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Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.
A. E. Housman
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'Tis spring come out to ramble The hilly brakes around, For under thorn and bramble About the hollow ground The primroses are found. And there's the windflower chilly With all the winds at play, And there's the Lenten lily That has not long to stay And dies on Easter day.
A. E. Housman
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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
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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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The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.
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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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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Here dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose but young men think it is, and we were young.
A. E. Housman
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All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use.
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