Alfred Lord Tennyson Quotes on Friendship, Happiness, and life.

Alfred Lord Tennyson Quotes

• “Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier’.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson.

• “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”

• “Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?”

• “A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.”

• “Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.”

• “Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change.”

• “And out of the darkness came the hands that reach thro’ nature, moulding men.”

• “There’s no glory like those who save their country.”

•  “Better not be at all than not be noble.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Poems

• “Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hours will last.”

• “Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die”

• “Come friends, it’s not too late to seek a newer world.”

• “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

• “The shell must break before the bird can fly.”

• “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”

• “The same words conceal and declare the thoughts of men.”

• “For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see, saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.”

• “If you don’t concentrate on what you are doing then the thing that you are doing is not what you are thinking.”

• “The mirror crack’d from side to side ‘The curse has come upon me’, cried The Lady of Shalott”

Alfred Lord Tennyson Love Quotes 

• “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever.”

• “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

• “For love reflects the thing beloved.”

• “Sweet is true love that is given in vain, and sweet is death that takes away pain.”

• “Oh that it were possible, After long grief and pain, To find the arms of my true love, around me once again”

• “Who is wise in love, love most, say least.”

• “Love lieth deep; love dwells not in lip-depths; love laps his wings on either side the heart.”

• “As love, if love be perfect, casts out fear, so hate, if hate be perfect, casts out fear.”

• “He that shuts love out, in turn shall be shut out from love, and on her threshold lie, howling in outer darkness.”

• “I loved you, and my love had no return, and therefore my true love has been my death.”

• “Life is brief but love is long.”

•  “Of love that never found his earthly close, What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts; or all the same as if he had not been?”

• “Shall love be blamed for want of faith?”

• “Sweet is true love, though given in vain.”

• “Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was love.”

•  “Love is hurt with jar and fret love is made a vague regret.”

• “The folly of all follies is to be love sick for a shadow.”

• “Love’s too precious to be lost, a little grain shall not be spilt.”

• “Love will conquer at the last.”

Popular Alfred Lord Tennyson Quotes From ‘Idylls Of The King’

• “I fain would follow love, if that could be; I needs must follow death, who calls for me.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson, ‘Idylls Of The King’.

• “…and Gareth bowed himself with all obedience to the King, and wrought all kind of service with a noble ease that graced the lowliest act in doing it.”

• “I know not if I know what true love is, but if I know, then, if I love not him, I know there is none other I can love.”

• “after all had eaten, then Geraint, for now, the wine made summer in his veins, let his eye rove in following, or rest on Enid at her lowly handmaid-work.”

• “But there was heard among the holy hymns a voice as of the waters, for she dwells down in a deep‐ calm, whatsoever storms may shake the world.”

• “Fairy changeling lay the mage.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson, ‘Idylls Of The King’.

• “Ah my God, what might I not have made of thy fair world, had I but loved thy highest creature here? It was my duty to have loved the highest: It surely was my profit had I known.”

• “In her right hand the lily, in her left the letter–all her bright hair streaming down– and all the coverlid was cloth of gold.”

• “Arthur spake, ‘Behold, for these have sworn to wage my wars, and worship me their King.”

•  “And so there grew great tracts of wilderness, wherein the beast was ever more and more, but man was less and less, till Arthur came.”

Beautiful Quotes By Alfred Lord Tennyson

• “I am a part of all that I have met.”

• “Men at most differ as Heaven and Earth, but women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.”

• “He makes no friends who never made a foe.”

• “God’s finger touched him, and he slept.”

• “The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.”

• “By blood a king, in the heart a clown.”

•  “Half the night I waste in sighs, half in dreams I sorrow after the delight of early skies.”

• “Once in a golden hour, I cast to earth a seed. Up there came a flower, the people said, a weed.”

•  “Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depths of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, in looking on the happy autumn fields, and thinking of the days that are no more.”

• “I will drink life to the lees.”

• “In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove.”

• “Gone – flitted away, taken the stars from the night and the sun from the day!”

Alfred Lord Tennyson Quotes Love

• “Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: the year is going, let him go; ring out the false, ring in the true.”

•  “In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”

• “Manners are not idle, but the fruit of loyal and of a noble mind.”

• “Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.”

• “Authority forgets a dying king.”

•  “Jewels five-words-long, that on the stretch’d forefinger of all time sparkle forever.”

• “Battering the gates of heaven with the storms of prayer.”

• “Thoroughly to believe in one’s own self, so one’s self were thorough, were to do great things.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson Poetry Quotes

• “On either side, the river lie long fields of barley and of rye, that clothe the wold and meet the sky; and thro’ the field the road runs by to many-tower’d Camelot; and up and down the people go, gazing where the lilies blow Round an island there below, the island of Shalott.”

• “A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, he rode between the barley-sheaves. The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves, and flamed upon the brazen greaves of bold Sir Lancelot.”

• “And in the lighted palace near Died the sound of royal cheer; and they cross’d themselves for fear, all the nights at Camelot: But Lancelot mused a little space; he said, ‘she has a lovely face; God in his mercy send her grace, The Lady of Shalott’.”

• “As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me little remains: but every hour is saved from that eternal silence.”

• “Push off, and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars, until I die.”

• “and tho’ we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

• “Can calm despair and wild unrest, be tenants of a single breast?”

•  “Oh, yet we trust that somehow good, will be the final goal of ill.”

• “And all at once, it seemed, at last, the living soul was flashed on mine.”

• “I watch thee from the quiet shore; thy spirit up to mine can reach; but in dear words of human speech, we two communicate no more.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson Famous Quotes

• “Yet less of sorrow lives in me for days of happy commune dead; less yearning for the friendship fled than some strong bond which is to be.”
• “And gazing on thee, sullen tree, sick for thy stubborn hardihood.”

• “I hold it true, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, that men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things.”

•  “My lighter moods are like to these, that out of words a comfort win; but there are other griefs within, and tears that at their fountain freeze;”

• “Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams?”

• “That loss is common would not make my own less bitter, rather more: too common!”
•  “Dear as remembered kisses after death, and sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned on lips that are for others; deep as love, deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more!”

• “When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wondered. Honor the charge they made!”

•  “But such a tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam when that which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home.”

•  “Let me go: take back thy gift: why should a man desire in any way to vary from the kindly race of men, or pass beyond the goal of the ordinance Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?”

Intriguing Quotes By Alfred Lord Tennyson

• “We cannot be kind to each other here for even an hour. We whisper, hint, and chuckle and grin at our brother’s shame; however, you take it we men are a little breed.”

• “A smile abroad is often a scowl at home.”

• “I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.”

• “So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be.”

• “Sin is too stupid to see beyond itself.”

• “There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.”

• “What rights are those that dare not resist for them?”

• “The God themselves cannot recall their gifts.”

•  “In the long year’s liker they must grow; the man be more of woman, she of man.”

•  “A day may sink or save a realm.”

• “Gone, and a cloud in my heart.”

Best Quotes by Alfred Lord Tennyson

• “Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering ‘it will be happier’…”

• “I will drink life to the lees.”

• “A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.”

• “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”
• “Once in a golden hour, I cast to earth a seed. Up there came a flower, The people said, a weed.”

• “Sometimes the heart sees what’s invisible to the eye.”
• “Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?”

• “The words ‘far, far away had always a strange charm.”
• “I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it when I sorrow most; ‘Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.”
• “I remain Mistress of mine own self and mine own soul.”

• “I am half-sick of shadows,’ said The Lady of Shalott.”

• “The red rose cries, “She is near, she is near;” And the white rose weeps, “She is late;” The larkspur listens, “I hear, I hear;” And the lily whispers, “I wait.”

• “So runs my dream, but what am I? An infant crying in the night An infant crying for the light And with no language but a cry.”

• “My purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the Western stars until I die.”

• “O love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.”

• “For always roaming with a hungry heart.”

• “So sad, so fresh the days that are no more.”

• “For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.”

• “The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but on the mastery of his passions.”
• “Forgive my grief for one removed Thy creature whom I found so fair I trust he lives in Thee and there I find him worthier to be loved.”

• “So I find every pleasant spot In which we two were wont to meet, The field, the chamber, and the street, For all is dark where thou art not.”

• “So now I have sworn to bury All this dead body of hate I feel so free and so clear By the loss of that dead weight.”

Also Read: Happy birthday cutie pie, Happy Birthday Sissy Wishes, Country Girl, Bad Bitch Quotes, Happy Birthday Wishes in Punjabi Style, Hot romantic love poetry,

Alfred Lord Tennyson Quotes to Strive to Seek

• “A man had given all other bliss, And all his worldly worth for this To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips.”

• “Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.”

• “It is inconceivable that the whole Universe was merely created for us who live in this third-rate planet of a third-rate moon.”

• “If you don’t concentrate on what you are doing then the thing that you are doing is not what you are thinking.”
• “I sometimes find it half a sin, To put to words the grief I feel, For words like nature, half reveal, and half conceal the soul within.”

• “The city is built To music, therefore never built at all, And therefore built forever.”
• “I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.”

• “Follow the deer? Follow the Christ the King. Live pure, speak true, right wrong, Follow the King– Else, wherefore born?”

• “Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is just to do or die.”

• “Love is the only gold.”
• “Shall love be blamed for want of faith?”
• “I am a part of all that I have met, Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move.”

• “And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.”

• “The mirror crack’d from side to side “The curse has come upon me,” cried The Lady of Shalott.”

Tennyson Quotes Skyfall

• “I hold it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.”
• “In words, like weeds, I’ll wrap me o’er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold.”
• “How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As tho’ to breathe were life!”
• “That which we are, we are.”
• “I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone.”
• “And ah for a man to arise in me, That the man I am may cease to be!”

• “Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change.”
• “The year is dying in the night.”
• “Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of Wherefore, let thy voice, Rise like a fountain for me night and day.”
• “Music that gentler on the spirit lies, Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.”
• “Never, oh!, nothing will die; The stream flows, The wind blows, The cloud fleets, The heart beats, Nothing will die.”
• “My strength is as the strength of ten Because my heart is pure.”
• “Virtue – to be good and just – Every heart, when sifted well, Is a clot of warmer dust, Mix’d with cunning sparks of hell. – The Vision of Sin”
• “For this alone on Death I wreak The wrath that garners in my heart: He put our lives so far apart We cannot hear each other speak.”
• “What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million of suns?”
• “I follow up the quest despite day and night and death and hell.”
• “Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be… And thou, O Lord, art more than they.”
• “And sometimes through the mirror blue, The knights come riding two and two.”

Early Life

Alfred lord tennyson was born on August 6, 1809, in Somersby, Lincolnshire. In the United Kingdom, he was a poet laureate during the reign of Queen Victoria. He was also one of the best-known poets in English literature. People who came before him were Wordsworth, Byron, and Keats. He kept and improved on the traditions of the Romantic Movement. His poetry was thought to be very good because it had a lot of different metres, rich descriptive imagery, and beautiful verbal melodies. It ranged from medieval legends to classical myths and from home situations to nature observations that he talked about in his work. When you read his poems, you can see that he was very good at writing short lyrics. His other important works are “Idylls of the King,” “Ulysses,” and “Tithonus.” Because many of his words are used today in English literature, It’s better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all. “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” “T” is better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all,” “Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lasts.” When you look at the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare, Tennyson is the second most popular author.

Childhood, Family and Schooling

When Alfred Tennyson was born on August 6, 1809, he was born in the English town of Somersby. He would be one of his parents’ 11 living children, since their first child died in infancy. It was a big family for Tennyson. He had two older brothers, four younger brothers, and four younger sisters. Tennyson’s father was a church rector who made a good amount of money. Because the family was so big, they had to keep an eye on their money. Tennyson only went to Louth Grammar School (where he was bullied) for a few years. It was his well-educated father who looked after the rest of his education before he went to college. Tennyson and his siblings were raised to love reading and writing. By the time he was 8, Tennyson had written his first poem.

Personal Life

He married Emily Sellwood on June 13, 1850, in the village of Shiplake, and they had a son. It wasn’t until Tennyson’s brother married Emily’s younger sister, Louisa, that the two got to know each other better. In August 1852, Hallam Tennyson was born. Lionel was born on March 16, 1854.

Writing Career

He had his first poem published in Poems by Two Brothers in 1827. (though actually, three Tennyson brothers contributed to the volume). It was the same year that Tennyson started going to Trinity College at Trinity College in Cambridge, where his two older brothers also went to school. There, Tennyson met Arthur Hallam and became close friends with him. They joined a group of students called the Apostles, which called itself the Apostles. He also kept writing poetry, and in 1829, he won the Chancellor’s Gold Medal for the poem “Timbuctoo,” which he wrote. In 1830, Tennyson published his first solo book: Poems, Most of them Lyrical.

His father died in 1831. His death made things more difficult for the family, and Tennyson didn’t finish his degree. In the beginning, Tennyson was told to find a job, as his father did. He was also told to join the church like his father did. The young man, on the other hand, was determined to work on poetry. Tennyson had a bad year in 1833, because his second collection of poetry was slammed a lot. He decided not to write another poem for the next ten years, so he didn’t write any more. The same year, Arthur Hallam died of a brain haemorrhage in Vienna. Tennyson was deeply hurt by the death of Arthur Hallam, which changed his poetry. It made him write great works like “In the Valley of Cauteretz” and “In Memory of A.H.H.”

Tennyson finally published more poetry in the two-volume Poems, which he did (1842). To strive, to search, to find, and not to give up are the words at the end of Ulysses. The Lady of Shalott, Locksley Hall, Morte d’Arthur, and Ulysses were also on the list. This work was well-received. Unfortunately, Tennyson lost most of his money in 1842 when he tried to start a wood-carving business that didn’t work out. He would get some of the money back in 1845, thanks to an insurance policy that a friend had taken out for him at the time. The poem “In Memoriam” talks about how Tennyson felt about losing Hallam, but it also talks about how many of his contemporaries were uncertain at the time.

During the reign of Queen Victoria, she was a huge fan of Tennyson’s work. She made him the Baron Tennyson of Aldworth in Sussex and Freshwater on the Isle of Wight in 1884. In the year 1865 and 1868, he was also offered a baronetcy, but he turned it down both times. Finally, in the year 1883, Gladstone begged him to accept the offer. On March 11, 1884, he sat down in the House of Lords. During the last years of his life, Tennyson wrote about his religious beliefs and how he broke with tradition. He also talked about how he was drawn to agnosticism and pandeism. Queen Mary was the first of Tennyson’s poetic dramas that he wrote in the year 1874. (1875). Some of his plays would work well on stage, but they didn’t have the same impact as his poems.

Death and Legacy

Tennyson had gout, and it came back in the late summer of 1892 and got worse. He died later that year, at the age of 83. He died at home in Aldworth, Surrey, on October 6. He was buried in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner. This is where he was buried. It used to be that he was the best poet of the Victorian age, but when that era came to an end, his fame started to fade. As time goes on, Tennyson will probably not be as well-known as he was when he lived. Today, though, he is once again seen as a talented poet who wrote about timeless human issues and gave his readers both solace and inspiration.