Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Man

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was British poet laureate. Explore interesting quotes on man.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson: 426 quotes34 likes

“Robin: No man who truly loves and truly rules
His following but can keep his followers true.
I am one with mine. Traitors are rarely bred
Save under traitor kings.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Foresters

Act II, Scene i
The Foresters, Robin Hood and Maid Marion (1892)

“Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

" Tithonus http://home.att.net/%7ETennysonPoetry/tith.htm", st. 1 (1860) Context: The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world, A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream The ever-silent spaces of the East, Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.

“Little flower — but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"Flower in the Crannied Wall" (1869)
Context: Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower — but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

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

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Quoted in A Dictionary of Quotations, in Most Frequent Use by D.E. Macdonnel (1809) translated from French: Le bonheur de l'homme en cette vi ne consiste pas á être sans passions: il consiste à en être le maître.
Misattributed

“One still strong man in a blatant land.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Part I, section x, stanza 5
Maud; A Monodrama (1855)

“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.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere

“She with all the charm of woman,
She with all the breadth of man.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Source: Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Line 48

“Nor is he the wisest man who never proved himself a fool.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Stanza 124
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886)

“Remember that sore saying spoken once
By Him that was the Truth, 'How hard it is
For the rich man to enter into heaven!'
Let all rich men remember that hard word.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Act iv, scene 3
Queen Mary: A Drama (published 1876)

“And ah for a man to arise in me,
That the man I am may cease to be!”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Part I, section x, stanza 6
Maud; A Monodrama (1855)

“Then some one spake: "Behold! it was a crime
Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time."
Another said: "The crime of sense became
The crime of malice, and is equal blame."
And one: "He had not wholly quench'd his power;
A little grain of conscience made him sour."
At last I heard a voice upon the slope
Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope?"
To which an answer peal'd from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand;
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"The Vision of Sin", sec. 5 (1842)

“First pledge our Queen this solemn night,
Then drink to England, every guest;
That man's the best Cosmopolite
Who loves his native country best.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

" Hands All Round http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/T/TennysonAlfred/verse/tiresias/handsallround.html", l. 1-4 (1885)

“But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro' all the circle of the golden year?”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

" The Golden Year http://home.att.net/%7ETennysonPoetry/tgy.htm", st. 3 (1842)

“Half light, half shade,
She stood, a sight to make an old man young.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

" The Gardener's Daughter http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/T/TennysonAlfred/verse/englishidyls/gardenersdaughter.html", l. 139-140 (1842)

“A princelier-looking man never stept thro' a prince's hall.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Wreck, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“"If I'm a beggar born," she said
"I will speak out, for I dare not lie,
Pull off, pull off the brooch of gold,
And fling the diamond necklace by.""Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse,
"But keep the secret all you can."
She said, "Not so; but I will know
If there be any faith in man".”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clare

Lady Clare (1842)