“The field is fought—who walketh there?—
The shadow victory casts—Despair!”

—  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The field is fought—who walketh there?— The shadow victory casts—Despair!" by Letitia Elizabeth Landon?
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon 785
English poet and novelist 1802–1838

Related quotes

Kim Peek photo

“Because no battle is ever won. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools. Be different!”

Kim Peek (1951–2009) American savant, model for the protagonist of the film "Rain Man"

Wisconsin Medical Society http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant/kimpeek.cfm

William Faulkner photo

“Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”

William Faulkner book The Sound and the Fury

Source: The Sound and the Fury

Joanne Harris photo

“A man who casts no shadow isn't really a man at all.”

Joanne Harris book The Lollipop Shoes

Source: The Lollipop Shoes

George S. Patton photo

“Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Cavalry Journal (September 1933)

Rick Riordan photo

“A person's shadow stood for his legacy, his impact on the world. Some people cast hardly any shadow at all. Some cast long, deep shadows that endured for centuries.”

Rick Riordan book The Serpent's Shadow

Source: The Serpent's Shadow

James A. Garfield photo

“Gentlemen, ideas outlive men; ideas outlive all earthly things. You who fought in the war for the Union fought for immortal ideas, and by their might you crowned the war with victory.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

[Great applause.] But victory was worth nothing except for the truths that were under it, in it, and above it. We meet tonight as comrades to stand guard around the sacred truths for which we fought. [Loud and prolonged cheers.] And while we have life to meet and grasp the hand of a comrade, we will stand by the great truths of the war. ["Good," "good," and loud cheers.] Many convictions have sunk so deep into our hearts that we can never forget them. Think of the elevating spirit of the war itself. We gathered the boys from all our farms and shops and stores and schools and homes, from all over the Republic. They went forth unknown to fame, but returned enrolled on the roster of immortal heroes. [Great applause.] They went in the spirit of the soldiers of Henry at Agincourt, of whom he said. 'For he today that sheds his blood with me. Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile. This day shall gentle his condition.'
1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)

Gene Wolfe photo

“Those who have never fought suppose that the deserter who flies the field is consumed by shame. He is not, or he would not desert; with only trifling exceptions, battles are fought by cowards afraid to run.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 16, "The Epitome" (p. 114)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti photo

“Poetry is the shadow cast by our imaginations.”

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919) American artist, writer and activist

These Are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems, 1955-1993 (New Directions) ISBN: 0-0112-1273-4 0-0112-1252-1

John Dewey photo

“As long as politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Quoted in John Dewey and American Democracy by Robert Westbrook (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 440; cited in Understanding Power http://www.understandingpower.com/Chapter9.htm#f16| (2002) by Noam Chomsky, ch. 9, footnote 16; originally from "The Need for a New Party" (1931) by John Dewey, Later Works 6, http://books.google.com/books?id=0xPFJ2uwpbIC&lpg=PA163&ots=dd3ciwpXoJ&dq=%22shadow%20cast%22%20dewey&pg=PA163#v=onepage&q&f=false| p. 163. (Via Westbrook.)
Misc. Quotes

Arthur Stanley Eddington photo

“If our so-called facts are changing shadows, they are shadows cast by the light of constant truth.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Science and the Unseen World (1929)
Context: If our so-called facts are changing shadows, they are shadows cast by the light of constant truth. So too in religion we are repelled by that confident theological doctrine... but we need not turn aside from the measure of light that comes into our experience showing us a Way through the unseen world.<!--IX, p.91

Related topics