
“I could but esteem this moment of my departure as among the most happy of my life.”
George Gordon, Lord Byron, from The Works of Lord Byron, ed. Rowland E. Prothero (1901), vol. V: Letters and Journals, ch. XXIII: "Detached Thoughts" (15 October 1821 - 18 May 1822), paragraph 72 (p. 445)
Misattributed
“I could but esteem this moment of my departure as among the most happy of my life.”
Letter to Beatrice (29 September 1945), published in The Patton Papers (1996), edited by Martin Blumenson, Vol. 2 , p. 787
Letter to George Washington (May 1776)
“To know, to esteem, to love, and then to part,
Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart!”
On taking Leave of ———— (1817)
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Would you be esteemed? live with persons that are estimable.”
Source: An Essay on Friendship, 1732, p. 57