Walter Savage Landor Wise Quotations

The wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of Power, whose lamps make every face the same colour.

The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.

It is as wise to moderate our belief as our desires.

We cannot at once catch the applauses of the vulgar and expect the approbation of the wise.

We listen to those whom we know to be of the same opinion as ourselves, and we call them wise for being of it; but we avoid such as differ from us.

Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.

I never did a single wise thing in the whole course of my existence, although I have written many which have been thought so.

A wise man will always be a Christian, because the perfection of wisdom is to know where lies tranquillity of mind and how to attain it, which Christianity teaches.

Wise or unwise, who doubts for a moment that contentment is the cause of happiness? Yet the inverse is true: we are contented because we are happy, and not happy because we are contented. Well-regulated minds may be satisfied with a small portion of happiness; none can be happy with a small portion of content.