Literary lines that please you

[ShaiGar]

What are a few of your favourite lines? Poetic or not.
These are mine:


Delving deeper deeper down
For to taste as such as thee again
I would sell the souls of clowns
Let them laugh in the sacred pen'
And I'll drink your drinks and cry
"I'm drinking on the demigods round"

Praise be to pan, to Bacchus
Praise be to the gods of pleasure
Let others live as a moral ass
Let them live with righteous measure
All that nonsense is simply crass
When compared to wine and leisure

When deciphering writing you only know the then,
that which lives like lightning, immortalised by pen.

And there the lion's ruddy eyes
Shall flow with tears of gold:
And pitying the tender cries,
And walking round the fold:
Saying: 'Wrath by His meekness,
And, by His health, sickness,
Is driven away
From our immortal day.
If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being immensely over-educated.
It is very painful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind.

and finally,
The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.
This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies.
An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician.
From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.


what words strike to your soul? or make you laugh

[ushop]

Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part,
Nay, I have done: you get no more of me,
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.

-- Michael Drayton

[Paul V]

"You cannot pass! I am a servant of the secret fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor! The dark fire will not avail you, Flame of Udûn! Go back to the Shadow! YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!" -Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings.

I'll post again once I've remembered more.

[Max T]

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

(S.T.Coleridge).

Full of imagery, if you catch my drift.

[OneBadMother]

A very typical one:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Another kind of typical one (at least it's not "The Road Less Traveled"):

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

I seem to have a preference for rhymes over free verse:

There was one a-riding grand
On a tall brown mare,
And a fine gold band
He brought me there.

A little, gold band
He held to me
That would shine on a hand
For the world to see.

There was one a-walking swift
To a little, new song,
And a rose was the gift
He carried along,

First of all the posies,
Dewy and red.
They that have roses
never need bread.

There was one with a swagger
And a soft slow tounge,
And a bright, cold dagger
Where his left hand swung -

Carven and gilt,
Old and bad -
And his stroking of the hilt
Set a girl mad.

There was one a-riding grand
As he rode from me.
And he raised his goldn band
And he threw it in the sea.

There was one a-walking slow
To a sad, long sigh.
And his rose drooped low,
And he flung it down to die.

There was one with a swagger
And a little, sharp pride,
And a bright cold dagger
Ever at his side.

At his side it stayed
When he ran to part.
What is this blade
Struck through my heart?

There are also various delicious bits of prose from "The Flounder", "The Tin Drum" "How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays" (especially the one that talks about Eco's homeland), "Midnight's Children", "The Great Gatsby", and "Ali and Nino" which, unfortunately, I cannot recall word for word. The last one is possibly the least romanticized love story I ever read, which is part of why I like it. The other part is its aforementioned delicious prose-morsels.

[The Many]

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.
This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies.
An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician.
From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.

Hah! Brilliant! I love Oscar Wilde and his use of language, there are probably 200 one-liners worth remembering in Dorian Grey alone... so obviously those lines are nice. I enjoy going all Henry Wotton on people.

Apart from that I have not particular lines I like to throw around, I usually make up new things on the spot all the time anyway.

[Heretic]

One of my favorites of all time, though not really beautiful aesthetically:

"You know, the finest line of poetry ever uttered in this whole damn country was said by Canada Bill Jones in 1853, in Baton Rouge, while he was being robbed blind in a crooked game of faro. George Devol, who was, like Canada Bill, not a man who was averse to fleecing the odd sucker, drew Bill aside and asked him if he couldn't see that the game was crooked. And Canada Bill sighed, and shrugged his shoulders, and said 'I know. But it's the only game in town.' And he went back to the game."

[ShaiGar]

Apart from that I have not particular lines I like to throw around, I usually make up new things on the spot all the time anyway.
Aye, The first two of mine are ones i made up as well.

Thought of another one.

The golden age was first; when Man yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted reason knew:
And, with a native bent, did good pursue.
Unforc'd by punishment, un-aw'd by fear,
His words were simple, and his soul sincere;
Needless was written law, where none opprest:
The law of Man was written in his breast:
No suppliant crowds before the judge appear'd,
No court erected yet, nor cause was heard:
But all was safe, for conscience was their guard.
-Ovid

[Nomad]

Favorite line ever:

Stand, and be true.


I had a friends Mom give me the Gunslinger series as a gift, because of that line. She said that was me, all over.

BTW heretic, what is that from ,I just read that, but I can't remember where...

-Nomad

[Heretic]

BTW heretic, what is that from ,I just read that, but I can't remember where...

The quote as I've presented it is from Neil Gaiman's American Gods, but the quote itself is from the real person named "Canada" Bill Jones (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.). The actual Jones quote is what I was referencing, but the context is nice to have.

[HarleyQuinn]

Walt Whitman - "Poets To Come"
I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back into the darkness

Walt Whitman - "Myself and Mine"
Let me have my own way
Let other promulge the laws, I will make no account of the laws,
Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace, I hold up agitation
and conflict,
I praise no eminent man, I rebuke to his face the one that was thought
most worthy.

Edgar Allan Poe - "A Dream Within A Dream"
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

[Arctic]

"My friend," said I, "what all this gibberish of yours is about, I don't know, and I don't much care; for it seems to me that you must be a little damaged in the head."

Herman Melville - "Moby Dick"