101+ Best Alfred, Lord Tennyson Quotes From The Famous Poet

"'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" is a famous quote from the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Born into a small English family as the fourth child out of twelve in Lincolnshire, England, Alfred Lord Tennyson was an idolized poet of the Victorian period. His childhood was a difficult one, involving family and school troubles, but he found solace in writing poems from a young age.

His first published set of poems,'Two Brothers', included poems written by Alfred and his two elder brothers. He was later enrolled at Trinity College in Cambridge to join his elder brothers, this is where he met Arthur Henry Hallam, who became his best friend.

Alfred's father died in the year 1831 leaving behind huge debts to his family. This, along with some poor reception of his work from critics and the sudden death of his friend, Hallam, in the year 1833, took a toll on Alfred's mental health. It is said that Alfred's troubled life and the nature around his home is what inspired his most distinctive poems. He believed that "words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within", but he was not a romantic poet. His poems are considered as some of the most influential still today, they have awed both readers and poets alike. Of all the famous quotes from poets, Lord Alfred Tennyson quotes stand out.

We hope you enjoy these beautiful quotes by Alfred Lord Tennyson. For more, be sure to check out our Alexander Pope quotes and 'The Alchemist' quotes.

Here are some of the most famous Tennyson quotes to get you introduced to his work.

1. "Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, 'It will be happier'."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

2. "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

3. "Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

4. "A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

5. "Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

6. "Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

7. "And out of darkness came the hands that reach thro' nature, moulding men."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

8. "There's no glory like those who save their country."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

9. "Better not be at all than not be noble."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

10. "Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hours will last."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

11. "Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

12. "Come friends, it's not too late to seek a newer world."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

13. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

14. "The shell must break before the bird can fly."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

15. "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

16. "So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

17. "The same words conceal and declare the thoughts of men."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

18. "For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see, saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

19. "If you don't concentrate on what you are doing then the thing that you are doing is not what you are thinking."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

20. "The mirror crack'd from side to side 'The curse has come upon me', cried The Lady of Shalott"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'The Lady Of Shalott'.

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Bring back the romantic in you with these quotes from Lord Alfred Tennyson poems about love, including undoubtedly his most famous quote, "'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." These Alfred Lord Tennyson quotes would even make great quotes for weddings.

21. "If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

22. "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

23. "Love is the only gold."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

24. "For love reflects the thing beloved."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

25. "Sweet is true love that is given in vain, and sweet is death that takes away pain."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

26. "Oh that it were possible, After long grief and pain, To find the arms of my true love, around me once again"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

27. "Who is wise in love, love most, say least."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

28. "Love lieth deep; love dwells not in lip-depths; love laps his wings on either side the heart."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

29. "As love, if love be perfect, casts out fear, so hate, if hate be perfect, casts out fear."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

30. "He that shuts love out, in turn shall be shut out from love, and on her threshold lie, howling in outer darkness."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

31. "I loved you, and my love had no return, and therefore my true love has been my death."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

32. "Life is brief but love is long."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

33. "Of love that never found his earthly close, What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts; or all the same as if he had not been?"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

34. "Shall love be blamed for want of faith?"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

35. "Sweet is true love, though given in vain."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

36. "Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was love."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

37. "Love is hurt with jar and fret love is made a vague regret."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

38. "The folly of all follies is to be love sick for a shadow."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

39. "Love's too precious to be lost, a little grain shall not be spilt."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

40. "Love will conquer at the last."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Catch a glimpse of King Arthur with these 'Idylls Of The King' quotes.

41. "I fain would follow love, if that could be; I needs must follow death, who calls for me."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Idylls Of The King'.

42. "...and Gareth bowed himself with all obedience to the King, and wrought all kind of service with a noble ease that graced the lowliest act in doing it."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Idylls Of The King'.

43. "I know not if I know what true love is, but if I know, then, if I love not him, I know there is none other I can love."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Idylls Of The King'.

44. "after all had eaten, then Geraint, for now the wine made summer in his veins, let his eye rove in following, or rest on Enid at her lowly handmaid-work."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Idylls Of The King'.

45. "But there was heard among the holy hymns a voice as of the waters, for she dwells down in a deep‐ calm, whatsoever storms may shake the world."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Idylls Of The King'.

46. "Fairy changeling lay the mage."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Idylls Of The King'.

47. "Ah my God, what might I not have made of thy fair world, had I but loved thy highest creature here? It was my duty to have loved the highest: It surely was my profit had I known."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Idylls Of The King'.

48. "In her right hand the lily, in her left the letter--all her bright hair streaming down-- and all the coverlid was cloth of gold."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Idylls Of The King'.

49. "Arthur spake, 'Behold, for these have sworn to wage my wars, and worship me their King."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Idylls Of The King'.

50. "And so there grew great tracts of wilderness, wherein the beast was ever more and more, but man was less and less, till Arthur came."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Idylls Of The King'.

Alfred Lord Tennyson uses words to express the deepest meanings of life, as he himself describes when he says that "words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within".

51.  "I am a part of all that I have met."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

52. "Men at most differ as Heaven and Earth, but women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

53. "He makes no friends who never made a foe."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

54. "God's finger touched him, and he slept."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

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

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

56. "By blood a king, in heart a clown."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

57. "Half the night I waste in sighs, half in dreams I sorrow after the delight of early skies."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

58. "Once in a golden hour I cast to earth a seed. Up there came a flower, the people said, a weed."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

59. "Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, tears from the depths of some divine despair rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, in looking on the happy autumn fields, and thinking of the days that are no more."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

60. "I will drink life to the lees."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

61. "In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

62. "Gone - flitted away, taken the stars from the night and the sun from the day!"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

63. "Ring out the old, ring in the new, ring, happy bells, across the snow: the year is going, let him go; ring out the false, ring in the true."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

64. "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

65. "Manners are not idle, but the fruit of loyal and of noble mind."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

66. "Old age hath yet his honour and his toil."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

67. "Authority forgets a dying king."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

68. "Jewels five-words-long, that on the stretch'd forefinger of all time sparkle forever."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

69. "Battering the gates of heaven with the storms of prayer."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

70. "Thoroughly to believe in one's own self, so one's self were thorough, were to do great things."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Here are some beautiful quotes from some prominent Alfred Tennyson poems.

71. "On either side the river lie long fields of barley and of rye, that clothe the wold and meet the sky; and thro’ the field the road runs by to many-tower’d Camelot; and up and down the people go, gazing where the lilies blow round an island there below, the island of Shalott."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Lady Of Shalott'.

72. "A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, he rode between the barley-sheaves. The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves, and flamed upon the brazen greaves of bold Sir Lancelot."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Lady Of Shalott'.

73. "And in the lighted palace near died the sound of royal cheer; and they cross'd themselves for fear, all the nights at Camelot: but Lancelot mused a little space; he said, 'she has a lovely face; God in his mercy send her grace, The Lady of Shalott'."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Lady Of Shalott'.

74. "As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life were all too little, and of one to me little remains: but every hour is saved from that eternal silence."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Ulysses'.

75. "Push off, and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars, until I die."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Ulysses'.

76. "and tho’ we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Ulysses'.

77. "Can calm despair and wild unrest, be tenants of a single breast?"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'In Memoriam'.

78. "Oh, yet we trust that somehow good, will be the final goal of ill."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'In Memoriam'.

79. "And all at once it seem’d at last, the living soul was flashed on mine."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'In Memoriam'.

80. "I watch thee from the quiet shore; thy spirit up to mine can reach; but in dear words of human speech, we two communicate no more."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'In Memoriam'.

81. "Yet less of sorrow lives in me for days of happy commune dead; less yearning for the friendship fled, than some strong bond which is to be."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'In Memoriam'.

82. "And gazing on thee, sullen tree, sick for thy stubborn hardihood."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'In Memoriam'.

83. "I hold it truth, with him who sings to one clear harp in divers tones, that men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'In Memoriam'.

84. "My lighter moods are like to these, that out of words a comfort win; but there are other griefs within, and tears that at their fountain freeze;"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'In Memoriam'.

85. "Are God and Nature then at strife, that Nature lends such evil dreams?"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'In Memoriam'.

86. "That loss is common would not make my own less bitter, rather more: too common!"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'In Memoriam'.

87. "Dear as remembered kisses after death, and sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned on lips that are for others; deep as love, deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more!"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Tears, Idle Tears'.

88. "When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wonder’d. Honor the charge they made!"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'The Charge Of The Light Brigade'.

89. "But such a tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam, when that which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Crossing The Bar'.

90. "Let me go: take back thy gift: why should a man desire in any way to vary from the kindly race of men, or pass beyond the goal of ordinance where all should pause, as is most meet for all?"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 'Tithonus'.

Here are some interesting quotes by Alfred Lord Tennyson that will get you thinking.

91. "We cannot be kind to each other here for even an hour. We whisper, and hint, and chuckle and grin at our brother’s shame; however you take it we men are little breed."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

92. "A smile abroad is often a scowl at home."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

93. "I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

94. "So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

95. "Sin is too stupid to see beyond itself."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

96. "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

97. "What rights are those that dare not resist for them?"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

98. "The God themselves cannot recall their gifts."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

99. "In the long years liker they must grow; the man be more of woman, she of man."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

100. "A day may sink or save a realm."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

101. "Gone, and a cloud in my heart."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Alfred, Lord Tennyson Quotes then why not take a look at Alice Walker quotes, or Toni Morrison quotes too?