And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made..

I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word..

That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again..

All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use..

Mithridates, he died old. Housman's passage is based on the belief of the ancients that Mithridates the Great [c. 135-63 B.C.] had so saturated his b….

The thoughts of others Were light and fleeting, Of lovers' meeting Or luck or fame. Mine were of trouble, And mine were steady; So I was ready When t….

Housman is one of my heroes and always has been. He was a detestable and miserable man. Arrogant, unspeakably lonely, cruel, and so on, but and absol….

Some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man..

I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation ….

Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think..

They say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man's..

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough..

Wanderers eastward, wanderers west, Know you why you cannot rest? 'Tis that every mother's son Travails with a skeleton. Lie down in the bed of dust;….

The laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Not I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me..

Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow ….

Here dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; but young men ….

And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man..

Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack And leave your friends and go..

'Tis spring; come out to ramble The hilly brakes around, For under thorn and bramble About the hollow ground The primroses are found. And there'….

Because I liked you better Than suits a man to say, It irked you, and I promised I'd throw the thought away. To put the world between us We parted st….

Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleas….