Richard Le Gallienne Quotes

Powerful Richard Le Gallienne for Daily Growth

About Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne (1866-1947) was an English poet, essayist, and critic, known for his unique blend of wit, humor, and emotion in his literary works. Born on May 23, 1866, in St. Helier, Jersey, he spent much of his early life traveling with his family throughout Europe due to his father's profession as a church organist. This nomadic upbringing provided Le Gallienne with rich experiences and exposed him to various cultures, influencing his later writings significantly. Le Gallienne's literary career began in earnest when he moved to London at the age of 20 to pursue a career as a writer. He published his first volume of poetry, "The Golden Hours," in 1890, which garnered considerable acclaim for its romantic and often melancholic verses. His subsequent works, such as "The Flower-Girl's Songs" (1896), "The Song of the Soul" (1899), and "The Song of the Universal Man" (1907), further established his reputation as a poet of great sensitivity and depth. In addition to his poetry, Le Gallienne was also a prolific essayist and critic. He wrote for numerous publications, including the "Saturday Review," the "Westminster Gazette," and the "Daily Chronicle." His essays covered a wide range of topics, from social issues to literature and art, always with his distinctive wit and insightful commentary. Le Gallienne's major works also included several novels, such as "The Magic City" (1903), a fantastical tale that explores themes of love and the supernatural, and "The Fair Helen" (1926), a historical novel set during the English Civil War. Richard Le Gallienne died on December 17, 1947, leaving behind a rich body of work that continues to be appreciated for its beauty, wit, and emotional depth. His quotes, such as "Life is too short for small pleasures," and "To love at all is to be vulnerable," continue to resonate with readers today.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

This quote by Richard Le Gallienne suggests that even in difficult circumstances or situations (the "gutter"), individuals have the capacity to rise above them and maintain a sense of hope or ambition (looking at the stars). It highlights the resilience of the human spirit, implying that despite our shared struggles, some choose to keep their focus on aspirations for something greater.


"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page."

This quote by Richard Le Gallienne emphasizes the importance of travel in broadening one's perspectives. Just as reading a book allows us to explore different worlds, travel lets us experience diverse cultures, histories, and ways of life. Travel helps us become more understanding and empathetic individuals, as we come into contact with new ideas and people. Essentially, travel allows us to read many pages of the world's book, enriching our lives and deepening our understanding of humanity.


"A book is a dream that you hold in your hand."

This quote suggests that reading a book is an immersive experience, where one can enter another world, idea, or perspective - encapsulated within the physical object of the book. It emphasizes the ability of literature to transport readers beyond their immediate reality, allowing them to explore and engage with dreams, ideas, and stories. In essence, it implies that reading is a powerful means of escaping the ordinary and venturing into extraordinary realms of imagination.


"Life is like music; it must be composed by one nobody hears, and understood by none."

This quote suggests that life's purpose or meaning is often created by individuals who may not receive recognition during their lifetime, yet their actions and creations have a profound impact on the world. In other words, it implies that one should live their life with intention, creating a unique symphony of experiences, even if the wider world may not fully appreciate or understand it at the time.


"We are not living in a world at all, but a series of small worlds, each contained within another."

This quote implies that our existence is composed of interconnected layers or smaller universes. Instead of viewing the world as a single, homogeneous entity, Le Gallienne suggests we should consider it as a collection of smaller communities, relationships, experiences, or perspectives. These smaller worlds are contained within each other, meaning that they influence and interact with one another in various ways. This perspective encourages us to appreciate the diversity, complexity, and interconnectedness of life, and invites us to explore and understand these smaller worlds to better comprehend our larger world.


If Romeo and Juliet make a tragedy of it nowadays, they have only to blame their own mismanagement, for the world is with them as it has never been before, and all sensible fathers and mothers know it.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Been, Romeo, Fathers, Juliet

It is curious how, from time immemorial, man seems to have associated the idea of evil with beauty, shrunk from it with a sort of ghostly fear, while, at the same time drawn to it by force of its hypnotic attraction.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Beauty, Curious, Hypnotic, Attraction

Nature is forever arriving and forever departing, forever approaching, forever vanishing; but in her vanishings there seems to be ever the waving of a hand, in all her partings a promise of meetings farther along the road.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Nature, Farther, Approaching, Departing

The spiritual element, the really important part of religion, has no concern with Time and Space, temporary mundane laws, or conduct.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Temporary, Laws, Part, Time And Space

All religions have periods in their history which are looked back to with retrospective fear and trembling as eras of persecution, and each religion has its own book of martyrs.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Which, Persecution, Looked, Retrospective

Modern science, then, so far from being an enemy of romance, is seen on every hand to be its sympathetic and resourceful friend, its swift and irresistible helper in its serious need, and an indulgent minister to its lighter fancies.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Enemy, Romance, Sympathetic, Indulgent

The beauty we love is very silent. It smiles softly to itself, but never speaks.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Love, Never, Very, Softly

We are all treading the vanishing road of a song in the air, the vanishing road of the spring flowers and the winter snows, the vanishing roads of the winds and the streams, the vanishing road of beloved faces.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Flowers, Song, Winter, Streams

In their work, then, as in their play, men and women are more and more coming to share with each other as comrades, and really the fun of life seems in no wise diminished as a consequence.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Play, Other, Consequence, Comrades

Youth, however, can afford to enjoy even its melancholy; for the ultimate fact of which that melancholy is a prophecy is a long way off.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Fact, However, Which, Melancholy

There is something mean in human nature that prefers to think evil, that gives a willing ear and a ready welcome to calumny, a sort of jealousy of goodness and greatness and things of good report.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Nature, Greatness, Think, Report

All roads indeed lead to Rome, but theirs also is a more mystical destination, some bourne of which no traveller knows the name, some city, they all seem to hint, even more eternal.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Rome, Some, Which, Traveller

Wild oats will get sown some time, and one of the arts of life is to sow them at the right time.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Will, Some, Oats, Right Time

We have, of course, long since ceased to think of Nature as the sympathetic mirror of our moods, or to imagine that she has any concern with the temporal affairs of man.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Mirror, Think, Imagine, Affairs

On the contrary, woman is the best equipped fighting machine that ever went to battle.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Woman, Battle, Ever, On The Contrary

A wholesome oblivion of one's neighbours is the beginning of wisdom.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Beginning, Wholesome, Oblivion

More and more the world is growing to love a lover, and one has only to read the newspapers to see how sympathetic are the times to any generous and adventurous display of the passions.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Love, Read, Sympathetic, Passions

We also maintain - again with perfect truth - that mystery is more than half of beauty, the element of strangeness that stirs the senses through the imagination.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Perfect, Through, Half, Strangeness

Be it whim or emergency, the modern laboratory is equally at the service of romance, equally ready to gratify mankind with a torpedo or a toy.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Mankind, Romance, Whim, Gratify

All myths that are something more than fancies gain rather than lose in value with time, by reason of the accretions of human experience.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Reason, More, Rather, Human Experience

A woman's beauty is one of her great missions.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Beauty, Woman, Her, Missions

Organized Christianity has probably done more to retard the ideals that were its founder's than any other agency in the world.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Other, Ideals, Agency, Organized

It is the fine excesses of life that make it worth living.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Worth Living, Living, Fine, Excess

Though actually the work of man's hands - or, more properly speaking, the work of his travelling feet, - roads have long since come to seem so much a part of Nature that we have grown to think of them as a feature of the landscape no less natural than rocks and trees.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Feet, Hands, Part, Feature

Perhaps we too seldom reflect how much the life of Nature is one with the life of man, how unimportant or indeed merely seeming, the difference between them.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Nature, Them, Indeed, Seeming

Races and nations are thus ever ready to believe the worst of one another.

- Richard Le Gallienne

Ready, Ever, Thus, Races

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