A. E. Housman Quotes

I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.

When the journey’s over, There’ll be time enough to sleep.

To justify God’s ways to man.

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

Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill.

Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.

Ten thousand times I’ve done my best and all’s to do again.

Give me a land of boughs in leaf A land of trees that stand; Where trees are fallen there is grief; I love no leafless land.

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 absolutely marvellous minor poet, I think, and a great scholar.

Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure.