“Friendship craves / The commerce of the mind, not the exchange / Of emulous feasts that foster sycophants.”

— Alfred Austin, Savonarola, 1881

About Alfred Austin

1835 – 1913

English poet, Poet Laureate from 1896 to 1913.

“Knowledge is to the imagination what fuel is to flame.”

“Hospitality should be accidental, spontaneous, and impulsive, not pre-arranged and calculated.”

“Let your house / Be spacious more than splendid, and be books / And busts your most conspicuous furniture.”

“Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.”

“Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.”

“Thou canst not joke an Enemy into a Friend; but thou may'st a Friend into an Enemy.”

“Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a Providence to an humble and grateful mind.”

“Why, what is weeping and sighing? A judgement. What is misfortune? A judgement.”

“For God made all mankind to be happy, to be serene.”