Vita Sackville-West

I came from nowhere, and shall be With lions, tigers, leopards, and their kind.

— Vita Sackville-West

Leopards on the gable-ends, Leopards everywhere.

— Vita Sackville-West

Often on the painted stair, Nothing there to see.

— Vita Sackville-West

While many a lovely ship below sailed by That might befall their beauty and their pride…

— Vita Sackville-West

Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt.

— Vita Sackville-West

What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.

— Vita Sackville-West

Women, like men, ought to have their years so glutted with freedom that they hate the very idea of freedom.

— Vita Sackville-West

Of course I have no right whatsoever to write down the truth about my life involving as it naturally does the lives of so many other people, but I do so urged by a necessity of truth-telling, because there is no living soul who knows the complete truth; here, may be one who knows a section; and there, one who knows another section: but to the whole picture not one is initiated.

— Vita Sackville-West

A man and his tools make a man and his trade.

— Vita Sackville-West

A man and his land make a man and his creed.

— Vita Sackville-West

A man and his loves make a man and his life.

— Vita Sackville-West

The dusk is heavy with the wine's warm load; Here the sweet legends of the world remain.

— Vita Sackville-West

Who could so watch, and not forget the rack And know himself for Rome's inheritor?

— Vita Sackville-West

If I had only loved your flesh And little more to tell.

— Vita Sackville-West

It is quite true that you have had infinitely more influence on me intellectually than anyone, and for this alone I love you.

— Vita Sackville-West

She walks among the loveliness she made, Each flower her son, and every tree her daughter.

— Vita Sackville-West

I have come to the conclusion, after many years of sometimes sad experience, that you cannot come to any conclusion at all.

— Vita Sackville-West

And so it ends, Where once was passion's loveliness.

— Vita Sackville-West

You took me weak and unprepared. But to accept your crazy creed.

— Vita Sackville-West

Darling, I thought of nothing mean; To kill the body or destroy the soul?

— Vita Sackville-West

Days I enjoy are days when nothing happens, To get myself back to myself when they have gone.

— Vita Sackville-West

And what have I to give my friends in the last resort? And theirs presumably theirs, and cannot touch.

— Vita Sackville-West

Yes, they were kind exceedingly; most mild Submissive to a law he does not understand.

— Vita Sackville-West

Remembrance clamoured in him: 'She was wild and free, To gain or loss, and, loving, loved but me, — but me!

— Vita Sackville-West

All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn, Where she was wont to roam.

— Vita Sackville-West

All her lovers have passed, her beautiful lovers have passed, Is the voice of the lonely land.

— Vita Sackville-West

I sing the cycle of my country's year, Was born immediate, of expediency.

— Vita Sackville-West

The country habit has me by the heart, Stoops like the merlin to the constant lure.

— Vita Sackville-West

Forget not bees in winter, though they sleep.

— Vita Sackville-West

In February, if the days be clear, And blunder out to seek another spring.

— Vita Sackville-West

All craftsmen share a knowledge. They have heldReality down fluttering to a bench.

— Vita Sackville-West

I saw within the wheelwright’s shed The brace, the adze, the awl;

— Vita Sackville-West

The young men strained upon the crank And threw their loins across the winch.

— Vita Sackville-West

The greater cats with golden eyes Man loves a little, and for long shall die.

— Vita Sackville-West

Their strength's eternal in their sight, Man's love is transient as his death is long.

— Vita Sackville-West