# Tennyson's most famous lines

'To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield', 'Theirs not to reason why', ''Tis better to have loved and lost': the lines of Alfred, Lord Tennyson that everyone still quotes, checked against the texts on Wikisource.

- 2335 votes · 13 items
- May 18, 2022 · Sarah Wood
- https://even.best/en/l/4692/tennyson-s-most-famous-lines

## Top 13

1. **To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.** (246 · ▲262 ▼16) — 'Ulysses' (1842), last line.
2. **I am a part of all that I have met** (193 · ▲217 ▼24) — 'Ulysses' (1842).
3. **I will drink / Life to the lees** (174 · ▲198 ▼24) — 'Ulysses' (1842).
4. **'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.** (143 · ▲166 ▼23) — 'Ulysses' (1842).
5. **'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all.** (131 · ▲153 ▼22) — In Memoriam A. H. H. (1850), canto 27.
6. **Half a league, half a league, / Half a league onward** (120 · ▲149 ▼29) — 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' (1854), first lines.
7. **Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die** (108 · ▲141 ▼33) — 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' (1854).
8. **'I am half sick of shadows,' said / The Lady of Shalott.** (94 · ▲120 ▼26) — 'The Lady of Shalott' (1842).
9. **Into the valley of Death / Rode the six hundred.** (89 · ▲116 ▼27) — 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' (1854).
10. **Break, break, break, / On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!** (85 · ▲121 ▼36) — 'Break, Break, Break' (1842).
11. **In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.** (79 · ▲118 ▼39) — 'Locksley Hall' (1842).
12. **'The curse is come upon me,' cried / The Lady of Shalott.** (74 · ▲103 ▼29) — 'The Lady of Shalott' (1842).
13. **And may there be no moaning of the bar, / When I put out to sea** (69 · ▲106 ▼37) — 'Crossing the Bar' (1889).

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.