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Quotes by English Authors
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel."
"Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds."
"The intensest feeling of the beauty of a cloud lighted by the setting sun, is no hindrance to my knowing that the cloud is a vapour of water, subject to all the laws of vapours in a state of suspension; and I am just as likely to allow for, and act on, these physical laws whenever there is occasion to do so, as if I had been incapable of perceiving any distinction between beauty and ugliness."
"Passion is a sort of fever in the mind, which ever leaves us weaker than it found us."
"You are faced with the choice: either my integrity remains intact and this is the work that ends up on the screen, or I have to leave, and I have to be known to have left."
"There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say."
"It's the same misconception I used to have. I meet people and think they're millionaires and they're not."
"I was really glad to meet Jane Clark because it did give me an insight. I couldn't imagine what kind of woman she was. I was hugely impressed by her energy, straightforward nature and enthusiasm for life."
"Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. and yet... and yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some... some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged."
"Who hears music feels his solitude peopled at once."
"I've got over so much. Mum wouldn't want anything to come into my life that would make me fragile again."
"All stories should have some honesty and truth in them, otherwise you're just playing about."
"Many have been the wise speeches of fools though not so many as the foolish speeches of wise men."
"First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And, ever since, it grew more clean and white."
"We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse."
"There seem to me to be very few facts, at least ascertainable facts, in politics."
"The poet's perfect expression is the token of a perfect experience; what he says in the best possible way he has felt in the best possible way, that is, completely."
"You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean."
"There is no way you're going to have an event like 9/11 and expect things to remain the same. They killed 3,000 people in New York on that day, and if they could have they would've killed 300,000."
"The mind can be but full. It will be as much filled with a small disagreeable occurrence, having no other, as with a large one."
"No one can do me any good by loving me I have more love than I need or could do any good with but people do me good by making me love them - which isn't easy."
"Books are a real solace, friendships are good but action is better than all."
"We shall never have friends if we expect to find them without fault."
"History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology."
"Of my infancy I can speak little, only I do remember that in the fourth year of my age I had the measles."
"For the last half of my life I have had the doubtful benefit of a brother whose literary reputation is much greater than my own."
"I would uphold the law if for no other reason but to protect myself."
"No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power."
"He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an enemy."
"I got to go to Malaysia, Germany, Switzerland, Madrid, America."
"You're not allowed to say anything about books because they're books, and books are, you know, God."
"I'll get up in the morning while they've all got hangovers and run my 5 miles. But the women who do run are usually 10 years younger than me and they're really obsessed about running. That's all they do. They're really boring."
"I was a little bit wary of playing Nicholas. In the script, which I think is true of the novel and the film, he's the only character not singing and dancing in a musical style. Playing someone who is the personification of good is a little difficult."
"Never in the history of fashion has so little material been raised so high to reveal so much that needs to be covered so badly."
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