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Quotes by English Authors
"There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be."
"I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women."
"I've matured since joining United, on and off the field."
"The freedom to fail is vital if you're going to succeed. Most successful people fail from time to time, and it is a measure of their strength that failure merely propels them into some new attempt at success."
"All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions."
"When you take a lot of stick you want to ram it down people's throats."
"So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf, to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. 'What! no soap?' So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber."
"Infelicity is an ill to which all acts are heir which have the general character of ritual or ceremonial, all conventional acts."
"No Ghost of any common sense begins a conversation."
"Quite a lot of our contemporary culture is actually shot through with a resentment of limits and the passage of time, anger at what we can't do, fear or even disgust at growing old."
"You've made a beast of yourself,- to the beasts you may go."
"You may kill for yourselves, and your mates,and your cubs as they need, and you can;But kill not for pleasure of killing, andSEVEN TIMES NEVER KILL MAN."
"The first, or theoretic branch, that which explains the nature, production, and distribution of wealth, will be found to rest on a very few general propositions, which are the result of observation, or consciousness."
"To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance."
"There are some souls, bright and precious, which, like gold and silver, may be subdued by the fiery trial, and yield to new moulds; but there are others, pure and solid as the diamond, which may be shivered to pieces, yet in every fragment retain their indelible characteristics."
"I want to express myself in a different way. I have a performing inclination."
"Man is now a new animal, a new and different animal; he can jump a hundred miles, see through brick walls, bombard atoms, analyse the stars, set about his business with the strength of a million horses. And so forth and so on. Yes. Yes. But all the same he goes on behaving like the weak little needy ape he used to be. He grabs, snarls, quarrels, fears, stampedes, and plays in his immense powder magazine until he seems likely to blow up the whole damned show."
"Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind."
"I feel that my playing on the first album was probably some of my best."
"Suddenly, like a thing falling upon me from without, came fear."
"I'd like people to remember me for a diligent expert workman. I think a poet is a workman. I think Shakespeare was a workman. And God's a workman. I don't think there's anything better than a workman."
"The vast concourse of people who had assembled to witness the triumphant arrival of the successful travellers was of the lowest orders of mechanics and artisans, among whom great distress and a dangerous spirit of discontent with the government at that time prevailed."
"Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference, we should each be treated with appropriate respect."
"The toilets at a local police station have been stolen. Police say they have nothing to go on."
"Here at lastWe shall be free;the Almighty hath not builtHere for his envy, will not drive us hence:Here we may reign secure, and in my choiceTo reign is worth ambition though in Hell:Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."
"Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically."
"True contentment... is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare."
"Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes."
"Defeated misery is what all sport is about, eventually, if you follow the story for long enough; all sportsmen know this."
"Some dangers are so spectacular and so much beyond normal experience that the mind refuses to accept them as real, and watches the approach of doom without any sense of apprehension. The man who looks at the onrushing tidal wave, the descending avalanche, or the spinning funnel of the tornado, yet makes no attempt to flee, is not necessarily paralyzed with fright or resigned to an unavoidable fate. He may simply be unable to believe that the message of his eyes concerns him personally. It is all happening to somebody else."
"I do that in whatever language of the country I'm in, because the audience appreciate it."
"Laws are generally not understood by three sorts of persons, viz, by those who make them, by those who execute them, and by those who suffer if they break them."
"Every great movement in the history of Western civilization from the Carolingian age to the nineteenth century has been an international movement which owed its existence and its development to the cooperation of many different peoples."
"One thing about great art: it made you love people more, forgive them their petty transgressions. It worked in the way that religion was supposed to, if you thought about it."
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