top of page
.png){kind=small}
Quotes by English Authors
"I have deposited some of my journals here for fear of accidents."
"Like any parents, mine wanted me to have a secure job with a regular wage and career prospects. And the one job my father knew of, that he'd had experience of himself, was the army, so he could help me in that direction."
"Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice."
"The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators."
"If atheism is to be used to express the state of mind in which God is identified with the unknowable, and theology is pronounced to be a collection of meaningless words about unintelligible chimeras, then I have no doubt, and I think few people doubt."
"But every act in consequence of our faith, strengthens faith."
"By swap news do you mean drink?' 'I do, and that excessively."
"Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage."
"The scum of the People are most Tyrannical when they get the Power, and treat their Betters with the greatest Insolence."
"I am glad to learn that the Parliament Bill has been passed for the Darlington Railway."
"Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society."
"By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out."
"Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering Emperors with their world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence, and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods."
"...I hope that simple love and truth will be strong in the end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world."
"There is a budding morrow in midnight."
"'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."
"It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote."
"Real people are places to me as much as persons: I want to see them, as I want to see the places I am fond of, in all weathers and at all times of the year."
"In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates."
"One act presses upon another, on a path we have no choice but to follow, and each time there are reasons. We do what we must, we do what we are told, we do what is easiest. What else can we do but solve one sordid problem at a time? Then we look up and find... this."
"No," he said, "look, it's very, very simple ... all I want ... is a cup of tea. You are going to make one for me. Keep quiet and listen." And he sat. He told the Nutri-Matic about India, he told it about China, he told it about Ceylon. He told it about broad leaves drying in the sun. He told it about silver teapots. He told it about summer afternoons on the lawn. He told it about putting in the milk before the tea so it wouldn't get scalded. He even told it (briefly) about the history of the East India Company."So that's it, is it?" said the Nutri-Matic when he had finished. "Yes," said Arthur, "that is what I want.""You want the taste of dried leaves in boiled water?""Er, yes. With milk.""Squirted out of a cow?""Well, in a manner of speaking I suppose ..."
"The charms of women were never more powerful never inspired such achievements, as in those immortal periods, when they could neither read nor write."
"Whatever gets you through the night."
"They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea."
"LinesI die but when the grave shall pressThe heart so long endeared to theeWhen earthy cares no more distressAnd earthy joys are nought to me.Weep not, but think that I have pastBefore thee o'er the sea of gloom.Have anchored safe and rest at lastWhere tears and mouring can not come.'Tis I should weep to leave thee hereOn that dark ocean sailing drearWith storms around and fears beforeAnd no kind light to point the shore.But long or short though life may be'Tis nothing to eternity.We part below to meet on highWhere blissful ages never die."
"There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs."
"I could scream abuse at him all day long; he wouldn't mind at all. It's me he wants, my look, my outside; not my emotions or my mind or my soul or even my body. Not anything human."
"Well, for the reasons I mention above, although I am not sure the live shows were really so brilliant - but nobody could hear much so perhaps it did not matter! It was certainly a very exciting time for us all."
"Well I certainly have learned and I hope I'm moving on and certainly two years of prison was a terrible punishment."
"It goes without saying that when you're the manager of a Premiership club, you go eight miles down the road and get beaten by a team two divisions below you, it's disappointing."
"One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect."
"Fame, like the river, is narrowest where it is bred, and broadest afar off."
bottom of page