English Novels

"A bull in a china shop is not a useful animal, nor is he ornamental, but there can be no doubt of his energy. The hare was full of energy, but he didn't win the race. The man who stands still is the man who keeps his ground."

"It may, indeed, be assumed that a man who loses his temper while he is speaking is endeavouring to speak the truth such as he believes it to be, and again it may be assumed that a man who speaks constantly without losing his temper is not always entitled to the same implicit faith."

"Men when they are true are simple. They are often false has hell, and then they are crafty as Lucifer. But the man who is true judges others by himself, — almost without reflection. A woman can be true as steel and cunning at the same time."

"When you have done the rashest thing in the world it is very pleasant to be told that no man of spirit could have acted otherwise."

"In former days, when there were Whigs instead of Liberals, it was almost a rule of political life that all leading Whigs sould be uncles, brothers-in-law, or cousins to each other. This was pleasant and gave great consistency to the party; but the system has now gone out of vogue."

"“Why should he do it at all?” asked Phineas. “That’s what everybody asks, but the answer seems to be so plain! Because he can do it, and we can’t.”"

"“They have been saying ever so long that the old Duke of Omnium means to marry her on his deathbed, but I don’t suppose there can be anything in it.” “Why should he put it off for so very inopportune an occasion?” asked Phineas."

"Why is it that when men and women congregate, though the men may beat the women in numbers by ten to one, and through they certainly speak the louder, the concrete sound that meets the ears of any outside listener is always a sound of women’s voices?"

"“I haven’t the slightest direction of anything.” “Nor have I; but as we clearly can’t get out this way we might as well try the other.”"

"He has the power of making the world believe him simply because he has been rich and a duke."

"Ride at any fence hard enough, and the chances are you’ll get over. The harder you ride the heavier the fall, if you get a fall; but the greater the chance of your getting over."

"But the school in which good training is most practiced will, as a rule, turn out the best scholars."

"He had married, let us say for love; — probably very much by chance."

"Late hours, nocturnal cigars, and midnight drinkings, pleasurable through they may be, consume too quickly the free-flowing lamps of youth, and are fatal at once to the husbanded candle-ends of age."

"They were always together, but I dare say it was Platonic. I believe these kind of things generally are Platonic."

"With her broad face, and her double chin, and her heavy jowl, and the beard that was growing around he lips, she did not look like a romantic woman; but, in spite of appearances, romance and a duck-like waddle may go together."

"And, after a fashion, she herself believed what she was saying. Nevertheless, her nature was much nobler than his; and she know that no man should dare to live idly as the Duke had lived."

"Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes."

"But Mr. Slide did not know that he was lying, and did not know that he was malicious. The weapon which he used was one to which his hand was accustomed, and he had been lead by practice to believe that the use of such weapons by one in his position was not only fair, but also beneficial to the public."

"Then Lady Chiltern argued the matter on views directly opposite to those which she had put forward when discussing the matter with her husband."

"Audacity in wooing is a great virtue, but a man must measure even his virtues."

"The grace and beauty of life will be clean gone when we all become useful men."

"“Do you mean to say that the morals of your party will be offended?” said Madame Goesler, almost laughing."

"Upon the present occasion London was full of clergymen. The specially clerical clubs, — the Oxford and Cambridge, the Old University, and the Athenaeum, — were black with them."

"But as the clerical pretensions are more exacting than all others, being put forward with an assertion that no answer is possible without breach of duty and sin, so are they more galling."

"We do believe, — the majority among us does so, — that if we live and die in sin we shall after some fashion come to great punishment, and we believe also that by having pastors among us who shall be men of God, we may best aid ourselves and our children in avoiding this bitter end. But then the pastors and men of God can only be human, — cannot be altogether men of God; and so they have oppressed us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces, and fine linen, and purple, and alas, sometimes, mere luxury and idleness. The torturing and the burning, as also to speak truth the luxury and the idleness, have, among us, been already conquered, but the idea of ascendancy remains."

"A man destined to sit conspicuously on our Treasury Bench, or on the seat opposite to it, should ask the gods for a thick skin as a first gift. The need of this in our national assembly is greater than elsewhere, because the differences between men opposed to each other are smaller."

"When two foes meet together in the same Chamber, one of whom advocates the personal government of an individual ruler, and the other that from of State, which has come to be called a Red Republic, they deal, no doubt, weighty blows of oratory at each other, but blows which never hurt at the moment. They may cut each other’s throats if they can find an opportunity; but they do not bite each other like dogs over a bone. But when opponents are almost in accord, as is always the case with our parliamentary gladiators, they are ever striving to give maddening little wounds through the joints of the harness."

"“See what we Conservatives can do. In fact we will conserve nothing when we find that you do not desire to have it conserved any longer. ‘Quod minime reris Graiâ pandetur ab urbe.’”"

"There would be a blaze and a confusion, in which timid men would doubt whether the constitution would be burned to tinder or only illuminated; but that blaze and that confusion would be dear to Mr. Daubney if he could stand as the centre figure, — the great pyrotechnist who did it all, red from head to foot with the glare of the squibs with which his own hands were filling all the spaces."

"Some few sublime and hot-headed gentleman muttered the word “impeachment.” Others, who were more practical and less dignified, suggested that the Prime Minister “ought to have his head punched.”"

"But mad people never die. That’s a well-known fact. They’ve nothing to trouble them, and they live for ever."

"He had a prophecy to make, and prophets have ever been energetic men."

"Now a conjuror is I think a very pleasant fellow to have among us, if we know that he is a conjuror; — but a conjuror who is believed to do his tricks without sleight of hand is a dangerous man."

"Strange the unconscious comfort which it is to exaggerate our self-importance, and that crime and sorrow are redeemed from the commonplace by stamping them with the character of fate !"

"In the ordinary course of daily life, it is wonderful how little we think of the morrow. That sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, is a truth unconsciously, but universally acknowledged. Instinct clings to the immediate ; but when we do think of the future, uninfluenced by any present hope — by any strong tide of anticipation carrying us along its darkening depths — how terrible does that future ever appear ! — what may it not have in store for us! Sickness, sorrow, poverty, age, and even crime — all that we should now indignantly disclaim, but that to which we may yield under some strong and subtle temptation. The guiltiest have had their guileless and innocent hour. Who knows what may await them of degradation and despair ? Death, too ! — that awful spectre, which stalks over the morrow as his own domain, opens before us his many graves — our own the last ! — no rest till we are worn with weeping for the loved and lost ! At such times, how we marvel at our usual recklessness, and pause, as it were, shrinking from the busy and inevitable current which is hurrying us on to eternity !"

"Never tell me of the sterner beauties of winter. Winter may have a mighty beauty of its own, where the mountain rises, white with the snow of a thousand years, hemmed in by black pine forests, eternal in their gloom ; where the overhanging avalanche makes terrible even the slightest sound of the human voice ; and where waters that never flowed spread the glittering valleys with the frost-work of the measureless past. But the characteristic of English scenery is loveliness. We look for the verdant green of her fields, for the colours of her wild and garden flowers, for daisies universal as hope, and for the cheerful hedges, so various in leaf and bud. Winter comes to us with gray mists and drizzling rains : now and then, for a day, the frost creates its own fragile and fairy world of gossamer ; but not often. We see the desolate trees, bleak and bare ; the dreary meadows, the withered gardens, and close door and window, to exclude the fog and the east wind."

"There is something in a deep conviction that forces, for the time, its own belief on others."

"In all things there is one period more lovely than aught that has gone before — than aught that can ever come again. That delicate green of the young leaves, when the boughs are putting forth the promise of a shadowy summer — the tender crimson of the opening bud, whose fragrant depths are unconscious of the sun, — these are the fittest emblems for that transitory epoch in the history of a girl's heart, when her love, felt for the first time, is as simple, as guileless, as unworldly as herself. It is the purest, the most ideal poetry in nature. It does not, and it cannot last. It is only too likely that the innocent and trusting heart will be ground down to the very dust. Falsehood, disappointment, and neglect, form the majority of chances ; and even if fortunate— fortunate in requited faithfulness and a sheltered home — still the visionary hour of youth is gone by. There are duties instead of dreams, romance exhausts itself — and the imaginative is merged in the commonplace. The pale green returns not to the leaf, the delicate red to the flower, and, still less, its early poetry to the heart."

"… they felt as if the evil influence were indeed upon them, and shrunk before that nameless dread of the future, which for the moment subdues the energies, and in whose presence reason trembles. Surely all the more imaginative know this sensation; it is not omen — sound, light, even a cheerful word, have power to destroy its dark dominion ; and, unlike most other human emotions, it has no consequence. But who has not shuddered before the indefinite and unknown ?"

"But while the common run of ordinary circumstances were going their little round of influence, — small pebbles flung in the great stream of time, whose motion extends not beyond their own narrow eddy, — one of those mighty events was on the wheel of fate which shake the nations with the sound thereof. The generality of individuals perish and are forgotten before the wild flowers have sprung up in the grass sods that cover them. Their home is desolate for a time, and, perchance, missing their care may force their children to grieve for their loss ; perhaps, too, some faithful heart may feel that its life of life has gone from it for ever. But, take the majority of deaths — how little are they felt — how little do they matter ! Strange mystery of human existence, that its most awful occurrence is often its least important ! Death is ever around us, and yet we think not of it; its terrible presence is made manifest, and then forgotten. The most passing interests of life occupy more of our thoughts than its end."

"A woman never can wholly shake off the influence of him whom she first loved. The love itself may be past, — gone like a sweet vain dream which it is useless to remember, or dismissed as an unworthy delusion ; still its memory remains. A thousand slight things recall some of its many emotions — it has become a standard of comparison ; and the "once we felt otherwise," occurs oftener than many would allow, but all must confess."

"But now, the first fog of the morning had cleared away, and the round red sun looked cheerfully as it shed its crimson hues amid the topmost branches. The light snow lay on the narrow and winding path before them, pure as if just fresh winnowed by the wind. The outline of every tree was marked with the utmost distinctness by the frost which covered it; but every spray drooped beneath the weight of the fairy and fragile tracery that gemmed them ; while the gossamer threads, like strung and worked pearls, seemed to catch every stray sunbeam, and glitter with the bright and passing hues of crystal. Every tree was as distinguishable as in summer."

"With shame — for resentment was a justice she owed to herself. There are some offences which it is an unworthy weakness to forget."

"The appearance of your lover — known to be such — among your intimate friends, is embarrassing enough to any girl, who anticipates their remarks and foresees their railleries."

"... — for nothing is more mournful than man's work and man's skill going to ruin for want of man's care — ..."

"A sweet smile and a soft word have usually their desired effect ; …"

"… there is a readiness of attachment in youth — the fresh and unused heart is so alive to the kindlier impressions. Pass but a few, a very few years, and we shall marvel how we ever could have found love enough for the many objects which were once so dear! … … Ah! that exaggeration of liking — that readiness to like — that taking for granted all imaginable good qualities — to what a joyous time, to what a buoyant and happy state of feeling, does it belong !"

"One after another the parti-coloured fragments of each fragile fabric were strewed over the table, till gradually his hand became accustomed and steady — wall and roofs were properly balanced, and the mimic Babels mounted high in air, — fittest symbols of all the graver plans and trials that agitate human existence. Scarcely is one scheme overthrown ere another is raised out of its ruins, but destined, like its predecessor, to destruction ; and yet, it would seem, the more we know the chances against our efforts — how a breath may demolish, nay, what our own weariness will soon destroy, — the more earnestly do we pursue them to the end."

"The host himself was one of those very quiet men whom we usually see linked to the most active helpmates. Whether Nature, in the first instance, pointed out the necessity of a supply from another of that quality in which each was most deficient, and thus the match originated — or whether the state of quietude comes on after marriage, exertion on both sides being discovered to be a superfluity, — is really too profound an investigation ; but the fact is certain, that the keen-tongued, quick-witted, bustling wife is always united to the slow, silent, and quiet husband."