Novelists From England

"I was present, myself, at the execution of Courvoisier. I was, purposely, on the spot, from midnight of the night before; and was a near witness of the whole process of the building of the scaffold, the gathering of the crowd, the gradual swelling of the concourse with the coming-on of day, the hanging of the man, the cutting of the body down, and the removal of it into the prison. From the moment of my arrival, when there were but a few score boys in the street, and those all young thieves, and all clustered together behind the barrier nearest to the drop – down to the time when I saw the body with its dangling head, being carried on a wooden bier into the gaol – I did not see one token in all the immense crowd; at the windows, in the streets, on the house-tops, anywhere; of any one emotion suitable to the occasion. No sorrow, no salutary terror, no abhorrence, no seriousness; nothing but ribaldry, debauchery, levity, drunkenness, and flaunting vice in fifty other shapes. I should have deemed it impossible that I could have ever felt any large assemblage of my fellow-creatures to be so odious."

"I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here."

"La difficulté d'écrire l'anglais m'est extrêmement ennuyeuse. Ah, mon Dieu! si l'on pouvait toujours écrire cette belle langue de France!"

"To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart."

"The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land, In England there shall be dear bread—in Ireland, sword and brand; And poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand, So, rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand, Of the fine old English Tory days; Hail to the coming time!"

"If the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be. ...Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In the course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, and died; Walkinghame, of the Tutor's Assistant, and well versed in figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book-keepers and actuaries, were born, and died. Still official routine inclined to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of elm wood called "tallies." In the reign of George III an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whether pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence, this obstinate adherence to an obsolete custom ought to be continued, and whether a change ought not to be effected. All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of this bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to any intelligent person that nothing could be easier than to allow them to be carried away for fire-wood by the miserable people who live in that neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, and official routine required that they never should be, and so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in the second million of the cost thereof, the national pig is not nearly over the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn't got home to-night. ...The great, broad, and true cause that our public progress is far behind our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established as the sun, moon, and stars."

"Wherever religion is resorted to as a strong drink, and as an escape from the dull, monotonous round of home, those of its ministers who pepper the highest will be the surest to please. They who strew the Eternal Path with the greatest amount of brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread down the flowers and leaves that grow by the wayside, will be voted the most righteous; and they who enlarge with the greatest pertinacity on the difficulty of getting into heaven will be considered, by all true believers, certain of going there: though it would be hard to say by what process of reasoning this conclusion is arrived at."

"Mr. Augustus Minns was a bachelor, of about forty as he said — of about eight-and-forty as his friends said. He was always exceedingly clean, precise, and tidy: perhaps somewhat priggish, and the most retiring man in the world."

"There were two classes of created objects which he held in the deepest and most unmingled horror: they were, dogs and children. He was not unamiable, but he could at any time have viewed the execution of a dog, or the assassination of an infant, with the liveliest satisfaction. Their habits were at variance with his love of order; and his love of order, was as powerful as his love of life."

"If any one were to ask me what in my opinion was the dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the Earth, I should decidedly say Chelmsford."

"Love is not a feeling to pass away, Like the balmy breath of a summer day; It is not — it cannot be — laid aside; It is not a thing to forget or hide. It clings to the heart, ah, woe is me! As the ivy clings to the old oak tree. Love is not a passion of earthly mould, As a thirst for honour, or fame, or gold: For when all these wishes have died away, The deep strong love of a brighter day, Though nourished in secret, consumes the more, As the slow rust eats to the iron’s core."

"I wish I were Commander in Chief of India. The first thing I would do to strike that Oriental race with amazement (not in the least regarding them as if they lived in the Strand, London, or at Camden Town), should be to proclaim to them in their language, that I considered my Holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested; and that I begged them to do me the favor to observe that I was there for that purpose and no other, and was now proceeding, which all convenient dispatch and merciful swiftness of execution, to blot it out of mankind and raze it off the face of the earth."

"What is the odds so long as the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the wing of friendship never moults a feather! What is the odds so long as the spirit is expanded by means of rosy wine, and the present moment is the least happiest of our existence!"

"He had no learning; he was not misled by the label on the bottle—for that is what learning largely meant in his time. He opened his mouth and shut his eyes and saw what the Age of Reason would give him. And, having tasted it, he spat it out."

"She's the ornament of her sex."

"That is the truth in the suggestion that Dickens was sentimental. It means that he probably felt most sociable when he was solitary."

"Business is the "art" of making money by selling things or services people want for more than their cost."

"Mission is at the heart of what you do as a team. Goals are merely steps to its achievement."

"You can have the greatest strategy in the world, but what is the point if no one cares?"

"Connect with all the passions people have -for themselves, their families, their communities and wider world - and they will follow you to the ends of the earth, buy your products and services with pride, and may even be willing to work for you for next to nothing."

"When you have been close to death it makes you think about life."

"Give people a convincing reason and they will lay down their very lives."

"All the most powerful speeches ever made point to a better future."

"You cannot have strong leadership without passion."

"Business strategy is the battleplan for a better future."

"Life's too short to sell things you don't believe in."

"The future of marketing belongs to honest information, accurate data and clear claims based on truth."

"Every product and service is sold on the promise of a better future. The purpose of business is to deliver on the promise, and profit is the reward for doing so."

"The key to understanding the future is one word: sustainability."

"Tribalism is the most powerful force in the world."

"The risk of a business being hit by a low probability, high impact event is far higher than most boards realise because the number of potential wild cards is so great."

"The future is about emotion: reactions to events are usually far more important than the events themselves."

"The first one hundred and fifty year old human being could be alive as a baby today."

"People will only follow you if they see you're ahead, are convinced you know the route, trust you, and want to get there too."

"To every trend there is a counter-trend. There are a number of pendulums operating and each creates new business opportunities."

"The larger the corporation, the greater the risk that you are flying blind."

"Institutional blindness is a major threat to the future of all corporations."

"Your company may have a reputation for brilliant leadership, outstanding innovation, clever branding and effective change management, but the business could fail if the world changes and you are unprepared."

"Listen to your customers but don't (always) believe what they say - they know even less about the future than you."

"Take hold of your future or the future will take hold of you - be futurewise."

"The Six Faces of the FUTURE are: Fast, Urban, Tribal, Universal, Radical and Ethical"

"In banking or insurance trust is the only thing you have to sell."

"Never has the future become so rapidly the past."

"Two thirds of all those who have ever lived to sixty five are alive today and most of them are women."

"I believe His name should be placed first on the list of men, within my own range of knowledge, who have raised and changed the spirit of modern art: raised in absolute attainment; changed in direction of temper."

"He was, as I believe it is generally admitted, the chief intellectual force in the establishment of the modern romantic school in England."

"Rossetti makes the remark somewhere, bitterly but with great truth, that the worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank."

"Dante Gabriel Rosetti Buried all of his libretti, Thought the matter over—then Went and dug them up again."

"Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell."

"When all desire at last and all regret Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain, What shall assuage the unforgotten pain And teach the unforgetful to forget?"