Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We can generally read a man's purpose towards us in his manner, if his purposes are of much moment to us.
The sober devil can hide his cloven hoof; but when the devil drinks he loses his cunning and grows honest.
The happiest man is he, who being above the troubles which money brings, has his hands the fullest of work.
I have sometimes thought that there is no being so venomous, so bloodthirsty as a professed philanthropist.
But mad people never die. That's a well-known fact. They've nothing to trouble them, and they live for ever.
I don't like anybody or anything," said Lucinda. Yes, you do;--you like horses to ride, and dresses to wear.
Take away from English authors their copyrights, and you would very soon take away from England her authors.
What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?
The double pleasure of pulling down an opponent, and of raising oneself, is the charm of a politician's life.
The end of a novel, like the end of a children's dinner-party, must be made up of sweetmeats and sugar-plums.
The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade.
The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade.
I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse.
Flirting I take to be the excitement of love, without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage.
The greatest mistake any man ever made is to suppose that the good things of the world are not worth the winning.
Of all hatreds that the world produces, a wife's hatred for her husband, when she does hate him, is the strongest.
Any one prominent in affairs can always see when a man may steal a horse and when a man may not look over a hedge.
The Church of England is the only church in the world that interferes neither with your politics nor your religion
Caveat emptor is the only motto going, and the worst proverb that ever came from the dishonest stony-hearted Rome.
Till we can become divine, we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for change we sink to something lower.
An enemy might at any time become a friend, but while an enemy was an enemy he should be trodden on and persecuted.
Satire, though it may exaggerate the vice it lashes, is not justified in creating it in order that it may be lashed.
It has become a certainty now that if you will only advertise sufficiently you may make a fortune by selling anything.
It is a comfortable feeling to know that you stand on your own ground. Land is about the only thing that can't fly away.
To have her meals, and her daily walk, and her fill of novels, and to be left alone, was all that she asked of the gods.
Men and not measures are, no doubt, the very life of politics. But then it is not the fashion to say so in public places.
To oblige a friend by inflicting an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on the friend himself.
Nothing reopens the springs of love so fully as absence, and no absence so thoroughly as that which must needs be endless.
Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes.
Book love... is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures.
Never think that you're not good enough. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.
It is easy to love one's enemy when one is making fine speeches; but so difficult to do so in the actual everyday work of life.
There are worse things than a lie... I have found... that it may be well to choose one sin in order that another may be shunned.
As to happiness in this life it is hardly compatible with that diminished respect which ever attends the relinquishing of labour.
It is the test of a novel writer's art that he conceal his snake-in-the-grass; but the reader may be sure that it is always there.
It is hard to rescue a man from the slough of luxury and idleness combined. If anything can do it, it is a cradle filled annually.
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.
Passionate love, I take it, rarely lasts long, and is very troublesome while it does last. Mutual esteem is very much more valuable.
Never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.
No one can depute authority. It comes too much from personal accidents, and too little from reason or law to be handed over to others.
Fortune favors the brave; and the world certainly gives the most credit to those who are able to give an unlimited credit to themselves.
When the ivy has found its tower, when the delicate creeper has found its strong wall, we know how the parasite plants grow and prosper.
Romance is very pretty in novels, but the romance of a life is always a melancholy matter. They are most happy who have no story to tell.
When the little dog snarls, the big dog does not connect the snarl with himself, simply fancying that the little dog must be uncomfortable.
Barchester Towers has become one of those novels which do not die quite at once, which live and are read for perhaps a quarter of a century.
Things to be done offer themselves, I suppose, because they are in themselves desirable; not because it is desirable to have something to do.
A man's own dinner is to himself so important that he cannot bring himself to believe that it is a matter utterly indifferent to anyone else.
The secrets of the world are very marvellous, but they are not themselves half so wonderful as the way in which they become known to the world.
Lord Chiltern recognizes the great happiness of having a grievance. It would be a pity that so great a blessing should be thrown away upon him.
Then Lady Chiltern argued the matter on views directly opposite to those which she had put forward when discussing the matter with her husband.