Top 272 Quotes & Sayings by Anthony Trollope - Page 5

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.

It is the highest and most legitimate pride of an Englishman to have the letters M.P. written after his name. No selection from the alphabet, no doctorship, no fellowship, be it of ever so learned or royal a society, no knightship,--not though it be of the Garter,--confers so fair an honour.

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.

Take away from English authors their copyrights, and you would very soon take away from England her authors.

Easy reading requires hard writing.

The difference of the English and Irish character is nowhere more plainly discerned than in their respective kitchens. With the former, this apartment is probably the cleanest, and certainly the most orderly, in the house.... An Irish kitchenis usually a temple dedicated to the goddess of disorder; and, too often, joined with her, is the potent deity of dirt.

A physician should take his fee without letting his left hand know what his right is doing; it should be taken without a thought, without a look, without a move of the facial muscles; the true physician should hardly be aware that the last friendly grasp of the hand has been made more precious by the touch of gold

It is my purpose to disclose the mystery at once, and to ask you to look for your interest,--should you choose to go on with my chronicle,--simply in the conduct of my persons, during this disclosure to others.

She was as one who, in madness, was resolute to throw herself from a precipice, but to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek those who would save her from herself.

He was essentially a truth-speaking man, if only he know how to speak the truth.

The best education is to be had at a price, as well as the best broadcloth.

Short accounts make long friends.

The apostle of Christianity and the infidel can meet without a chance of a quarrel; but it is never safe to bring together two men who differ about a saint or a surplice.

I have read - nay, I have bought! - Carlyle's 'Latter Day Pamphlets,' and look on my eight shillings as very much thrown away. To me it appears that the grain of sense is so smothered up in a sack of the sheerest trash, that the former is valueless....I look on him as a man who was always in danger of going mad in literature and who has now done so.

Your man with a thin skin, a vehement ambition, a scrupulous conscience, and a sanguine desire for rapid improvement is never a happy, and seldom a fortunate politician.

If we wish ourselves to be high, we should treat that which is over us as high.

Heroes in books should be so much better than heroes got up for the world's common wear and tear

To get away well is so very much! And to get away well is often so very difficult!

Never mingle love and business.

Gentlemen lacking substantial sympathy with their leader found it to be comfortable to deceive themselves, and raise their hearts at the same time by the easy enthusiasm of noise.

When I sit down to write a novel I do not at all know, and I do not very much care, how it is to end.

The property of manliness in a man is a great possession, but perhaps there is none that is less understood, which is more generally accorded where it does not exist, nor more frequently disallowed where it prevails.

There's nothing like going on with a thing.

The natural man will probably be manly. The affected man cannot be so.

That girls should not marry for money we are all agreed. A lady who can sell herself for a title or an estate, for an income or aset of family diamonds, treats herself as a farmer treats his sheep and oxen--makes hardly more of herself, of her own inner self, in which are comprised a mind and soul, than the poor wretch of her own sex who earns her bread in the lowest state of degradation.

It is hard to conceive that the old, whose thoughts have been all thought out, should ever love to live alone. Solitude is surely for the young, who have time before them for the execution of schemes, and who can, therefore, take delight in thinking

Credit is a matter so subtle in its essence, that, as it may be obtained almost without reason, so, without reason, may it be made to melt 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.

Here in England the welfare of the State depends on the conduct of our aristocracy.

With many women I doubt whether there be any more effectual wayof touching their hearts than ill-using them and then confessing it. If you wish to get the sweetest fragrance from the herb at your feet, tread on it and bruise it.

I do not think myself to be a worm, and a grub, grass of the field fit only to be burned, a clod, a morsel of putrid atoms that should be thrown to the dungheap, ready for the nethermost pit. Nor if I did should I therefore expect to sit with Angels and Archangels.

I think I owe my life to cork soles.