Anthony Trollope
121 quotes
Biography
"A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules."
"There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel."
"The Church of England is the only church in the world that interferes neither with your politics nor your religion"
"[An attorney] can find it consistent with his dignity to turn wrong into right, and right into wrong, to abet a lie, nay to create, disseminate, and with all the play of his wit, give strength to the basest of lies, on behalf of the basest of scoundrels."
"Men who cannot believe in the mystery of our Saviour's redemption can believe that spirits from the dead have visited them in a stranger's parlour, because they see a table shake and do not know how it is shaken; because they hear a rapping on a board, and cannot see the instrument that raps it; because they are touched in the dark, and do not know the hand that touches them."
"Those who have courage to love should have courage to suffer."
"No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself."
"It would seem that the full meaning of the word marriage can never be known by those who, at their first outspring into life, are surrounded by all that money can give. It requires the single sitting-room, the single fire, the necessary little efforts of self-devotion, the inward declaration that some struggle shall be made for that other one."
"Marvellous is the power which can be exercised, almost unconsciously, over a company, or an individual, or even upon a crowd by one person gifted with good temper, good digestion, good intellects, and good looks."
"The affair simply amounted to this, that they were to eat their dinner uncomfortably in a field instead of comfortably in the dining room."
"Men who can succeed in deceiving no one else will succeed at last in deceiving themselves."
"Is it not remarkable that the common repute which we all give to attorneys in the general is exactly opposite to that which every man gives to his own attorney in particular? Whom does anybody trust so implicitly as he trusts his own attorney? And yet is it not the case that the body of attorneys is supposed to be the most roguish body in existence?"
"Book love, my friends, is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures."
"The good and the bad mix themselves so thoroughly in our thoughts, even in our aspirations, that we must look for excellence rather in overcoming evil than in freeing ourselves from its influence."
"It was admitted by all her friends, and also by her enemies — who were in truth the more numerous and active body of the two — that Lizzie Greystock had done very well with herself."
"To be alone with the girl to whom he is not engaged, is a man's delight; — to be alone with the man to whom she is engaged is the woman's."
"Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it."
"As to that leisure evening of life, I must say that I do not want it. I can conceive of no contentment of which toil is not to be the immediate parent."
"I judge a man by his actions with men, much more than by his declarations Godwards — When I find him to be envious, carping, spiteful, hating the successes of others, and complaining that the world has never done enough for him, I am apt to doubt whether his humility before God will atone for his want of manliness."
"There are words which a man cannot resist from a woman, even though he knows them to be false."
"It was one of the tenets of her life — the strongest, perhaps, of all those doctrines on which she built her faith — that this world is a world of woe; that wailing and suffering, if not gnashing of teeth, is and should be the condition of mankind preparatory to eternal bliss."
"Next to a sum of money down, a grievance is the best thing you can have. A man who can stick to a grievance year after year will always make money out of it at last."
"The man who worships mere wealth is a snob."
"I hold that gentleman to be the best dressed whose dress no one observes. I am not sure but that the same may be said of an author's written language."
"Needless to deny that the normal London plumber is a dishonest man. We do not even allow ourselves to think so. That question, as to the dishonesty of mankind generally, is one that disturbs us greatly; — whether a man in all grades of life will by degrees train his honesty to suit his own book, so that the course of life which he shall bring himself to regard as soundly honest shall, if known to his neighbours, subject him to their reproof. We own to a doubt whether the honesty of a bishop would shine bright as the morning star to the submissive ladies who now worship him, if the theory of life upon which he lives were understood by them in all its bearings."