Anthony Trollope (1815 – 1882)
One of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era.
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.
A drunkard or a gambler may be weaned from his ways, but not a politician.
Their support was not needed, therefore they were not courted.
She’s a screw, of course, but there isn’t anything carries Chiltern so well. There’s nothing like a good screw. A man’ll often go with two hundred and fifty guineas between his legs, supposed to be all there because the animal’s sound, and yet he don’t know his work. If you like schooling a young ’un, that’s all very well. I used to be fond of it myself.
I know no place at which an Englishman may drop down suddenly among a pleasanter circle of acquaintance, or find himself with a more clever set of men, than he can do at Boston.
The grace and beauty of life will be clean gone when we all become useful men.
To oblige a friend by inflicting an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on the friend himself.
The vehemence with which his insolence was abused by one after another of those who spoke later from the other side was ample evidence of its success.
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.”
“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.
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.
The idea of putting old Browborough into prison for conduct which habit had made second nature to a large proportion of the House was distressing to Members of Parliament generally.
He had married, let us say for love; — probably very much by chance.
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 double pleasure of pulling down an opponent, and of raising oneself, is the charm of a politician’s life.
People go on quarrelling and fancying this and that, and thinking that the world is full of romance and poetry. When they get married they know better.
Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.
But mad people never die. That’s a well-known fact. They’ve nothing to trouble them, and they live for ever.
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.
He could find no cure for his grief; but he did know that continued occupation would relieve him, and therefore he occupied himself continually.