Anthony Trollope > Quotes

“A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.”
― Anthony Trollope

“What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing.”
― Anthony Trollope

“Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who holds a low opinion of himself.”
― Anthony Trollope, Orley Farm

“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.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Eustace Diamonds

“Don't let love interfere with your appetite. It never does with mine.”
― Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

“And, above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Small House at Allington

“The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade.”
― Anthony Trollope

“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.”
― Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?

“This habit of reading, I make bold to tell you, is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will support you when all other recreations are gone. It will last until your death. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.”
― Anthony Trollope

“There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.”
― Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

“Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now

“Till we can become divine, we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for change we sink to something lower.”
― Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

“Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others, and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so. It is hardly too much to say that we all of us occasionally speak of our dearest friends in a manner in which those dearest friends would very little like to hear themselves mentioned, and that we nevertheless expect that our dearest friends shall invariably speak of us as though they were blind to all our faults, but keenly alive to every shade of our virtues.”
― Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

“Of all needs a book has,
the chief need is to be readable.”
― Anthony Trollope

“There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.”
― Anthony Trollope

“Above all else, never think you're not good enough.”
― Anthony Trollope

“There is nothing in the world so difficult as that task of making up one's mind. Who is there that has not longed that the power and privilege of selection among alternatives should be taken away from him in some important crisis of his life, and that his conduct should be arranged for him, either this way or that, by some divine power if it were possible, - by some patriarchal power in the absence of divinity, - or by chance, even, if nothing better than chance could be found to do it? But no one dares to cast the die, and to go honestly by the hazard. There must be the actual necessity of obeying the die, before even the die can be of any use.”
― Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn

“Throughout the world, the more wrong a man does, the more indignant is he at wrong done to him. ”
― Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now

“Words spoken cannot be recalled, and many a man and many a woman who has spoken a word at once regretted, are far too proud to express that regret.”
― Anthony Trollope, He Knew He Was Right

“In this world things are beautiful only because they are not quite seen, or not perfectly understood. Poetry is precious chiefly because it suggests more than it declares.”
― Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?

“I am not fit to marry. I am often cross, and I like my own way, and I have a distaste for men.”
― Anthony Trollope, He Knew He Was Right

“I hate a stupid man who can't talk to me, and I hate a clever man who talks me down. I don’t like a man who is too lazy to make any effort to shine; but I particularly dislike the man who is always striving for effect. I abominate a humble man, but yet I love to perceive that a man acknowledges the superiority of my sex, and youth and all that kind of thing. . . A man who would tell me that I am pretty, unless he is over seventy, ought to be kicked out of the room. But a man who can't show me that he thinks me so without saying a word about it, is a lout.”
― Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn

“Book love... is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures.”
― Anthony Trollope

“One can only pour out of a jug that which is in it.”
― Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage

“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.”
― Anthony Trollope, He Knew He Was Right

“There was but one thing for him;- to persevere till he got her, or till he had finally lost her. And should the latter be his fate, as he began to fear that it would be, then, he would live, but live only, like a crippled man.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now

“Did you ever know a poor man made better by law or a lawyer!' said Bunce bitterly.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“She had no startling brilliancy of beauty, no pearly whiteness, no radiant carnation. She had not the majestic contour that rivets attention, demands instant wonder, and then disappoints by the coldness of its charms. You might pass Eleanor Harding in the street without notice, but you could hardly pass an evening with her and not lose your heart.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“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 a set 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 stage of degradation. But a title, and an estate, and an income, are matters which will weigh in the balance with all Eve’s daughters — as they do with all Adam’s sons. Pride of place, and the power of living well in front of the world’s eye, are dear to us all; — are, doubtless, intended to be dear. Only in acknowledging so much, let us remember that there are prices at which these good things may be too costly.”
― Anthony Trollope, Complete Works of Anthony Trollope