Robert Harris > Quotes

“I am what God made me”
― Robert Harris, Conclave

“Lo único que perdurará de nosotros será lo que quede escrito.”
― Robert Harris

“We serve an ideal; we cannot always be ideal.”
― Robert Harris, Conclave

“He had no idea where they would go, or what they would do, or what dangers lay ahead. But with their love, and their Bible, with their absolute certainty in the power of the Lord and the protection of their guns, and with the plentiful vastness of America spread out before them like God's table - (...) - he had faith that they would make a future (page 458).”
― Robert Harris, Act of Oblivion

“But people had grown soft. What else was the point of victory? They had Poles to dig their gardens and Ukrainians to sweep their streets, French chefs to cook their food and English maids to serve it. Having tasted the comforts of peace they had lost their appetite for war.”
― Robert Harris, Fatherland

“What a terrible audit Death lays upon a man.”
― Robert Harris, Imperium #1

“There were twelve deliveries a day in London in 1914. It would be in his hands by mid-afternoon.
Pg5”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“I feel like a ghost revisiting the scenes of my life.”
― Robert Harris, Dictator

“The library was destroyed years back. My father-in-law used to say nothing burned so well on a cold winter's night as a good book.”
― Robert Harris

“We never just sit around in the semi-dark and think. Modern information sources leave no time to think.”
― Robert Harris, Glimmerings I: 1001 Thoughts, Ideas, Observations, Musings, Reflections, and Comments On Whatever Comes to Mind

“Fear is historically the strongest emotion in economics. Remember FDR in the Great Depression? It's the most famous quote in financial history: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." In fact fear is probably the strongest human emotion, period. Who ever woke up at four in the morning because they were feeling half?”
― Robert Harris

“This is the great myth, you see, of our age. The great western myth. The arrogance of our time... [} That just because a place has a McDonalds and MTV and takes American Express it's exactly the same as everywhere else - it doesn't have a past any more, it's Year Zero. But it's not true.”
― Robert Harris, Archangel

“He lived alone, in a small house full of books, and did nothing all day except read and think—a most dangerous occupation for a man, which in my experience leads invariably to dyspepsia and melancholy.”
― Robert Harris, Imperium: Roman

“My ruin is my own work, …. Nothing in my adversity is due to chance. I am to blame for it all.”
― Robert Harris, Dictator

“Major Hankey, secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, was brought in by Bongie, and placed in front of him on the table the large red and blue leather-bound volume known as the War Book, he opened it sceptically. On the title page it said: ‘Co-ordination of Departmental Action on the Occurrence of Strained Relations and on the Outbreak of War’. Hankey, a spare, neat figure who reminded him of his old school gym instructor, had spent years of his life devising this bureaucratic masterpiece.
Remind me how it works.
The Foreign Secretary formally warns the Cabinet that he can “forsee the danger of this country being involved in war in the near future” and that sets the machine in motion. Eleven government departments will then send out the warning telegram across the Empire – ports, railways, post offices, army headquarters, police stations, town halls and so forth – initiating the precautionary phase. The recipients have already been issued with instructions, so they know what to do when they receive the warning telegram.
And what does this telegram say?
“In the circumstance that Great Britain is at war with …, act upon instructions.”
How many telegrams will be sent?
…thousands.
Pg93”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“A police state is a country run by criminals.”
― Robert Harris

“What do you do if you devote your life to discovering criminals, and it gradually occurs to you that the real criminals are the people you work for?”
― Robert Harris

“I was at this time forty-six, and conscious of the void into which we all are voyaging; I thought of death often while sitting out on deck.”
― Robert Harris, Dictator

“Remember as a child how mommy’s concern made you feel valued? We all need to be valued and attended to, even when we have no obvious external wants.”
― Robert Harris, Glimmerings I: 1001 Thoughts, Ideas, Observations, Musings, Reflections, and Comments On Whatever Comes to Mind

“Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. (...) If there was only certainty, an if ther was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.”
― Robert Harris, Conclave

“Every time he loses, he simply doubles his stake and rolls the dice again”
― Robert Harris

“I have been delivered to my enemies trussed hand and foot by the tiny threads of a hundred lies and innuendos carefully spun out over the past year.”
― Robert Harris

“No one who follows their conscience ever does wrong, Your Eminence. The consequences may not turn out as we intend; it may prove in time that we made a mistake. But that is not the same as being wrong. The only guide to a person's actions can ever be their conscience, for it is in our conscience that we most clearly hear the voice of God.”
― Robert Harris, Conclave

“To sorrow I bade good morrow And thought to leave her far away behind But cheerly cheerly she loves me dearly She is so constant to me and so kind …”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“His philosophy was to worry about only those things over which he had some control. He therefore resolved to stick to his original plan and spend the day in his garden. He folded the papers and changed into his work clothes.
Pg103”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“To gain entry to the Senate at that time it was necessary to be at least thirty-one years old and a millionaire.”
― Robert Harris

“Now listen to me, Cato. Your integrity may be second to none but it obliterates your good sense, and if you carry on like this your noble intentions will destroy our country."
"Better destroyed than reduced to a corrupt monarchy."
"But Pompey doesn't want to be a monarch! He's disbanded his army. All he's ever tried to do is work with the Senate, yet all he's received is rejection. And far from corrupting Rome, he has done more extend it's power than any man alive!"
"No," said Cato, shaking his head, "no, you are wrong. Pompey has subjugated peoples with whom we had no quarrel, he has entered lands in which we have no business, and he has brought home wealth we have not earned. He is going to ruin us. It is my duty to oppose him.”
― Robert Harris, Conspirata: Les années au pouvoir: Par l'auteur de « Conclave » (Cicéron t. 2)

“Lomeli si svegliò con una sensazione di catastrofe incombente in un angolo remoto della sua testa, come se tutte le sue ansie fossero attorcigliate su se stesse, pronte a saltargli addosso nell'attimo in cui fosse stato completamente sveglio. Andò in bagno e cercò di scacciarle con un'altra doccia bollente. Ma quando si mise davanti allo specchio per radersi erano ancora lì, in agguato, alle sue spalle.”
― Robert Harris, Conclave

“هیچ‌کسی که حرف وجدانش را گوش کرده اشتباه نمی‌کند عالیجناب. ممکن است تبعاتش مطابق نیت و میل ما نباشد. شاید در طول زمان ثابت شود که خطا بوده است. اما معنایش این نیست که اشتباه کرده‌اید. تنها راهنمای کارهای آدمی برای ابد وجدان اوست. چون در وجدان است که واضح‌تر از هر جای دیگر صدای خداوند را می‌شنویم.”
― Robert Harris, Conclaaf

“If one of the miseries of being human is that happiness can be snatched away at any moment, one of the joys is that it may be restored equally unexpectedly.”
― Robert Harris