Victorian Era Quotes

“I suppose I really seemed mad, then; but it was only through the awfulness of having said nothing but the truth, and being thought to be deluded.”
― Sarah Waters, Fingersmith

“She wore tight corsets to give her a teeny waist - I helped her lace them up - but they had the effect of causing her to faint. Mom called it the vapors and said it was a sign of her high breeding and delicate nature. I thought it was a sign that the corset made it hard to breathe.”
― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

“Has anyone been corrupted or defiled?"
"Since the age of twelve," West said.
"I wasn't asking you, I was asking the girls."
"Not yet," Cassandra replied cheerfully.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Cold-Hearted Rake

“What do ladies wear beneath their riding trousers?"
"I would think an infamous rake would already know."
"I was never infamous. In fact, I'm fairly standard as far as rakes go."
"The ones who deny it are the worst.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Cold-Hearted Rake

“I AM the current curator of the black trunk and the stories it holds within.”
― Hope Barrett, Discovering Oscar

“I've often thought a blind man could find his way through London simply by gauging the changes in innuendo: mild through Trafalgar Square, less veiled towards the river.”
― Louis Bayard, Mr. Timothy

“In the mystifying world that was Victorian parenthood, obedience took precedence over all considerations of affection and happiness, and that odd, painful conviction remained the case in most well-heeled homes up until at least the time of the First World War.”
― Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life

“Don't forget to speak scornfully of the Victorian Age; there will be time for meekness when you try to better it. Very soon you will be Victorian or that sort of thing yourselves; next session probably, when the freshman come up.”
― J.M. Barrie, Courage

“The Hotel dining-room, like most of the others I was to find in the Highlands, had its walls covered with pictures of all sorts of wild game, living or in the various postures of death that are produced by sport. Between these pictures the walls were alert with the stuffed heads of deer, furnished with antlers of every degree of magnificence. A friend of mine has a theory that these pictures of dying birds and wounded beasts are intended to whet the diner's appetite, and perhaps they did in the more lusty age of Victoria; but I found they had the opposite effect on me, and had to keep my eyes from straying too often to them. In one particular hotel this idea was carried out with such thoroughness that the walls of its dining room looked like a shambles, they presented such an overwhelming array of bleeding birds, beasts and fishes. To find these abominations on the walls of Highland hotels, among a people of such delicacy in other things, is peculiarly revolting, and rubs in with superfluous force that this is a land whose main contemporary industry is the shooting down of wild creatures; not production of any kind but wholesale destruction. This state of things is not the fault of the Highlanders, but of the people who have bought their country and come to it chiefly to kill various forms of life.”
― Edwin Muir, Scottish Journey

“What is a monster but a creature of agency?”
― Kat Dunn, Hungerstone

“What the hell is this stuff?" he muttered, frowning at the oily spot on the linen cloth. "Pearlman slathered it on me this morning."

"It's macassar oil. Gentlemen use it to keep their hair neat. Nicholas used it," she added pointedly.

"Well, tomorrow he's giving it up. I smell like a rotten apple."

"You do not. And I think it looks rather nice."

He sent her an incredulous look. "I look like an otter. And everything I put my head against gets greasy."

"That's why someone invented the antimacassar," she told him, almost smiling.

"The-aha!" He laughed as he made the connection. "Of course. First they invent something stupid, then something ugly to make up for it. We live in a wondrous age, Annie.”
― Patricia Gaffney, Thief of Hearts

“For reasons I have yet to define, Signor Arpelli stood out from his colleagues. The curled brim of his hat, perhaps. A certain mingling of gravity and levity- I thought the masks of Janus had merged in his eyes.”
― Louis Bayard, Mr. Timothy

“Surely Victoria's mental health suffered because all the men around her expected it to.”
― Lucy Worsley, Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow

“The courses their lives took mirrored that of so many other women of the Victorian age, and yet were so singular in the way they ended. It is for them that I write this book. I do so in the hope that we may now hear their stories clearly and give back to them that which was so brutally taken away with their lives: their dignity.”
― Hallie Rubenhold, The Five: The Lives of Jack the Ripper's Women

“He had the vague thought that riding a difficult mare for so many years had given her an unseen reservoir of power. Luminous as she appeared, she was no will-o’-the-wisp. She was formidable. Strong.”
― Mimi Matthews, The Muse of Maiden Lane

“Starlight, of course,” he said solemnly. “For you, it will always be starlight.”
― Mimi Matthews, The Muse of Maiden Lane

“Boston?” He cocked an eyebrow in surprise. “Sure ain’t easy for a lady of your stature to find your bearings here, is it?”
“True enough,” she agreed. “Life in these parts is completely different from anything I’ve been used to, but I enjoy being here, and I dare say I’ve settled in well so far.”
Indeed, she had found herself reveling in her newly claimed independence and freedom—far from the suffocating etiquette and constricting social obligations she had suffered under all her life in Boston. Far from the prevailing opinion in the East that women of her stature, as Rénier had put it, were destined to adorn the arm of a wealthy, distinguished gentleman and find their fulfilment in being the perfect lady, wife, and hostess, always gentle, obedient, and dutiful, never complaining about their unjust fate.
Those were the ideals on which she had been raised: the pillars of a social order where a woman was little more than a decorative accessory, expected to do as she was told. In a world where obligation and appearance meant everything, and one’s own desires and longings had no place.
Oh, how her heart had rebelled against those rigid forms, against that gilded cage in which a woman of the upper class was confined, when all she longed for was self⁠-determination, independence, and—adventure.
But she had left it all behind.
Once and for all. And she thanked God for it with all her heart.”
― Melanie Nova, The Avant-gardiste: Breaking Barriers

“Silence filled the room, deafening in its power, after the ranch hands had left the house. Only the steady ticking of the mantelpiece clock pierced through the air, rasping her nerves as Katherine stepped to the armchair and lowered herself into it.
She felt Joe’s disdainful gaze fixed on her.
He hadn’t said a single word since the moment he had entered, not even while she had given the three young herders a proper talking-to for their nightly trip. Instead, he had been watching her with that typical sneer of his, standing with one shoulder propped against the doorframe, his thumbs casually hooked in his gunbelt and one leg crossed over the other, his mere presence unnerving her.
Irritated, she cast him a glance.
That stupid, unbearably smug lout!
The scornful look on his face spoke volumes about his disapproving her choice of punishment for the men. No doubt, he would have had them flogged or locked up for a week on bread and water, as hard, relentless men like him were wont to do.
But she didn’t approve of such draconian measures.”
― Melanie Nova, The Avant-gardiste: Breaking Barriers

“The temptation was too great to resist. Heart thundering madly, Teddy closed the distance and pressed his lips to hers.
Her eyes fell shut as he captured her mouth. A soft murmur of assent throbbed in her throat.
The sound sent a wild rush of heat through his veins...”
― Mimi Matthews, The Muse of Maiden Lane

“در پایان قرن نوزدهم میانگین درآمد کشیشان انگلیسی کمتر از نصف پانزده سال پیش و از نظر قدرت خرید در حد بخور و نمیر بود و شغل کشیشی در روستاها کاری تشریفاتی و بی جذابیت شده بود. بسیاری از کشیشان دیگر استطاعت ازدواج نداشتند و کسانی که فکر و امکانات داشتند استعداد خود را در جای دیگری به کار می گرفتند. دیوید کانادین در کتاب افول و سقوط طبقه ی اشراف بریتانیا می نویسد در پایان قرن نوزدهم بهترین مغزهای یک نسل از کلیسا بیرون رفته بودند.”
― Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life

“بنابراین در ظاهر، به نظر می رسد مردم عصر ویکتوریا نه تنها کودکی را ابداع نکردند بلکه آن را از بین بردند. اما در واقع مسئله پیچیده تر از این بود. والدین عصر ویکتوریا با دریغ محبت از کودکان در دوره ی کودکی و بعد با تلاش برای کنترل رفتار آنان حتی تا بزرگسالی،در این موقعیت بسیار عجیب قرار داشتند که در همان شرایطی که می کوشیدند جلوی کودکی را بگیرند تلاش داشتند کاری کنند تا همیشه دوام داشته باشد. شاید تعجب آور نباشد که پایان عصر ویکتوریا تقریبا دقیقا با ابداع روانکاوی همزمان شد.”
― Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life

“That's men for you. Always eager to destroy unnecessarily.”
― C.J. Archer, Murder at Hambledon Hall

“This is a new century and young folk don't want to be restricted by old rules set by old people.”
― C.J. Archer, Murder at Hambledon Hall

“Investigating murders is hardly a feminine pastime."
"It's not a pastime and perhaps it's not seen as feminine because women are discouraged from doing it.”
― C.J. Archer, Murder at Hambledon Hall

“According to my grandmother, women were often ignored once they lost their youthful good looks, something which had galled her.”
― C.J. Archer, Murder at Hambledon Hall

“What you're all forgetting is that some young girls simply want to get married. They have idealized notions of what marriage will be like and don't care overmuch about the man as long as he's offering to take them away from a dreary life.”
― C.J. Archer, Murder at Hambledon Hall

“That's the thing about scandals. They grow less hurtful and more amusing with the passing of time.”
― C.J. Archer, Murder at Hambledon Hall

“But you will tell me this is an inartistic age, and we are an inartistic people, and the artist suffers much in this nineteenth century of ours.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Collected Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde

“In most of these books you see illustrations and descriptions of the dress of the period, the costume of the reign. How, o historians, can you show forth those of Victorian times? Fifty years have passed already! There were four seasons in each of those fifty years! Two hundred illustrations must be shown in order to give a correct idea of the dress of the time! Perhaps it might be more satisfactory to devote a volume exclusively to the subject.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“I envy the conspicuous
waste of our grandparents on their grand tours--
long-haired Victorian sages accepted the universe,
while breezing on their trust funds through the world.”
― Robert Lowell, For the Union Dead