Quotes from Anthony Trollope

I don't want no notoriety. I wants to earn my bread peaceable, and to be let alone when I'm about my own business. I pays rates for the police to look after rogues, not to haul folks about and lock 'em up for days and nights, who is doing what they has a legal right to do.

I own that I am fond of politics, and have taken great delight in their study — ("Stupid young fool!" his father said to himself as he read this) — and it has been my dream for years past to have a seat in Parliament at some future time. ("Dream! yes; I wonder whether he has ever dreamed what he is to live upon.")

The so-called Conservative, the conscientious, philanthropic Conservative, seeing this, and being surely convinced that such inequalities are of divine origin, tells himself that it is his duty to preserve them.

But these extravagances were due perhaps to whisky-and-water, and that kind of intoxication which comes to certain men from momentary triumphs. Tifto could always be got to make a fool of himself when surrounded by three or four men of rank who, for the occasion, would talk to him as an equal.

at Silverbridge whom I went to see administered refreshment to me; — nay, he administered it with salutary violence," he said, affecting even to laugh. "And I am bound to speak well of him on behalf of mercies over and beyond that exhibited by the persistent tender of some wine. That I should find him judicious I had expected. What little I have known of him taught me so to think of him. But I found with him also a softness of heart for which I had not looked.

His feelings towards his friends were, that while they stuck to him he would stick to them; that he would work with them shoulder to shoulder; that he would be faithful to the faithful. He knew nothing of the beautiful love which can be true to a false friend.

I know very well that men are friends when they step up and shake hands with each other. It is the same as when women kiss." "When I see women kiss, I always think that there is deep hatred at the bottom of it.

They two men cut the door, and took the box, and opened it, — and when they'd opened it, they didn't get the swag. Where was the swag?

A man captivated by wiles was only captivated for a time, whereas a man won by simplicity would be won forever - if he, himself, were worth the winning.

But are no other portraits necessary? Should we not be taught to see the men and women among whom we really live,—men and women such as we are ourselves,—in order that we should know what are the exact failings which oppress ourselves, and thus learn to hate, and if possible to avoid in life the faults of character which in life are hardly visible, but which in portraiture of life can be made to be so transparent.

Men very skilful in unravelling such mysteries were sent to Paris, and the police of that capital entered upon the search with most praiseworthy zeal. But the number of life-preservers which had been sold altogether baffled them. It seemed that nothing was so common as that gentlemen should walk about with bludgeons in their pockets covered with leathern thongs.

There are certain phases of mind in which a man can neither ride nor shoot, nor play a stroke at billiards, nor remember a card at whist, — and to such a phase of mind had come both Crosbie and Dale after their conversation over the gate.

The facts, if not true, were well invented; the arguments, if not logical, were seductive.

He is no better than anybody else that I can see, and he is beginning to give himself airs

Nothing perhaps is so efficacious in preventing men from marrying as the tone in which married women speak of the struggles made in that direction by their unmarried friends.

We English gentlemen hate the name of a lie, but how often do we find public men who believe each other's words?

During his prison days his wife had to support herself as she might. The decent articles of furniture which they had put together were sold; she gave up their little house, and, bowed down by misery, she also was brought near to death. When he was liberated he at once got work; but those who have watched the lives of such people know how hard it is for them to recover lost ground.

Upon my word, sir,'said he, 'I've hardly looked at her. It is not a matter of looks now, as it used to be. It has got beyond that. It is not that I am indifferent to seeing a pretty face, or that I have no longer an opinion of my own about a woman's figure. But there grows up, I think, a longing which almost kills that consideration.

If she were born a gentlewoman! And then came to her mind those curious questions; what makes a gentleman? what makes a gentlewoman? What is the inner reality, the spiritualised quintessence of that privilege in the world which men call rank, which forces the thousands and hundreds of thousands to bow down before the few elect? What gives, or can give it, or should give it?

Of course Lady Arabella could not suckle the young heir herself. Ladies Arabella never can. They are gifted with the powers of being mothers, but not nursing-mothers. Nature gives them bosoms for show, but not for use. So Lady Arabella had a wet-nurse.

He was very great," said Ratler to Bonteen. "Did you not think so?" "Yes, I did, — very powerful indeed. But the party is broken up to atoms." "Atoms soon come together again in politics," said Ratler. "They can't do without him. They haven't got anybody else. I wonder what he did when he got home.

When last days are coming, they should be allowed to come and to glide away without special notice or mention. And as for last moments, there should be none such. Let them ever be ended, even before their presence has been acknowledged.

You guess. You're always a-guessing. And because you know how to guess, they pays you for guessing. But guessing ain't knowing. You don't know; — nor yet don't I.

Let a man be of what side he may in politics, — unless he be much more of a partisan than a patriot, — he will think it well that there should be some equity of division in the bestowal of crumbs of comfort