Quotes from Anthony Trollope

Every man to himself is the centre of the whole world;—the axle on which it all turns. All knowledge is but his own perception of the things around him. All love, and care for others, and solicitude for the world's welfare, are but his own feelings as to the world's wants and the world's merits.

You might pass Eleanor Harding in the street without notice, but you could hardly pass an evening with her and not lose your heart.

Though they were Liberals they were not democrats; nor yet infidels.

I should give such advice myself, knowing that a friend may give counsel as to outer things, but that a man must satisfy his inner conscience by his own perceptions of what is right and what is wrong.

There are some people, if you can only get to learn the length of their feet, you can always fit them with shoes afterwards.

John Bold said): If an action is the right one, personal feelings must not be allowed to interfere. Of course I greatly like Mr Harding, but that is no reason for failing in my duty to those old men.

No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent and be tormented.

He liked to be kindly treated, to be praised and petted, to be well fed and caressed; and they who so treated him were his chosen friends. He had in this the instincts of a horse, not approaching the higher sympathies of a dog.

Men who think much want to speak often

But Johnny hasn't got twelve children, Tom." "One doesn't have a cousin in trouble every day," said Toogood. "And then you see there's something very pretty in the case. It's quite a pleasure getting it up.

In former times great objects were attained by great work. When evils were to be reformed, reformers set about their heavy task with grave decorum and laborious argument. An age was occupied in proving a grievance, and philosophical researches were printed in folio pages, which it took a life to write, and an eternity to read. We get on now with a lighter step, and quicker: ridicule is found to be more convincing than argument, imaginary agonies touch more than true sorrows

Babbling may be a weakness, but to my thinking mystery is a vice.

The bishop did not whistle. We believe that they lose the power of doing so on being consecrated; and that in these days one might as easily meet a corrupt judge as a whistling bishop; but he looked as though he would have done so, but for his apron.

It might have been seen, I said, with half an eye, that Mr. Broughton did not like the state of the money-market; and it might also be seen with the other half that he had been endeavouring to mitigate the bitterness of his dislike by alcoholic aid. Musselboro at once perceived that his patron and partner was half drunk, and Crosbie was aware that he had been drinking.

If I had a husband I should want a good one, a man with a head on his shoulders, and a heart. Even if I were young and good-looking, I doubt whether I could please myself. As it is I am likely to be taken bodily to heaven, as to become any man's wife.

There was very much in the whole affair of which he would not be proud as he led his bride to the altar;--but a man does not expect to get four thousand pounds a year for nothing.

As the high mountains are intersected by deep valleys, as puritanism in one age begets infidelity in the next, as in many countries the thickness of the winter's ice will be in proportion to the number of the summer musquitoes, so was the keenness of the hostility displayed on this occasion in proportion to the warmth of the support which was manifested.  As the great man was praised, so also was he abused. 

Of all reviews, the crushing review is the most popular, as being the most readable.

Courtesty and cordiality are not only not the same, but they are incompatible. Why so? Courtesy is an effort, and cordiality is free.

Now, Justinia, you are unfair.

I have all the world to choose from, but no reason whatever for a choice.

Now, now that she was older and perhaps wiser, love meant a partnership, in which each partner would be honest to the other, in which each would wish and strive for the other's welfare, to that this their joint welfare might be insured. Then, in those early girlish days, it had meant a total abnegation of self. The one was of earth, and therefore possible. The other had been a ray from heaven, - and impossible, except in a dream.

She went up to her room, disembarrassed herself of her finery

Shall a man have nothing of his own; -- no sorrow in his heart, no care in his family, no thought in his breast so private and special to him, but that, if he happen to be a clergyman, the bishop may touch it with his thumb?' I am not the bishop's thumb,' said Mr. Thumble