Bookcase > Bookcase's Quotes

“I feel an almost overwhelming interest in the methods of daylight abduction employed by the modern youth.”
― Georgette Heyer, Devil's Cub

“It was growing late, and though one might stand on the brink of a deep chasm of disaster, one was still obliged to dress for dinner.”
― Georgette Heyer, April Lady

“For my part, if a man must needs be a knave I would have him a debonair knave... It makes your sin no worse as I conceive, to do it à la mode and stylishly.”
― Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda

“But if it be never - if I can never hold sweet converse again with her, or look upon her face, or know from her her love; why, then, this side the grave, I will live as becomes the man whom she loves...”
― Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda

“If love were the only thing, I
would follow you—in rags, if need be—to the world's end; for you hold
my heart in the hollow of your hand! But is love the only thing?
"I know people write and talk as if it were. Perhaps, for some, Fate lets
it be. Ah, if I were one of them! But if love had been the only thing, you
would have let the King die in his cell.
Honour binds a woman too, Rudolf. My honour lies in being true to
my country and my House. I don't know why God has let me love you;
but I know that I must stay.”
― Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda

“It is my belief that, given the necessary physical likeness, it was far easier to pretend to be king of Ruritania than it would have been to personate my next-door neighbor.”
― Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda

“Ah! but a man cannot be held to write down in cold blood the wild and black thoughts that storm his brain when an uncontrolled passion has battered a breach for them. Yet, unless he sets up as a saint, he need not hate himself for them. He is better employed, as it humbly seems to me, in giving thanks that power to resist was given to him ....”
― Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda

“‎'All we need is a book,' roared Leslie; 'don't panic, hit 'em with a book.”
― Gerald Durrell, My Family and Other Animals

“Les, muttering wrathfully, hauled the bedclothes off the recumbent Larry and used them to smother the flames. Larry sat up indignantly.

'What the the hell is going on?' he demanded.

'The room is on fire, dear.'

'Well, I don't see why I should freeze to death... why tear all the bedclothes off? Really, the fuss you all make. It's quite simple to put out a fire.'

'Oh, shut up!' snapped Leslie, jumping up and down on the bedclothes.”
― Gerald Durrell, My Family and Other Animals

“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”
― Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome

“Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure”
― Tacitus

“To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it.”
― Tacitus

“If you would know who controls you see who you may not criticise.”
― Tacitus

“Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty.”
― Tacitus

“Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity.”
― Cornelius Tacitus, Annals

“So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.”
― Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome

“A bad peace is worse than war.”
― Tacitus

“There was more courage in bearing trouble than in escaping from it; the brave and the energetic cling to hope, even in spite of fortune; the cowardly and the indolent are hurried by their fears,' said Plotius Firmus, Roman Praetorian Guard.”
― Tacitus, The Histories

“fortes et strenuos etiam contra fortunam insistere, timidos et ignoros ad desperationem formidine properare - the brave and bold persist even against fortune; the timid and cowardly rush to despair through fear alone”
― Tacitus

“Rarely will two or three tribes confer to repulse a common danger. Accordingly they fight individually and are collectively conquered.”
― Tacitus, The Agricola and The Germania

“Greater things are believed of those who are absent.”
― Tacitus

“Think of it. Fifteen whole years-no small part of a mans life.-taken from us-all the most energetic have fallen to the cruelty of the emperor. And the few that survive are no longer what we once were. Yet I find some small satisfaction in acknowledging the bondage we once suffered. Tacitus, The Agricola”
― Tacitus, The Agricola and The Germania

“To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.”
― George MacDonald

“Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.”
― George Mac Donald, Wilfrid Cumbermede

“I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking.”
― George MacDonald

“Seeing is not believing - it is only seeing.”
― George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin

“It is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the soul of another; yea, that, where two love, it is the loving of each other, that originates and perfects and assures their blessedness. I knew that love gives to him that loveth, power over over any soul be loved, even if that soul know him not, bringing him inwardly close to that spirit; a power that cannot be but for good; for in proportion as selfishness intrudes, the love ceases, and the power which springs therefrom dies. Yet all love will, one day, meet with its return. ”
― George MacDonald, Phantastes

“Few delights can equal the mere presence of one whom we trust utterly.”
― George MacDonald

“To try to be brave is to be brave.”
― George MacDonald

“Come, then, affliction, if my Father wills, and be my frowning friend. A friend that frowns is better than a smiling enemy. ”
― George MacDonald