John > John's Quotes

“Ah, I often think it's wi' th' old folks as it is wi' the babbies," said Mrs. Poyser; "they're satisfied wi' looking, no matter what they're looking at. It's God A'mighty's way o' quietening 'em, I reckon, afore they go to sleep.”
― George Eliot, Adam Bede

“Ah," said Mrs. Poyser, "an' it's poor work allays settin' the dead above the livin'. We shall all on us be dead some time, I reckon—it 'ud be better if folks 'ud make much on us beforehand, i'stid o' beginnin' when we're gone. It's but little good you'll do a-watering the last year's crop.”
― George Eliot, Adam Bede

“Trust to me, my boy, trust to me. I've got no wife to worm it out of me and then run out and cackle it in everybody's hearing. If you trust a man, let him be a bachelor—let him be a bachelor.”
― George Eliot, Adam Bede

“Sane people did what their neighbours did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“But on safe opportunities, she had an indirect mode of making her negative wisdom tell upon Dorothea, and calling her down from her rhapsodic mood by reminding her that people were staring, not listening.”
― George Eliot, George Eliot: The Complete Works

“Who can tell what just criticisms Murr the Cat may be passing on us beings of wider speculation?”
― George Eliot, George Eliot: The Complete Works

“After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.”
― Kenneth Grahame (Wind in the Willows), The Wind in the Willows

“It's brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and (naturally) washing. It's my world, and I don't want any other. What it hasn't got is not worth having, and what it doesn't know is not worth knowing.”
― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

“He had, however, surmised that an hour’s exercise every day was essential for a healthy appetite and proper bowel movements, and was currently sitting on a machine of his own invention.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

“Most of the Watch got buried there. Policemen, after a few years, found it hard enough to believe in people, let alone anyone they couldn’t see.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“Probably more refugees, sir.’ ‘Ye gods, we’ve got no more room! Why do they keep coming here?’ ‘In search of a better life, sir, I think.’ ‘A better life?’ said Vimes. ‘Here?’ ‘I think things are worse where they come from, sir,’ said Carrot. ‘What kind of refugees are we talking about here?’ ‘Mostly human, sir.’ ‘Do you mean that most of them will be human, or that each individual will be mostly human?’ said Vimes.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“Sweeper gave him a long, thoughtful look. ‘Y’know,’ he said, ‘it’s very hard to talk quantum using a language originally designed to tell other monkeys where the ripe fruit is.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“1. Cuckoo Song SUMER is icumen in, Lhude sing cuccu! Groweth sed, and bloweth med, And springth the wude nu-- Sing cuccu! Awe bleteth after lomb, Lhouth after calve cu; Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth, Murie sing cuccu! Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu, cuccu: Ne swike thu naver nu; Sing cuccu, nu, sing cuccu, Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu! lhude] loud. awe] ewe. lhouth] loweth. sterteth] leaps. swike] cease.”
― Arthur Quilller-Couch, THE OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE