Lord Hornblower Quotes

“What are you men standing chattering there for?” suddenly blared out Freeman, addressing a group of excited seamen lining the bulwark forward. “Master-at-arms! Master-at-arms! Take those men’s names and bring them to me at the end of the watch! You bos’un’s mate, there! Collier! Keep those men of yours at work! This is a King’s ship, not a blasted school for young ladies!”
― C.S. Forester, Lord Hornblower

“The lucky man is he who knows how much to leave to chance.”
― C.S. Forester, Lord Hornblower

“backing out of the blind alley of thought”
― C.S. Forester, Lord Hornblower

“in the blackness the rigging shrieked in an insane chorus, as though protesting at the madness of mankind in exposing frail man-made equipment to the violence of the world’s forces.”
― C.S. Forester, Lord Hornblower

“Her stoic English upbringing had schooled her into distrusting emotion and into contempt for any exhibition of emotion.”
― C.S. Forester, Lord Hornblower

“Suetonius’ remark about Nero, who believed all men to be privately as polluted as himself although they did not admit it publicly.”
― C.S. Forester, Lord Hornblower

“Every timber resonated the shrieking of the rigging; to be inside the cabin was to be like a mouse inside a violin while it was being played.”
― C.S. Forester, Lord Hornblower

“the”
― C.S. Forester, Lord Hornblower

“The forces of the world, the old primitive powers that had ruled earth and water since the creation, were being set at defiance by man, weak, mortal man, who by virtue of the brain inside his fragile skull was able not merely to face the forces of the world but to bend them to his will, compel them to serve him. Nature sent this brisk westerly gale up the Channel; subtly and insidiously the Porta Coeli was making use of it to claw her way westward—a slow, painful, difficult way, but westward all the same. Hornblower, standing by the wheel, felt a surge of exultation as the Porta Coeli thrashed forward. He was like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods; he was the successful rebel against the blind laws of nature; he could take pride in being a mere mortal man.”
― C.S. Forester, Lord Hornblower