The Prisoner of Zenda Quotes

“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

“I have an income nearly sufficient for my wants (no one's income is ever quite sufficient, you know).”
― 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

“There are moments when I dare not think of it, but there are others when I rise in spirit to where she ever dwells; then I can thank God that I love the noblest lady in the world, the most gracious and beautiful, and that there was nothing in my love that made her fall short in her high duty.”
― Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda

“God save the King!"

Old Sapt's mouth wrinkled into a smile.

"God save 'em both!" he whispered.”
― 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

“A real king's life is perhaps a hard one; but a pretended king's is, I warrant, much harder.”
― 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

“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

“For my part, if a man must needs be a knave, I would have him a debonair knave, and I liked Rupert Hentzau better than his long-faced, close-eyed companions.”
― Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda

“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 vouchsafed to him, than in fretting over wicked impulses which come unsought and extort an unwilling hospitality from the weakness of our nature.”
― Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda

“You should always trust a man...just as far as you must.”
― Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda