19th-century Novelist Quotes

Victor Hugo

Jules Verne

Agatha Christie

Rudyard Kipling

Alexandre Dumas

Virginia Woolf

G. K. Chesterton

To feel admiration for a man all through one's married life would, I think, be excessively tedious.

Agatha Christie

There are times when Science does not satisfy.

Rudyard Kipling

The distance between the earth and her satellite is a mere trifle, and undeserving of serious consideration. I am convinced that before twenty years are over one-half of our earth will have paid a visit to the moon.

I am naturally taciturn, and became a silent and attentive listener.

William Hamilton Maxwell

The physician has a sacred mission on earth; and to fulfill it he begins at the source of life, and goes down to the mysterious darkness of the tomb.

Alexandre Dumas

It is better to waste one's youth than to do nothing with it at all.

Georges Courteline

So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.

To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a heartbreaking task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harm's way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin.

One can hardly think too little of one's self. One can hardly think too much of one's soul.

G. K. Chesterton

The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers.

It is rather calming to remember that you really couldn't have foreseen what is happening to you.

Margaret Widdemer

While beer brings gladness, don't forget That water only makes you wet!

Harry Leon Wilson

Even if a thing is not beautiful, it is living art if it is someone's experience. To do a thing as nobody else could have done it—if you can wrench that out of yourself—is style.

Take one of my favourite experiments, for example. I see a little ball rattling around in a wheel. Where will that ball stop? You, being less intellectual than I, don't care where it stops I do. Instantly my scientific curiosity is aroused; I reason logically; I evolve an opinion; I back that opinion; and I remain busy and poor.

Robert W. Chambers

People and dogs and cows are born to be what they are. They may cover it up for a long time, but it will come out sooner or later.

When a man or a woman holds fast to youth, even if successfully, there is something of the pitiful and the tragic involved. It is the everlasting struggle of the soul to retain the joy of earth, whose fleeing distinguishes it from heaven, and whose retention is not accomplished without an inner knowledge of its futility.

Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

If a man's innate self-respect will not save him from habitual, disgusting intoxication, all the female influences in the universe would not avail. Man's will, like woman's, is stronger than the affection, and, once subjugated by vice, all eternal influences will be futile.

Augusta Jane Evans

They sat and combed their beautiful hair,
Their long, bright tresses, one by one,
As they laughed and talked in the chamber there,
After the revel was done.

Only virtue has powerful arguments against pessimism.

There's Conservatives an' they want to make things better by keepin' 'em jus' like what they are now. An' there's Lib'rals an' they want to make things better by alterin' them jus' a bit, but not so's anyone'd notice, an' there's communists an' they want to make things better by killin' everyone but themselves.

Richmal Crompton

I send thee pansies while the year is young,
Yellow as sunshine, purple as the night;
Flowers of remembrance, ever fondly sung
By all the chiefest of the Sons of Light.

A happy childhood is one of the best gifts that parents have it in their power to bestow.

Mary Cholmondeley

Civilization without its appliances is weaker than barbarism.

Theodore Winthrop

For true happiness, sane enjoyment, you must look to the country, not town. Only you want one true heart beside you with which to enjoy it!

Ellen Buckingham Mathews

Tell him I will bear my disgrace like an Indian and will wait to strike till the time is in my favor.