British Author Quotes

I thought of the infinitely many points that can divide the space between two human hearts.

I saw the radiant Queen of Night
Walking in brightness through the sky...

Charlotte Elliott

Among the poor, the approach of dissolution is usually regarded with a quiet and natural composure, which it is consolatory to contemplate, and which is as far removed from the dead palsy of unbelief as it is from the delirious raptures of fanaticism. Theirs is a true, unhesitating faith, and they are willing to lay down the burden of e weary life, in the sure and certain hope of a blessed immortality.

The fool that eats till he is sick must fast till he is well.

George Walter Thornbury

One of the most important lessons she'd recently learned was that looking strong and confident was sometimes all the people required of you.

Stuart Hill (author)

The first few glasses of beer were a revelation; they flushed my veins with happiness; they washed away all cares and shyness and worries. I remember thinking to myself, If I could have two pints of beer every afternoon, life would be a great happiness.

George Mackay Brown

Do people who wave at trains Wave at the driver, or at the train itself? Or, do people who wave at trains Wave at the passengers? Those hurtling strangers, The unidentifiable flying faces?

Woods are to us anything but solitudes - they are populous and inexhaustible worlds, where creatures that mock the grasp but not the mind, a matchless phantasmagoria, flit before us; alternately make us merry with their pleasant follies, delight us with their romantic grandeur and beauty, and elevate our hearts with their sublime sentiments.

Embla lies with each thing,
Ask looks and knows.
Understanding
without explanation
they depart and separate.

John Carder Bush

The tranquil current of domestic happiness affords no materials for narrative.

My love for my father has never been touched or approached by any other love. I hold him in my heart of hearts as a man apart from all other men, as one apart from all other beings.

That he loved her was his life's greatest grace—that she loved him was a burden and mystery beyond compare.

Zen is the game of insight, the game of discovering who you are beneath the social masks.

Reginald Horace Blyth

I once knew a man out of courtesy help a lame dog over a stile, and he for requital bit his fingers.

William Chillingworth

Since when was the stock market an accurate barometer of anything?

Universities are the cathedrals of the modern age. They shouldn't have to justify their existence by utilitarian criteria.

Not a single other creature in all the history of the world has been just as ourselves. Not another will be like us.

The weightless mosquito touches
her tiny shadow on the stone,
and with how like, how infinite
a lightness, man and shadow meet.
They fuse. A shadow is a man
when the mosquito death approaches.

Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us, ZORAC announced after a short pause. The designs are not familiar, but they are obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have been intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, and transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown. Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious.

He turned then to Job, again using the King James's version. The translation from the Hebrew was narrower than the Greek but seemed more essential. It was the simple strong prose of men who believed and who were unafraid to name things.

If miracles be incredible, Christianity is false. If Christ wrought no miracles, then the Gospels are untrustworthy.

Frederic William Farrar

Because I longed to comprehend the infinite I drew a line between the known and unknown.

Elizabeth Bartlett

On a sofa upholstered in panther skin
Mona did researches in original sin.

I think mice
Are rather nice.

Their tails are long,
Their faces small,
They haven't any
Chins at all.

Fear, guilt, despair, and moon-struck phrensy rush
On voluntary death: the wise and brave,
When the fierce storms of fortune round 'em roar,
Combat the billows with redoubled force:
Then, if they perish ere the port is gain'd,
They sink with decent pride; and from the deep
Honour retrieves them, bright as rising stars.