English Author Quotes

For I see that then I was still all in a state of innocence, but that innocence, once lost, is lost forever.

The difficult art I was attempting had, indeed a powerful fascination, before which the past faded, the future receded, and the whole of experience narrowed down to this stretch of glancing, glimmering water, and the fly I was trying to cast across it.

Salad, I can't bear salad. It grows while you're eating it, you know.

When asked what he would eat if he was in a desert with no food in sight except a cow:

I'd find out what the cow was eating and join it.

Benjamin Zephaniah

Somehow love gives even to a dull man the knowledge of his lover's heart.

O God! O God! that it were possible To undo things done; to call back yesterday! That Time could turn up his swift sandy glass, To untell the days, and to redeem these hours.

The sea never resting, but perpetually winning land in one place and losing in another, doth show what may be done in length of time by a continual operation, not subject unto ceasing or intermission.

Gabriel Plattes

The wife ought to have the first child and the husband the second, then there wouldn't ever be any more.

You are not in charge of the universe; you are in charge of yourself.

Look on the grave where thou must sleep Thy last, and strongest foe; It is endurance not to weep, If that repose seem woe.

Our most provident and glorious Creator so furnished countries with several commodities that amongst all there might be sociable conversation; and, one standing in need of the other, all might be combined in a common league, and exhibit mutual succors. This abundance of all countries in everything, and defect of every country in most things, maintaineth in all regions and every province a most strict combination. So that, as in the body of the little world, the head cannot say to the foot, nor the foot to the head, 'I stand in no need of thee:' so, in the body of the great world, Europe cannot say to Asia, nor Asia to Africa, 'I want not your commodities, nor am defective in that of which thou boastest of abundance.'

To act the part of a true friend requires more conscientious feeling than to fill with credit and complacency any other station or capacity in social life.

Sarah Stickney Ellis

Celestial sounds have sometimes been heard on earth.

It is frequently of much importance, not to the comfort only, but to the recovery of the patient, that he should be enabled to look upon his Physician as his friend.

Thomas Gisborne

Thinking is but an idle waste of thought,
And nought is everything and everything is nought.

The axe is laid to the root of the tree.... I will hew it down. And as I live, I will plague your Honor, Pomp, Greatness, Superfluity, and confound it into parity, equality, community.

I see echoes with lots of books in all my books, some deliberate, some unconscious until later, and as long as that is respectful I think that's great - writing on the shoulders of other writers is a privilege.

China Miéville

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

By trying to do what is right will often entail you having to disagree with others, and this is not easy. Once you start doing it more often, you will find it easier.

Nigel Cumberland

Lustful Desire (although 'twere rather fit To some brute creature to attribute it) Shall be presented in the second place, Because it shrouds a vile deformed face Beneath love's vizard, and assumes that name, Hiding its own fault with the other's blame.

In following their line through, and those of Plantagenet and Tudor, there is but little to soothe the mind.

Charlotte Turner Smith

I've learned over the years that everything is more or less the same amount of work, so you may as well set your sights high and try and do something really cool.

A young man is stirred and stimulated by the consciousness of how much depends upon his own exertions: a young girl is oppressed by it.

Elizabeth Missing Sewell

Curious wits, not be a slave of one science, or dwell altogether in one subject as most do, but [should] rove abroad, to have an oar in every mans boat, to taste of every dish, and sip of every cup,

The total and universal want of manners, both in males and females, is... remarkable... that polish which removes the coarser and rougher parts of our nature is unknown and undreamed of.

Frances Trollope