Mary Renault - The Last of the Wine (1956)

8 Sourced Quotes

View all Mary Renault Quotes

He looked just like any other disreputable old demagogue, one who lives by denouncing and exposing while he is in credit, and, when he is out, by sycophancy and informations, with a little perjury thrown in.

Mary Renault

He thought, like all other fathers, that I was younger and sillier than himself at the same age.

Mary Renault

Never destroy without thought your enemy's pretences; they are usually your best weapon against him.

Mary Renault

But courage without conduct is the virtue of a robber, or a tyrant.

Mary Renault

Change is the sum of the universe, and what is of nature ought not to be feared. But one gives it hostages, and lays one's grief upon the gods. Sokrates is free, and would have taught me freedom. But I have yoked the immortal horse that draws the chariot with a horse of earth; and when the one falls, both are entangled in the traces.

Mary Renault

Love is a boaster at heart, who cannot hide the stolen horse without giving a glimpse of the bridle.

Mary Renault

Half the world's troubles come from men not being trained to resent a fallacy as much as an insult.

Mary Renault

What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence; the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?

Mary Renault