Top 400 Anthony Trollope Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 4 of 9

151. “As will so often be the case when a men has a pen in his hand. It is like a club or sledge-hammer, in using which, either for defence or attack, a man can hardly measure the strength of the blows he gives.”

— Anthony Trollope

152. “Loughshane, according to Barrington Erle, was so small a place, that the expense would be very little. There were altogether no more than 307 registered electors. The inhabitants were so far removed from the world, and were so ignorant of the world’s good things, that they knew nothing about bribery.”

— Anthony Trollope

153. “The bucolic mind of East Barsetshire took warm delight in the eloquence of the eminent personage who represented them, but was wont to extract more actual enjoyment from the music of his periods than from the strength of his arguments.”

— Anthony Trollope

154. “The best education is to be had at a price, as well as the best broadcloth.”

— Anthony Trollope

155. “There is no human bliss equal to twelve hours of work with only six hours in which to do it.”

— Anthony Trollope

156. “Flirting I take to be the excitement of love, without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage.”

— Anthony Trollope

157. “To oblige a friend by inflicting an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on the friend himself.”

— Anthony Trollope

158. “Grace was allowed to return by Silverbridge, and to take what was needed from Miss Prettyman. Who can tell of the mending and patching, of the weary wearing midnight hours of needlework which were accomplished before the poor girl went, so that she might not reach her friend’s house in actual rags?”

— Anthony Trollope

159. “And you know, aunt, I still hope that I shall be found to have kept on the right side of the posts. You will find that poor Lord Chiltern is not so black as he is painted.’ ‘But why take anybody that is black at all?’ ‘I like a little shade in the picture, aunt.”

— Anthony Trollope

160. “Rights and rules, which are bonds of iron to a little man, are packthread to a giant.”

— Anthony Trollope

161. “I would recommend all men in choosing a profession to avoid any that may require an apology at every turn; either an apology or else a somewhat violent assertion of right.”

— Anthony Trollope

162. “The form and face of Lady Eustace, which indeed were very lovely, were distasteful to her; whereas she delighted to look upon the broad, plain, colourless countenance of Lydia Fawn, who was endeared to her by frank good humour and an unselfish disposition. In regard to men she had never asked herself the question whether this man was handsome or that man ugly.”

— Anthony Trollope

163. “Then Mrs. Grantly, working hard in her vocation as a peacemaker, changed the conversation again, and began to talk of the American war. But even that was made matter of discord on church matters, – the archdeacon professing an opinion that the Southerners were Christian gentlemen, and the Northerners infidel snobs; whereas Mrs. Proudie had an idea that the Gospel was preached with genuine zeal in the Northern States.”

— Anthony Trollope

164. “An author must be nothing if he do not love truth; a barrister must be nothing if he do.”

— Anthony Trollope

165. “I should give such advice myself, knowing that a friend may give counsel as to outer things, but that a man must satisfy his inner conscience by his own perceptions of what is right and what is wrong.”

— Anthony Trollope

166. “It is hard to rescue a man from the slough of luxury and idleness combined. If anything can do it, it is a cradle filled annually.”

— Anthony Trollope

167. “Who would ever think of learning to live out of an English novel?”

— Anthony Trollope

168. “Then Lady Chiltern argued the matter on views directly opposite to those which she had put forward when discussing the matter with her husband.”

— Anthony Trollope

169. “The night was bright with stars, but there was no moon in the heavens, and the gloom of the ivy-coloured church tower was complete. But all the outlines of the place were so well known to him that he could trace them all in the dim light.”

— Anthony Trollope

170. “Never mingle love and business.”

— Anthony Trollope

171. “In former days, when there were Whigs instead of Liberals, it was almost a rule of political life that all leading Whigs sould be uncles, brothers-in-law, or cousins to each other. This was pleasant and gave great consistency to the party; but the system has now gone out of vogue.”

— Anthony Trollope

172. “A man who is supposed to have caused a disturbance between two married people, in a certain rank of life, does generally receive a certain meed of admiration.”

— Anthony Trollope

173. “No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent and be tormented.”

— Anthony Trollope

174. “What man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? And yet men expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they are married, and girls think that they can do so.”

— Anthony Trollope

175. “It is very hard, that necessity of listening to a man who says nothing.”

— Anthony Trollope

176. “If a cook can’t make soup between two and seven, she can’t make it in a week.”

— Anthony Trollope

177. “They two men cut the door, and took the box, and opened it, – and when they’d opened it, they didn’t get the swag. Where was the swag?”

— Anthony Trollope

178. “If you pardon all the evil done to you, you encourage others to do you evil!”

— Anthony Trollope

179. “When last days are coming, they should be allowed to come and to glide away without special notice or mention. And as for last moments, there should be none such. Let them ever be ended, even before their presence has been acknowledged.”

— Anthony Trollope

180. “There are moments in which stupid people say clever things, obtuse people say sharp things, and good-natured people say ill-natured things.”

— Anthony Trollope

181. “But I have said it, and will say it again. I, poor, penniless, plain simple fool that I am, have been ass enough to love you, Lady Laura Standish; and I brought you up here to-day to ask you to share with me – my nothingness. And this I have done on soil that is to be all your own. Tell me that you regard me as a conceited fool, – as a bewildered idiot.”

— Anthony Trollope

182. “Though they were Liberals they were not democrats; nor yet infidels.”

— Anthony Trollope

183. “Jacob was not in such a hurry when he wished for Rachel.” “That was all very well for an old patriarch who had seven or eight hundred years to live.” “My dear John, you forget your Bible. Jacob did not live half as long as that.”

— Anthony Trollope

184. “A man may have the best of causes, the best of talents, and the best of tempers; he may write as well as Addison, or as strongly as Junius; but even with all this he cannot successfully answer, when attacked by The Jupiter. In such matters it is omnipotent. What the Czar is in Russia, or the mob in America, that The Jupiter is in England. Answer such an article! No, warden; whatever you do, don’t do that.”

— Anthony Trollope

185. “It may, indeed, be assumed that a man who loses his temper while he is speaking is endeavouring to speak the truth such as he believes it to be, and again it may be assumed that a man who speaks constantly without losing his temper is not always entitled to the same implicit faith.”

— Anthony Trollope

186. “There are words which a man cannot resist from a woman, even though he knows them to be false.”

— Anthony Trollope

187. “I doubt whether I ever read any description of scenery which gave me an idea of the place described.”

— Anthony Trollope

188. “But as the clerical pretensions are more exacting than all others, being put forward with an assertion that no answer is possible without breach of duty and sin, so are they more galling.”

— Anthony Trollope

189. “True love, true friendship, true benevolence, true tenderness, were beautiful to her, – qualities on which she could descant almost with eloquence; and therefore she was always shamming love and friendship and benevolence and tenderness.”

— Anthony Trollope

190. “The double pleasure of pulling down an opponent, and of raising oneself, is the charm of a politician’s life.”

— Anthony Trollope

191. “It is seldom that we know anything accurately on any subject that we have not made matter of careful study,” said Mr. Monk, “and very often do not do so even then. We are very apt to think that we men and women understand one another; but most probably you know nothing even of the modes of thought of the man who lives next door to you.”

— Anthony Trollope

192. “She was as one who, in madness, was resolute to throw herself from a precipice, but to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek those who would save her from herself.”

— Anthony Trollope

193. “It is necessary to get a lot of men together, for the show of the thing, otherwise the world will not believe. That is the meaning of committees. But the real work must always be done by one or two men.”

— Anthony Trollope

194. “After that I met that lawyer in the street, and was ashamed to look him in the face. I’m blessed if he didn’t come up and shake hands with me, and tell me that he knew all along that his client hadn’t a leg to stand on. Now I call that beautiful.” “Beautiful!” said Kenneby. “Yes, I do. He fought that battle just as if he was sure of winning, though he knew he was going to lose. Give me the man that can fight a losing battle. Anybody can play whist with four by honours in his own hands.”

— Anthony Trollope

195. “Wine is valued for its price, not its flavor.”

— Anthony Trollope

196. “A pleasant letter I hold to be the pleasantest thing that this world has to give.”

— Anthony Trollope

197. “What!” said his sensible enemies, “is Johnny not to be taught to read because he does not like it?” “Johnny must read by all means,” would the doctor answer; “but is it necessary that he should not like it? If the preceptor have it in him, may not Johnny learn, not only to read, but to like to learn to read?”

— Anthony Trollope

198. “The circumstances seemed to be simple; but they who understood such matters declared that the duration of a trial depended a great deal more on the public interest felt in the matter than upon its own nature.”

— Anthony Trollope

199. “Her virtues were too numerous to describe, and not sufficiently interesting to deserve description.”

— Anthony Trollope

200. “The castle itself was a huge brick pile, built in the days of William III., which, though they were grand days for the construction of the constitution, were not very grand for architecture of a more material description.”

— Anthony Trollope