Top 400 Anthony Trollope Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 7 of 9

301. “A man who desires to soften another man’s heart, should always abuse himself. In softening a woman’s heart, he should abuse her.”

— Anthony Trollope

302. “We all profess to believe when we’re told that this world should be used merely as a preparation for the next; and yet there is something so cold and comfortless in the theory that we do not relish the prospect even for our children.”

— Anthony Trollope

303. “In former days the Earl had been a man quite capable of making himself disagreeable, and probably had not yet lost the power of doing so. Of all our capabilities this is the one which clings longest to us.”

— Anthony Trollope

304. “Who is there that abstains from reading that which is printed in abuse of himself?”

— Anthony Trollope

305. “As a general rule, it is highly desirable that ladies should keep their temper: a woman when she storms always makes herself ugly, and usually ridiculous also. There is nothing so odious to man as a virago. Though Theseus loved an Amazon, he showed his love but roughly, and from the time of Theseus downward, no man ever wished to have his wife remarkable rather for forward prowess than retiring gentleness. A low voice “is an excellent thing in woman.”

— Anthony Trollope

306. “Gentle reader, did you ever feel yourself snubbed? Did you ever, when thinking much of your own importance, find yourself suddenly reduced to a nonentity? Such was Eleanor’s feeling now.”

— Anthony Trollope

307. “No; – I do not think that. But her temper is so ungovernable, and she has, if I may say so, been so spoilt among you here, – I mean by the girls, of course, – that she does not know how to restrain herself.”

— Anthony Trollope

308. “These leave-takings in novels are as disagreeable as they are in real life; not so sad, indeed, for they want the reality of sadness; but quite as perplexing, and generally less satisfactory.”

— Anthony Trollope

309. “But the school in which good training is most practiced will, as a rule, turn out the best scholars.”

— Anthony Trollope

310. “Both Lizzieites and anti-Lizzieites were disposed to think that Lizzie was very clever.”

— Anthony Trollope

311. “I have passed the period of a woman’s life when as a woman she is loved; but I have have not outlived the power of loving.”

— Anthony Trollope

312. “Gentlemen lacking substantial sympathy with their leader found it to be comfortable to deceive themselves, and raise their hearts at the same time by the easy enthusiasm of noise.”

— Anthony Trollope

313. “But as we do not light up our houses with our brightest lamps for all comers, so neither did she emit from her eyes their brightest sparks till special occasions for such shining had arisen.”

— Anthony Trollope

314. “Then in this country a man is to be punished or not, according to his ability to fee a lawyer!”

— Anthony Trollope

315. “He was very great,” said Ratler to Bonteen. “Did you not think so?” “Yes, I did, – very powerful indeed. But the party is broken up to atoms.” “Atoms soon come together again in politics,” said Ratler. “They can’t do without him. They haven’t got anybody else. I wonder what he did when he got home.”

— Anthony Trollope

316. “When a man wants to write a book full of unassailable facts, he always goes to the British Museum.”

— Anthony Trollope

317. “When one wants to be natural, of necessity one becomes the reverse of natural.”

— Anthony Trollope

318. “It might have been seen, I said, with half an eye, that Mr. Broughton did not like the state of the money-market; and it might also be seen with the other half that he had been endeavouring to mitigate the bitterness of his dislike by alcoholic aid. Musselboro at once perceived that his patron and partner was half drunk, and Crosbie was aware that he had been drinking.”

— Anthony Trollope

319. “The party to which he belonged had, as he knew, endeavoured to avoid the subject of the disendowment of the Church of England. It is the necessary nature of a political party in this country to avoid, as long as it can be avoided, the consideration of any question which involves a great change.”

— Anthony Trollope

320. “I have all the world to choose from, but no reason whatever for a choice.”

— Anthony Trollope

321. “But he never hears of anything. If two men fought a duel in his own dining-room he would be the last man in London to know it.”

— Anthony Trollope

322. “As man is never strong enough to take unmixed delight in good, so may we presume also that he cannot be quite so weak as to find perfect satisfaction in evil.”

— Anthony Trollope

323. “This kind of consolation from the world’s deceit is very common. Mothers obtain it from their children, and men from their dogs. Some men even do so from their walking-sticks, which is just as rational. How is it that we can take joy to ourselves in that we are not deceived by those who have not attained the art to deceive us?”

— Anthony Trollope

324. “I do not think myself to be a worm, and a grub, grass of the field fit only to be burned, a clod, a morsel of putrid atoms that should be thrown to the dungheap, ready for the nethermost pit. Nor if I did should I therefore expect to sit with Angels and Archangels.”

— Anthony Trollope

325. “It is no good any longer to have any opinion upon anything.”

— Anthony Trollope

326. “We must not be philosophical before her. Mamma, Major Grantly has – skedaddled.”

— Anthony Trollope

327. “Perhaps also Roger felt that were he to take up the cudgels for an argument he might be worsted in the combat, as in such combats success is won by practised skill rather than by truth.”

— Anthony Trollope

328. “Dr. Tempest was well known among his parishioners to be hard and unsympathetic, some said unfeeling also, and cruel; but it was admitted by those who disliked him the most that he was both practical and just, and that he cared for the welfare of many, though he was rarely touched by the misery of one.”

— Anthony Trollope

329. “I think I owe my life to cork soles.”

— Anthony Trollope

330. “Credit is a matter so subtle in its essence, that, as it may be obtained almost without reason, so, without reason, may it be made to melt away.”

— Anthony Trollope

331. “It has become a certainty now that if you will only advertise sufficiently you may make a fortune by selling anything.”

— Anthony Trollope

332. “One doesn’t have an agreement to that effect written down on parchment and sealed; but it is as well understood and ought to be as faithfully kept as any legal contract.”

— Anthony Trollope

333. “There is so much in a turn of the eye and in the tone given to a word when such things have to be said, – so much more of importance than in the words themselves.”

— Anthony Trollope

334. “A man desires to win a virgin heart, and is happy to know, – or at least to believe, -that he has won it. With a woman every former rival is an added victim to the wheels of the triumphant chariot in which she is sitting.”

— Anthony Trollope

335. “Till we can become divine, we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for change we sink to something lower.”

— Anthony Trollope

336. “There was very much in the whole affair of which he would not be proud as he led his bride to the altar; – but a man does not expect to get four thousand pounds a year for nothing.”

— Anthony Trollope

337. “People seen by the mind are exactly different to things seen by the eye. They grow smaller and smaller as you come nearer down to them, whereas things become bigger.”

— Anthony Trollope

338. “Leave a chimney-sweep alone when you see him, Chiltern. Should he run against you, then remember that it is one of the necessary penalties of clean linen that it is apt to be soiled.”

— Anthony Trollope

339. “It has been the great fault of our politicians that they have all wanted to do something.”

— Anthony Trollope

340. “What is there that money will not do?”

— Anthony Trollope

341. “There had been with him such periods of misery, during which he had wailed inwardly and had confessed to himself that the wife of his bosom was too much for him. Now the storm seemed to be coming very roughly. It would be demanded of him that he should exercise certain episcopal authority which he knew did not belong to him. Now, episcopal authority admits of being stretched or contracted according to the character of the bishop who uses it.”

— Anthony Trollope

342. “An editor is bound to avoid the meshes of the law, which are always infinitely more costly to companies, or things, or institutions, than they are to individuals.”

— Anthony Trollope

343. “A man will be generally very old and feeble before he forgets how much money he has in the funds.”

— Anthony Trollope

344. “Satire, though it may exaggerate the vice it lashes, is not justified in creating it in order that it may be lashed.”

— Anthony Trollope

345. “Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write.”

— Anthony Trollope

346. “But she knew this, – that it was necessary for her happiness that she should devote herself to some one. All the elegancies and outward charms of life were delightful, if only they could be used as the means to some end. As an end themselves they were nothing.”

— Anthony Trollope

347. “Passionate love, I take it, rarely lasts long, and is very troublesome while it does last. Mutual esteem is very much more valuable.”

— Anthony Trollope

348. “The natural man will probably be manly. The affected man cannot be so.”

— Anthony Trollope

349. “But the strength of the minority consisted, not in the fact that the majority against them was small, but that it was decreasing. How quickly does the snowball grow into hugeness as it is rolled on, – but when the change comes in the weather how quickly does it melt, and before it is gone become a thing ugly, weak, and formless!”

— Anthony Trollope

350. “The rising in life of our familiar friends is, perhaps, the bitterest morsel of the bitter bread which we are called upon to eat in life.”

— Anthony Trollope