Top 400 Anthony Trollope Quotes (2024 Update)
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301. “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

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

— Anthony Trollope

303. “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

304. “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

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

— Anthony Trollope

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

— Anthony Trollope

307. “Servants are wonderful actors, looking often as though they knew nothing when they know everything, – as though they understood nothing, when they understand all.”

— Anthony Trollope

308. “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

309. “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

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

— Anthony Trollope

311. “I would carry you home, Mary, if it would do you a service,” said Frank, with considerable pathos in his voice. “Oh, dear me! pray do not, Mr Gresham. I should not like it at all,” said she: “a wheelbarrow would be preferable to that.”

— Anthony Trollope

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

— Anthony Trollope

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

— Anthony Trollope

314. “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

315. “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

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

— Anthony Trollope

317. “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

318. “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

319. “And I think that when once he had learned the art of arranging his words as he stood upon his legs, and had so mastered his voice as to have obtained the ear of the House, the work of his life was not difficult.”

— Anthony Trollope

320. “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

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

— Anthony Trollope

322. “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

323. “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

324. “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

325. “When the little dog snarls, the big dog does not connect the snarl with himself, simply fancying that the little dog must be uncomfortable.”

— Anthony Trollope

326. “What had passed between Eleanor Harding and Mary Bold need not be told. It is indeed a matter of thankfulness that neither the historian nor the novelist hears all that is said by their heroes or heroines, or how would three volumes or twenty suffice!”

— Anthony Trollope

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

— Anthony Trollope

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

— Anthony Trollope

329. “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

330. “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

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

— Anthony Trollope

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

— Anthony Trollope

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

— Anthony Trollope

334. “Late hours, nocturnal cigars, and midnight drinkings, pleasurable though they may be, consume too quickly the free-flowing lamps of youth, and are fatal at once to the husbanded candle-ends of age.”

— Anthony Trollope

335. “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

336. “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

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

— Anthony Trollope

338. “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

339. “There are certain phases of mind in which a man can neither ride nor shoot, nor play a stroke at billiards, nor remember a card at whist, – and to such a phase of mind had come both Crosbie and Dale after their conversation over the gate.”

— Anthony Trollope

340. “A novelist’s characters must be with him as he lies down to sleep, and as he wakes from his dreams. He must learn to hate them and to love them.”

— Anthony Trollope

341. “Upon the present occasion London was full of clergymen. The specially clerical clubs, the Oxford and Cambridge, the Old University, and the Athenaeum, were black with them.”

— Anthony Trollope

342. “Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes.”

— Anthony Trollope

343. “It is, however, no doubt, true that thought will not at once produce wisdom. It may almost be a question whether such wisdom as many of us have in our mature years has not come from the dying out of the power of temptation, rather than as the results of thought and resolution. Men, full fledged and at their work, are, for the most part, too busy for much thought; but lads, on whom the work of the world has not yet fallen with all its pressure, – they have time for thinking.”

— Anthony Trollope

344. “His feelings towards his friends were, that while they stuck to him he would stick to them; that he would work with them shoulder to shoulder; that he would be faithful to the faithful. He knew nothing of the beautiful love which can be true to a false friend.”

— Anthony Trollope

345. “Rest and quiet are the comforts of those who have been content to remain in obscurity.”

— Anthony Trollope

346. “Nevertheless, it is not an uncommon thing to hear openly at the clubs an account of what has been settled; and, as we all know, not a council is held as to which the editor of The People’s Banner does not inform its readers next day exactly what took place.”

— Anthony Trollope

347. “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

348. “Here in England the welfare of the State depends on the conduct of our aristocracy.”

— Anthony Trollope

349. “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

350. “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