Quotes by Anthony Trollope

(On Charles Dickens) It has been the peculiarity and the marvel of this man’s power, that he has invested his puppets with a charm that has enabled him to dispense with human nature.

The Church of England is the only church in the world that interferes neither with your politics nor your religion

The more she was absolutely in need of external friendship, the more disposed was she to reject it, and to declare to herself that she was prepared to stand alone in the world.

Wars about trifles are always bitter, especially among neighbours. When the differences are great, and the parties comparative strangers, men quarrel with courtesy. What combatants are ever so eager as two brothers?

There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilised and free countries than the necessity of listening to sermons.

I hate the twaddle talk of love, whether its about myself or about any one else. It makes me feel ashamed of my sex, when I find out that I cannot talk of myself to another woman without being supposed to be either in love or thinking of love, -- either looking for it or avoiding it. When it comes, if it comes prosperously, its a very good thing. But I for one can do without it, and I feel myself injured when such a state of things is presumed to be impossible.

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.

A low voice is an excellent thing in woman.

That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing.

It is probable that Tom Towers considered himself the most powerful man in Europe; and so he walked on from day to day, studiously striving to look a man, but knowing within his breast that he was a god.

They had not been long there before Lord Dumbello did group himself. Fine day, he said, coming up and occupying the vacant position by Miss Grantlys elbow.We were driving to-day and we thought it rather cold, said Griselda.Deuced cold, said Lord Dumbello, and then he adjusted his white cravat and touched up his whiskers. Having got so far, he did not proceed to any other immediate conversational efforts; nor did Griselda. But he grouped himself again as became a marquis, and gave very intense satisfaction to Mrs. Proudie.This is so kind of you, Lord Dumbello, said that lady, coming up to him and shaking his hand warmly; so very kind of you to come to my poor little tea-party.Uncommonly pleasant, I call it, said his lordship. I like this sort of thing--no trouble, you know.No; that is the charm of it: isnt it? no trouble or fuss, or parade. Thats what I always say. According to my ideas, society consists in giving people facility for an interchange of thoughts--what we call conversation.Aw, yes, exactly.Not in eating and drinking together--eh, Lord Dumbello? And yet the practice of our lives would seem to show that the indulgence of those animal propensities can alone suffice to bring people together. The world in this has surely made a great mistake.I like a good dinner all the same, said Lord Dumbello.Oh, yes, of course--of course. I am by no means one of those who would pretend to preach that our tastes have not been given to us for our enjoyment. Why should things be nice if we are not to like them?A man who can really give a good dinner has learned a great deal, said Lord Dumbello, with unusual animation.An immense deal. It is quite an art in itself; and one which I, at any rate, by no means despise. But we cannot always be eating -- can we?No, said Lord Dumbello, not always. And he looked as though he lamented that his powers should be so circumscribed.

In social life we hardly stop to consider how much of that daring spirit which gives mastery comes from hardness of heart rather than from high purpose, or true courage. The man who succumbs to his wife, the mother who succumbs to her daughter, the master who succumbs to his servant, is as often brought to servility by a continual aversion to the giving of pain, by a softness which causes the fretfulness of others to be an agony to himself,—as by any actual fear which the firmness of the imperious one may have produced. There is an inner softness, a thinness of the minds skin, an incapability of seeing or even thinking of the troubles of others with equanimity, which produces a feeling akin to fear; but which is compatible not only with courage, but with absolute firmness of purpose, when the demand for firmness arises so strongly as to assert itself.

That fighting of a battle without belief is, I think, the sorriest task which ever falls to the lot of any man.

But the character of a man is not to be judged from the pictures which he may draw or from the antics which he may play in his solitary hours. Those who act generally with the most consummate wisdom in the affairs of the world, often meditate very silly doings before their wiser resolutions form themselves.

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.

Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable. If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous palace with pictures on all its walls, and gems in all its cupboards, with marble and ivory in all its corners, and can give Apician dinners, and get into Parliament, and deal in millions, then dishonesty is not disgraceful, and the man dishonest after such a fashion is not a low scoundrel. Instigated, I say, by some such reflections as these, I sat down in my new house to write The Way We Live Now. And as I had ventured to take the whip of the satirist into my hand, I went beyond the iniquities of the great speculator who robs everybody, and made an onslaught also on other vices;--on the intrigues of girls who want to get married, on the luxury of young men who prefer to remain single, and on the puffing propensities of authors who desire to cheat the public into buying their volumes.

Idle Jeffrey, when asking his cousin for money: I fear I have not a mercenary tendency. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and his cousin, Plantagenet Palliser: Men must have mercenary tendencies or they would not have bred. The man who plows, so he may live, does so because, luckily, he has mercenary tendencies.Jeffrey: Just so, but you see I am less lucky than the plowman.Palliser: There is no vulgar error so vulgar, that is to say common or erroneous, as that by which men have been taught to say that mercenary tendencies are bad. The desire for wealth is the source of all progress. Civilization comes from what men call greed. Let your mercenary tendencies be combines with honesty, and they cannot take you astray.

I do not know that Lady Glencoras heart was made of that stern stuff which refuses to change its impressions; but it was a heart, and it required food. To love and fondle someone, - to be loved and fondled, were absolutely necessary to her happiness. She wanted the little daily assurance of her supremacy in the mans feelings, the constant touch of love, half accidental half contrived, the passing glance of the eye telling perhaps of some little joke understood only between them two rather than of love, the softness of an occasional kiss given here and there when chance might bring them together, some half-pretended interest in her little doings, a nod, a wink, a shake of the head, or even a pout.

Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who holds a low opinion of himself.

But then the pastors and men of God can only be human,--cannot altogether be men of God; and so they have oppressed us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces, and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and idleness.