Miscellaneous Quotations C-D
"'Do you know that every man who sleeps believes in God? It is a
sacrament; for it is an act of faith and
it is a food.'" G.K. Chesterton, Father Brown
Stories, (Harmondsworth, 1994, p.107).
"If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were,
fondle them - peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read
from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the
shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if
you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. Let
them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If
they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a
nod of recognition." Winston S. Churchill, Painting
as a Pastime
"Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio
by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly
a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth.
Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this universe, there shines a star."Arthur C. Clarke, 2001. A Space
Odyssey (London, repr. 2000, p.7).
Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this universe, there shines a star."
"How inestimably important in its moral results - and therefore how
praiseworthy in itself - is the act of eating and drinking! The social
virtues centre in the stomach. A man who is not a better husband,
father, and brother, after dinner than before, is, digestively
speaking, an incurably vicious man. What hidden charms of character
disclose themselves, what dormant amiabilities awaken when our common
humanity gathers together to pour out the gastric juice! Wilkie
Collins, Armadale (London, 1995, p.250).
"There are some people who bring dull minds to their reading - and then
blame the writer for it." Wilkie Collins, Poor
Miss Finch (Stroud, 1994, p.256).
"'Look where you will, in every high place there sits an Ass, settled
beyond the reach of all the greatest intellects in this world to pull
him down. Over our whole social system complacent Imbecility rules
supreme ...'"
Wilkie Collins, No Name (London, 1994,
p.55).
"'Swindler. Definition: A moral agriculturist; a man who cultivates the
field of human sympathy. I am that moral agriculturist, that
cultivating man. Narrow-minded mediocrity, envious of my success in my
profession, calls me a Swindler. What of that? The same low tone of
mind assails men in other professions in a similar manner - calls great
writers, scribblers - greats generals, butchers - and so on. It
entirely depends on the point of view.'"
Wilkie Collins, No Name (London, 1994,
p.169).
"'...
ALL idealization makes life poorer. To beautify it is to take
away its character of complexity - it is to destroy it. Leave that to
the moralists, my boy. History is made by men, but they do not make it
in their heads. The ideas that are born in their consciousness play an
insignificant part in the march of events. History is dominated and
determined by the tool and the production - by the force of economic
conditions. Capitalism has made socialism, and the laws made by the
capitalism for the protection of property are responsible for
anarchism. No one can tell what form the social organization may take
in the future.'" Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent
(Oxford, 1983, p.41).
"'There is nothing so depressing as a constant contemplation of one's
self, and the greatest moral cowardice in the world's opinion comes
from consulting one's own personal convenience. It is just as if a man
were asked to look at a beautiful garden full of flowers, and, instead
of accepting the invitation, sat down with the Röntgen rays to
look at his own bones.'" Marie Corelli, "The Secret of
Happiness", lecture delivered on January 6th, 1901, in
Stratford-on-Avon, in:
Thomas F.G.Coates & R.S.Warren Bell, Marie Corelli.
The Writer and the Woman (London, 1903,
pp.265/266).
"[...]
people don't want their thoughts raised or purified in the novels they
read for amusement - they go to church for that, and get very bored
during the process." Marie Corelli, The Sorrows of
Satan (Oxford & New York, 1998, p.30).
"Both baby-featured and of infant size,
Viewed from a distance, and with heedless eyes,
Folly and innocence are so alike,
The difference, though essential, fails to strike.
Yet folly ever has a vacant stare,
A simpering countenance, and a trifling air;
But innocence, sedate, serene, erect,
Delights us, by engaging our respect."
William Cowper, "The Progress of Error".
Viewed from a distance, and with heedless eyes,
Folly and innocence are so alike,
The difference, though essential, fails to strike.
Yet folly ever has a vacant stare,
A simpering countenance, and a trifling air;
But innocence, sedate, serene, erect,
Delights us, by engaging our respect."
"Where men of judgement creep and feel their way,
The positive pronounce without dismay,
Their want of light and intellect supplied
By sparks absurdity strikes out of pride:
Without the means of knowing right from wrong,
They always are decisive, clear, and strong;
Where others toil with philosophic force,
Their nimble nonsense takes a shorter course,
Flings at your head conviction in the lump,
And gains remote conclusions at a jump:
Their own defect, invisible to them,
Seen in another they at once condemn,
And though self-idolized in every case,
Hate their own likeness in a brother's face."
William Cowper, "Conversation".
The positive pronounce without dismay,
Their want of light and intellect supplied
By sparks absurdity strikes out of pride:
Without the means of knowing right from wrong,
They always are decisive, clear, and strong;
Where others toil with philosophic force,
Their nimble nonsense takes a shorter course,
Flings at your head conviction in the lump,
And gains remote conclusions at a jump:
Their own defect, invisible to them,
Seen in another they at once condemn,
And though self-idolized in every case,
Hate their own likeness in a brother's face."
"[...] everyone - rich and poor, famous and unknown would rather talk
than listen, rather answer than ask, rather entertain than be
entertained, rather bore than be bored." Michael Dibdin, A
Rich Full Death (London, 1986; reset 1999, p.66).
"[...] Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries
for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who
have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough,
but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With
such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's
hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the
quiet calendar of a well-spent life." Charles Dickens, Barnaby
Rudge (Harmondsworth 1973, repr. 1986, p.63).
"[...] as hollow vessels produce a far more musical sound in falling
than those which are substantial, so it will oftentimes be found that
sentiments which have nothing in them make the loudest ringing in the
world, and are the most relished." Charles Dickens, Barnaby
Rudge (Harmondsworth 1973, repr. 1986, p.270).
"To surround anything, however monstrous or ridiculous, with an air of
mystery, is to invest it with a secret charm, and power of attraction
which to the crowd is irresistible. False priests, false prophets,
false doctors, false patriots, false prodigies of every kind, veiling
their proceedings in mystery, have always addressed themselves at an
immense advantage to the popular credulity, and have been, perhaps,
more indebted to that resource in gaining and keeping for a time the
upper hand of Truth and Common Sense, than to any half-dozen items in
the whole catalogue of imposture. Curiosity is, and has been from the
creation of the world, a master-passion. To awaken it, to gratify it by
slight degrees, and yet leave something always in suspense, is to
establish the surest hold that can be had, in wrong, on the unthinking
portion of mankind." Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge
(Harmondsworth 1973, repr. 1986, p.347).
"'Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of
honour, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness
of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means. Those that
cannot, are bad; and may be counted so at once, and left alone.'" Charles
Dickens, Barnaby Rudge (Harmondsworth 1973, repr.
1986, p.708).
"[...] He had been eight years at a public school, and had learnt, I
understood, to make Latin Verses of several sorts, in the most
admirable manner. But I never heard that it had been anybody's business
to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to
adapt any kind of knowledge to him. He
had been adapted to the Verses, and had learnt the art of making them
to such perfection, that if he had remained at school until he was of
age, I suppose he could only have gone on making them over and over
again, unless he had enlarged his education by forgetting how to do it.
Still, although I had no doubt that they were very beautiful, and very
improving, and very sufficient for a great many purposes of life, and
always remembered all through life, I did doubt whether Richard would
not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his
studying them quite so much." Charles Dickens, Bleak
House. The Oxford Illustrated Dickens (Oxford repr. 1987,
pp.167,168).
"[...] ghosts have little originality, and "walk" in a beaten track.
Thus, it comes to pass, that a certain room in a certain old hall,
where a certain bad lord, baronet, knight, or gentleman, shot himself,
has certain planks in the floor from which the blood will not
be taken out. You may scrape and scrape, as the present owner has done,
or plane and plane, as his father did, or scrub and scrub, as his
grandfather did, or burn and burn with strong acids, as his
great-grandfather did, but, there the blood will still be - no redder
and no paler - no more and no less - always just the same. Thus, in
such another house there is a haunted door, that never will keep open;
or another door that never will keep shut; or a haunted sound of a
spinning-wheel, or a hammer, or a footstep, or a cry, or a sigh, or a
horse's tramp, or the rattling of a chain. Or else, there is a
turret-clock, which, at the midnight hour, strikes thirteen when the
head of the famliy is going to die; or a shadowy, immovable black
carriage which at such a time is always seen by somebody, waiting near
the great gates in the stable-yard." Charles Dickens, "A
Christmas Tree" in Christmas Stories (Oxford 1991,
¹1956,
p.14).
"It is with languages as with people, - when you only know them by
sight, you are apt to mistake them; you must be on speaking terms
before you can be said to have established an acquaintance." Charles
Dickens, "Somebody's Luggage" in Christmas Stories
(Oxford 1991, ¹1956,
p.338).
"The town was glad with morning light; places that had shown ugly and
distrustful all night long, now wore a smile; and sparkling sunbeams
dancing on chamber windows, and twinkling through blind and curtain
before sleeper's eyes, shed light even into dreams, and chased away the
shadows of the night. Birds in hot rooms, covered up close and dark,
felt it was morning, and chafed and grew restless in their little
cells; bright-eyed mice crept back to their tiny homes and nestled
timidly together; the sleek house-cat, forgetful of her prey, sat
winking at the rays of sun starting through keyhole and cranny in the
door, and longed for her stealthy run and warm sleek bask outside. The
nobler beasts confined in dens, stood motionless behind their bars, and
gazed on fluttering boughs, and sunshine peeping through some little
window, with eyes in which old forests gleamed - then trod impatiently
the track their prisoned feet had worn - and stopped and gazed again.
Men in their dungeons stretched their cramp cold limbs and cursed the
stone that no bright sun could warm. The flowers that sleep by night,
opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day. The light,
creation's mind, was everywhere, and all things owned its power." Charles
Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop (London, 1995,
p.113-114).
"The world, being in the constant commission of vast quantities of
injustice, is a little too apt to comfort itself with the idea that if
the victim of its falsehood and malice have a clear conscience, he
cannot fail to be sustained under his trials, and somehow or other come
right at last; 'in which case,' say they who have hunted him down, '-
though we certainly don't expect it - nobody will be better pleased
than we.' Whereas, the world would do well to reflect, that injustice
is in itself, to every generous and properly constituted mind, an
injury, of all others the most insufferable, the most torturing, and
the most hard to bear; and that many clear consciences have gone to
their account elsewhere, and many sound hearts have broken, because of
this very reason; the knowledge of their own deserts only aggravating
their sufferings, and rendering them the less endurable." Charles
Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop (London, 1995,
p.453).
"Everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher, who had
a great theory about a horse being able to live without eating, and who
demonstrated it so well, that he got his own horse down to a straw a
day, and would unquestionably have rendered him a very spirited and
rampacious animal on nothing at all, if he had not died, just
four-and-twenty hours before he was to have had his first comfortable
bait of air." Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
(Harmondsworth, 1966, p.48).
"We need be careful how we deal with those about us, when every death
carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted,
and so little done - of so many things forgotten, and so many more
which might have been repaired, that such recollections are among the
bitterest we can have." Charles Dickens, Oliver
Twist (Harmondsworth, 1966, p.300).
"The Six Jolly Followship-Porters, already mentioned as a tavern of a
dropsical appearance, had long settled down into a state of hale
infirmity. In its whole constitution it had not a straight floor, and
hardly a straight line; but it had outlasted, and clearly would yet
outlast, many a better-trimmed building, many a sprucer public-house.
Externally it was a narrow lopsided wooden jumble of corpulent windows
heaped one upon another as you might heap as many toppling oranges,
with a crazy wooden verandah impending over the water; indeed the whole
house, inclusive of the complaining flag-staff on the roof, impended
over the water, but seemed to have got into the condition of a
faint-hearted diver who has paused so long on the brink that he will
never go in at all." Charles Dickens, Our Mutual
Friend (London, 1994, p.61).