Quotes by British Authors - Page 101

In the end it may well be that Britain will be more honoured by the historians for the way she disposed of an empire than for the way in which she acquired it.
David Ormsby Gore
We do not suffer by accident.
Jane Austen
Desire is an appetite, quickly sated. Longing is a wound, an opening in the heart or the spirit. Whatever the cause, whatever the duration, it almost always leaves a scar.
Philip Sington
In the discoveries of science the harmony of the spheres is also now the harmony of life. And as the eerie illumination of science penetrates evermore deeply into the order of nature, the cosmos appears increasingly to be a vast system finely tuned to generate life and organisms of biology very similar, perhaps identical, to ourselves. All the evidence available in the biological sciences supports the core proposition of traditional natural theology - that the cosmos is a specially designed whole with life and mankind as a fundamental goal and purpose, a whole in which all facets of reality, from the size of galaxies to the thermal capacity of water, have their meaning and explanation in this central fact.Four centuries after the scientific revolution apparently destroyed irretrievably man's special place in the universe, banished Aristotle, and rendered teleological speculation obsolete, the relentless stream of discovery has turned dramatically in favor of teleology and design, and the doctrine of the microcosm is reborn. As I hope the evidence presented in this book has shown, science, which has been for centuries the great ally of atheism and skepticism, has become at last, in the final days of the second millennium, what Newton and many of its early advocates had so fervently wished - the "defender of the anthropocentric faith.
Michael Denton
Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?
Samuel Johnson
His jaw was set, telling me I should back off. Unfortunately, being a gobby cow meant I couldn’t.
Kyra Lennon
Any society's upper-crust is riddled with immorality, how else d'you think they keep their power? Reputation is king of the public sphere, not private. It is dethroned by public acts.
David Mitchell
One can be interested in both fashion and politics, don't you think? They so often go hand in hand. Appearances, saying the right words, making people like you...
Rhiannon Thomas
Love from one being to another can only be that two solitudes come nearer recognize and protect and comfort each other.
Han Suyin
A lie is no less a lie because it is a thousand years old. Your undivided church has liked nothing better than persecuting its own members, burning them and hacking them apart when they stood by their own conscience, slashing their bellies open and feeding their guts to dogs.
Hilary Mantel
She has a smile that grows slowly and then shines, like an angel’s smile.
Philippa Gregory
She shook her head in perplexity. "I'll never know where you got the idea that you were destined for greatness." She dropped the rest of the rabbit in the pot and begun to clean the underside of its skin. She would use the fur. "You certainly didn't inherit it from your forebears.
Ken Follett
A mighty mass of brick and smoke and shipping Dirty and dusty but as wide as eye Could reach with here and there a sail just skipping In sight then lost amidst the forestry Of masts a wilderness of steeples peeping On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy A huge dun cupola like a fools-cap crown On a fool's head - and there is London Town.
Lord Byron
The same heart beats in every human breast.
Matthew Arnold
We are really so prejudiced by our educations, that, as the ancients deified their heroes, we deify their madmen.
Philip Dormer Stanhope
Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.
Anthony Powell
Tears streamed down my face. I was so happy I wanted to shout it from the rooftop. But at the same time I knew that that afternoon's downpour would have made the slate tiles so slippery that achieving any kind of purchase would have been impossible.
Alan Partridge
Man who TOY with Womans feelings and emotions are heartless & faithless creatures. But don’t hate them. Show empathy because they are poor & forgotten souls !
Lily Amis
Be good sweet maid and let who will be clever Do noble things not dream them all day long And so make life death and that vast forever One grand sweet song.
Charles Kingsley
Like so many of our neighbors who latched onto tragedy to stand out from the crowd -- slavery, incest, a suicide -- I had exaggerated the ethnic chip on my shoulder for effect. I've learned since that tragedy is not to be hoarded. Only the untouched, the well-fed and contented, could possibly covet suffering like a designer jacket. I'd readily donate my story to the Salvation Army so that some other frump in need of color could wear it away.
Lionel Shriver
You don't expect me," he said, "to revolutionize society on this lawn?"Syme looked straight into his eyes and smiled sweetly."No, I don't," he said; "but I suppose that if you were serious about your anarchism, that is exactly what you would do.
G.K. Chesterton
Straight tribulation is easier to bear than tribulation which advertises itself as pleasure.
C.S. Lewis
The popular view that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years.
Agatha Christie
My disease is one of the best things that has happened to me it has pulled me out of a quietly desperate life toward one full of love and hope.
Tom O'Connor
Bring Down The WallsI will bring down the wallsthat surround me today.I will no longer be kept quietMeek enough to drown today....
Muse
Sometimes it's a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.
David Byrne
What destiny is there, but to sense, observe, merge, re-emerge,Empty, yet filled, spreading everywhere, inside, outside, in, Pulsing, fluctuating, breathing as part of one being, Whispering, feeling, reflecting, flowing between hot and cold, Mineral and plant, dark and light, love and fear, new and old.
Jay Woodman
Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different.
Neil Gaiman
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
Logan Pearsall Smith
The body is merely an evolutionary vehicle for the gene
Matt Ridley
I've no idea when I'm going to wear it, the girl replied calmly. I only knew that I had to have it. Once I tried it on, well... She shrugged. The dress claimed me.
Isabel Wolff
The great liberal betrayal of this generation is that in the name of liberalism, communal rights have been prioritized over individual autonomy within minority groups. And minorities within minorities really do suffer because of this betrayal. The people I really worry about when we have this conversation are feminist Muslims, gay Muslims, ex-Muslims—all the vulnerable and bullied individuals who are not just stigmatized but in many cases violently assaulted or killed merely for being against the norm.
Maajid Nawaz
A library is thought in cold storage.
Viscount Herbert Samuel
Your hard-won triumphs can be wholly negated if you live in a climate where your victories are seen as threatening, incorrect, distasteful, or -- most crucially of all, for a teenage girl -- simply uncool. Few girls would choose to be right -- right, down into their clever, brilliant bones -- but lonely.
Caitlin Moran
Do you really think that God in his heaven with all the angels, there from the beginning of time and looking towards the day of judgement day, really looks down on all the world and see's you and little harry and says 'whatever you choose to do is my will?' "Yes i do." she says uncertainly.
Philippa Gregory
The justice and truth of God are here written in bloody characters, for the conviction or the confusion of all those that make a jest of his threatenings. Let them not be deceived, God is not mocked.
Matthew Henry
It's the deep breath before the plunge.
J.R.R. Tolkien
There have been occasions in my later life (I suppose in most lives) when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all interest in romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance.
Charles Dickens
I sit up in bed slowly, feeling the disappointment trickle away like puddles after a rain shower.
Scarlett Thomas
Oh, very good,' interrupted Snape, his lip curling. 'Yes, it is easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. 'Ghosts are transparent.
J.K. Rowling
The ones who love us never really leave us, you can always find them in here.' - Sirius Black
J.K. Rowling
In effect, nobody who is not from the losing classes has ever been thrust into a death cell in these United States.
Christopher Hitchens
We could have all been killed -or worse, expelled.
J.K. Rowling
Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.
W.H. Auden
I had never before met anyone who owned a telephone and believed in dragons.
Anna Kavan
Later in life, I learnt that many things one may require have to be weighed against one's dignity, which can be an insuperable barrier against advancement in almost any direction. However, in those days, choice between dignity and unsatisfied curiosity was less clear to me as a cruel decision that had to be made.
Anthony Powell
My own opinion is enough for me, and I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line, and kiss my ass.
Christopher Hitchens
Sitting here, literally amongst the dead, reckoning up gains and losses, casting accounts, I have come to see gains that cannot be reckoned in terms of wealth, and losses that are more damaging than loss of a crop... I look at the River and I see the lifeblood of Egypt that has existed before we lived and that will exist after we die... Life and death, Renisenb, are not of such great account.
Agatha Christie
1 in 5 people have dandruff. 1 in 4 people have mental health problems. I've had both.
Ruby Wax
He pictured himself at the lake, on a houseboat. Dekka would be there, and Brianna and Jack. He would have friends. He wouldn’t be alone.But he couldn’t stop himself from looking for her.She no longer had Little Pete to worry about. They could be together without all of that. But of course he knew Astrid, and knew that right now, wherever she was, she was eaten up inside with guilt.“She’s not coming, is she?” Sam said to Dekka.But Dekka didn’t answer. She was somewhere else in her head. Sam saw her glance and look away as Brianna laid a light hand on Jack’s shoulder.Dahra was staying in the hospital, but a few more kids came. Groups of three or four at a time. The Siren and the kids she lived with came. John Terrafino came. Ellen. He waited. He would wait the full two hours. Not for her, he told himself, just to keep his word.Then Orc, with Howard.Sam groaned inwardly.“You gotta be kidding me,” Brianna said.“The deal was kids make a choice,” Sam said. “I think Howard just realized how dangerous life can be for a criminal living in a place where the ‘king’ can decide life or death.
Michael Grant
That's the best thing about little sisters: They spend so much time wishing they were elder sisters that in the end they're far wiser than the elder ones could ever be.
Gemma Burgess
It is easy to be wise after the event.
Arthur Conan Doyle
But I saw your aura looking healthy again, then looking sick after a hunt. And you keep getting migraines. You should take better care of yourself,” he added mildly. “Look for ways to not be so tense – long walks, meditation, these things would help.”Alex suddenly felt like Seb was his therapist; he had to resist the urge to shake him.
l.a weatherly
Are we all, at heart, just Internet trolls?
Sarah Lotz
He certainly is very charming, but he makes me feel slightly ill at ease—almost as if I were a woman manquée, if there could be such a thing—you know, something lacking in me.""Oh, well, that's hardly his fault.""No," Dulcie agreed. "Mine, of course.
Barbara Pym
Lord, What a terrible shame. You're so attractive!'I know, I want to tell her. It should have happened to someone really ugly. And then it wouldn't have mattered.
Liz Jensen
The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I gained a new friend; and when I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting of an old one.
James Goldsmith
That cowardice is incorrigible which the love of power cannot overcome.
Charles Caleb Colton
I'm just not prepared to be treated like this anymore.''Treated like what?'She sighed, and it was a moment before she spoke. 'Like you always want to be somewhere else, with someone else.
David Nicholls
The human race is unimportant. It is the self that must not be betrayed.""I suppose one could say that Hitler didn't betray his self.""You are right. He did not. But millions of Germans did betray their selves. That was the tragedy. Not that one man had the courage to be evil. But that millions had not the courage to be good.
John Fowles