559 Quotes by Anthony Trollope

He certainly was no fool. He had read much, and, though he generally forgot what he read, there were left with him from his readings certain nebulous lights, begotten by other men’s thinking, which enabled him to talk on most subjects. It cannot be said of him that he did much thinking for himself; – but he thought that he thought.

If she were born a gentlewoman! And then came to her mind those curious questions; what makes a gentleman? what makes a gentlewoman? What is the inner reality, the spiritualised quintessence of that privilege in the world which men call rank, which forces the thousands and hundreds of thousands to bow down before the few elect? What gives, or can give it, or should give it?

It cannot, however, be said that this Petruchio had as yet tamed his own peculiar shrew. Lucinda was as savage as ever, and would snap and snarl, and almost bite.

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

You guess. You’re always a-guessing. And because you know how to guess, they pays you for guessing. But guessing ain’t knowing. You don’t know; – nor yet don’t I.

He had for two years been a suitor of Violet Effingham, who was the acknowledged beauty of the day, – of Violet Effingham who, at the present time, was the wife of Lord Chiltern; and he had offered himself thrice to Madame Max Goesler, who was reputed to be as rich as she was beautiful.

It has now become the doctrine of a large clan of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man’s interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement.

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.

There’s nothing like going on with a thing.