37 Quotes by C.J. Sansom

I took the book and glanced at the page Guy was reading. I quoted, ‘The rich man’s substance is the wellspring of the poor man’s living.' Ah yes, that theory, that as the rich grow richer their wealth trickles down to the poor like sand. Well, I have been practising law twenty-five years and all I have seen is it trickle ever upwards.

This fashion for symbolic designs that people have to puzzle out, it tires me. There are enough real mysteries in the world.''But you paint, sir.''If ever I find time I do. But I try in my poor way to show people directly and clearly, like Master Holbein. Art should resolve the mysteries of our being, not occlude them further.

If a ruler who wants to act honourably is surrounded by unscrupulous men, his downfall is inevitable.

Have you ever thought what a God would be like who actually ordained and executed the cruelty that is in [the biblical Book of Revelation]? A holocaust of mankind. Yet so many of these Bible-men accept the idea without a second thought.

The lives God gives to us, the awful things we can’t escape from. Sometimes I think that sort of God would enjoy making hell for us after we die.

How men fear the chaos of the world, I thought, and the yawning eternity hereafter. So we build patterns to explain its terrible mysteries and reassure ourselves we are safe in this world and beyond.

Around thrones the thunder rolls.

Like all lawyers, I was delighted by gratitude. It happened so rarely.

However much one lacks piety, the atmosphere in a graveyard encourages quiet reflection.