16 Quotes by Sinclair Ross

It's like being lost, and coming on an old wagon trail. You don't know where it leads, how long or why it's been abandoned, but at least it's a trail.

Hypocrisy wears hard on a man who at heart isn’t that way.

I don’t know what the solution is. Surely there’s more than one way for a man like Philip to earn his living. Surely something can be done to make him realize it. Because you’re a hypocrite you lose self-respect, because you lose your self-respect you lose your initiative and self-belief – it’s the same vicious circle, every year closing in a little tighter. Already it’s making him morose and cynical – smaller than he ought to be. I can’t help wondering what he’ll be like ten years from now.

He never unbends to Paul completely anyway. I detect just the faintest air of condescension when they’re together, the natural conviction of superiority that it seems a man of six foot three can’t help feeling over a man just five foot seven and a half.

His eyes were narrowed as he spoke, bitten a little with perplexity at the uselessness of being right against the world.

This horse is good for him. Good for his self-respect. You can’t ride a horse and feel altogether worthless, or be altogether convinced that society’s little world is the last world.

It’s like being lost, and coming on an old wagon trail. You don’t know where it leads, how long or why it’s been abandoned, but at least it’s a trail.