Anthony Trollope

It is out of nature that any man should think it good that his own order should be repressed, curtailed, and deprived of its power. If we go among cab-drivers or letter-carriers, among butlers or gamekeepers, among tailors or butchers, among farmers or grazers, among doctors or attorneys, we shall find in each set of men a conviction that the welfare of the community depends upon the firmness with which they, — especially they, — hold their own.

Upon the present occasion London was full of clergymen. The specially clerical clubs, — the Oxford and Cambridge, the Old University, and the Athenaeum, — were black with them.

But as the clerical pretensions are more exacting than all others, being put forward with an assertion that no answer is possible without breach of duty and sin, so are they more galling.

A man destined to sit conspicuously on our Treasury Bench, or on the seat opposite to it, should ask the gods for a thick skin as a first gift. The need of this in our national assembly is greater than elsewhere, because the differences between men opposed to each other are smaller.

There would be a blaze and a confusion, in which timid men would doubt whether the constitution would be burned to tinder or only illuminated; but that blaze and that confusion would be dear to Mr. Daubney if he could stand as the centre figure, — the great pyrotechnist who did it all, red from head to foot with the glare of the squibs with which his own hands were filling all the spaces.

But Mr. Slide did not know that he was lying, and did not know that he was malicious. The weapon which he used was one to which his hand was accustomed, and he had been lead by practice to believe that the use of such weapons by one in his position was not only fair, but also beneficial to the public.

Late hours, nocturnal cigars, and midnight drinkings, pleasurable through they may be, consume too quickly the free-flowing lamps of youth, and are fatal at once to the husbanded candle-ends of age.

The vehemence with which his insolence was abused by one after another of those who spoke later from the other side was ample evidence of its success.

And, after a fashion, she herself believed what she was saying. Nevertheless, her nature was much nobler than his; and she know that no man should dare to live idly as the Duke had lived.

Lord Chiltern recognizes the great happiness of having a grievance. It would be a pity that so great a blessing should be thrown away upon him.

Rights and rules, which are bonds of iron to a little man, are packthread to a giant.

Now a conjuror is I think a very pleasant fellow to have among us, if we know that he is a conjuror; — but a conjuror who is believed to do his tricks without sleight of hand is a dangerous man.