Quotes from Can You Forgive Her?

Anthony Trollope ·  847 pages

Rating: (5.4K votes)


“She was as one who, in madness, was resolute to throw herself from a precipice, but to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek those who would save her from herself.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“Little bits of things make me do it; — perhaps a word that I said and ought not to have said ten years ago; — the most ordinary little mistakes, even my own past thoughts to myself about the merest trifles. They are always making me shiver.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“In this world things are beautiful only because they are not quite seen, or not perfectly understood. Poetry is precious chiefly because it suggests more than it declares.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“My dear, the truth must be spoken. I declare I don't think I ever saw a young woman so improvident as you are. When are you to begin to think about getting married if you don't do it now?"
"I shall never begin to think about it, till I buy my wedding clothes.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“You shall be my pet, and my poppet, and my dearest little duck all the days of your life.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?



“I like to have a plan," said Mr. Palliser. "And so do I," said his wife,--"if only for the sake of not keeping it.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“He's a very handsome man, is the captain," said Jeaneatte. . .
"You shouldn't think about handsome men, child," said Mrs. Greenow.
"And I'm sure I don't," said Jeanette. "Not more than anybody else; but if a man is handsome, ma'am, why, it stands to reason that he is handsome.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“It seems to me that if a man can so train himself that he may live honestly and die fearlessly, he has done about as much as is necessary.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“Men and women ain't lumps of sugar. They don't melt because the water is sometimes warm.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“A man has usually to work through much mud before he gets his nugget.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?



“There are men whose energies hardly ever carry them beyond looking for the thing they want.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“Babbling may be a weakness, but to my thinking mystery is a vice.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“Every man to himself is the centre of the whole world;—the axle on which it all turns. All knowledge is but his own perception of the things around him. All love, and care for others, and solicitude for the world's welfare, are but his own feelings as to the world's wants and the world's merits.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“She was not softly delicate in all her ways; but in disposition and temper she was altogether generous. I do not know that she was at all points a lady, but had Fate so willed it she would have been a thorough gentleman.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“If a cook can't make soup between two and seven, she can't make it in a week.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?



“And then she began to think about Lady Glencora herself. What a strange, weird nature she was,—with her round blue eyes and wavy hair, looking sometimes like a child and sometimes almost like an old woman! And how she talked! What things she said, and what terrible forebodings she uttered of stranger things that she meant to say!”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“If he was dull as a statesman he was more dull in private life, and it may be imagined that such a woman as his wife would find some difficulty in making his society the source of her happiness. Their marriage, in a point of view regarding business, had been a complete success,—and a success, too, when on the one side, that of Lady Glencora, there had been terrible dangers of shipwreck, and when on his side also there had been some little fears of a mishap.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“Oh, that that old man in Westmoreland would die and be gathered to his fathers, now that he was full of years and ripe for the sickle! But there was no sign of death about the old man.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“Idle Jeffrey, when asking his cousin for money: "I fear I have not a mercenary tendency."

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and his cousin, Plantagenet Palliser: "Men must have mercenary tendencies or they would not have bred. The man who plows, so he may live, does so because, luckily, he has mercenary tendencies."

Jeffrey: "Just so, but you see I am less lucky than the plowman."

Palliser: "There is no vulgar error so vulgar, that is to say common or erroneous, as that by which men have been taught to say that mercenary tendencies are bad. The desire for wealth is the source of all progress. Civilization comes from what men call greed. Let your mercenary tendencies be combines with honesty, and they cannot take you astray.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“I do not know that Lady Glencora's heart was made of that stern stuff which refuses to change its impressions; but it was a heart, and it required food. To love and fondle someone, - to be loved and fondled, were absolutely necessary to her happiness. She wanted the little daily assurance of her supremacy in the man's feelings, the constant touch of love, half accidental half contrived, the passing glance of the eye telling perhaps of some little joke understood only between them two rather than of love, the softness of an occasional kiss given here and there when chance might bring them together, some half-pretended interest in her little doings, a nod, a wink, a shake of the head, or even a pout.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?



“He made up his mind to see Kate, and with this view he went down to Westmoreland; and took himself to a small wayside inn at Shap among the fells, which had been known to him of old. He gave his sister notice that he would be there, and begged her to come over to him as early as she might find it possible on the’ morning after his arrival. He himself reached the place late in the evening by train from London. There is a station at Shap, by which the railway company no doubt conceives that it has conferred on that somewhat rough and remote locality all the advantages of a refined civilization; but I doubt whether the Shappites have been thankful for the favour. The landlord at the inn, for one, is not thankful. Shap had been a place owing all such life as it had possessed to coaching and posting. It had been a stage on the high road from Lancaster to Carlisle, and though it lay high and bleak among the fells, and was a cold, windy, thinly-populated place, – filling all travellers with thankfulness that they had not been made Shappites, nevertheless, it had had its glory in its coaching and posting. I have no doubt that there are men and women who look back with a fond regret to the palmy days of Shap.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“Lady Glendora herself had a love for the mountains and lakes, but it was a love of that kind which requires to be stimulated by society, and which is keenest among cold chickens, picnic-pies, and the flying of champagne corks.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


“YARMOUTH is not a happy place for a picnic. A picnic should be held among green things. Green turf is absolutely an essential. There should be trees, broken ground, small paths, thickets, and hidden recesses. There should, if possible, be rocks, old timber, moss, and brambles. There should certainly be hills and dales, – on a small scale; and above all, there should be running water. There should be no expanse. Jones should not be able to see all Greene’s movements, nor should Augusta always have her eye upon her sister Jane. But the spot chosen for Mr Cheesacre’s picnic at Yarmouth had none of the virtues above described. It was on the seashore. Nothing was visible from the site but sand and sea. There were no trees there and nothing green: – neither was there any running water. But there was a long, dry, flat strand; there was an old boat half turned over, under which it was proposed to dine; and in addition to this, benches, boards, and some amount of canvas for shelter were provided by the liberality of Mr Cheesacre. Therefore it was called Mr Cheesacre’s picnic.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from Can You Forgive Her?


About the author

Anthony Trollope
Born place: in London, The United Kingdom
Born date April 24, 1815
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