Quotes from Captains and the Kings

Taylor Caldwell ·  816 pages

Rating: (16.2K votes)


“The world is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings


“Republics never survive, for their people do not like freedom but prefer to be led and guided and flattered and seduced into slavery by a benevolent, or not so, benevolent despot. They want to worship Caesar. So, American republicanism will inevitably die and become a democracy, and then decline, as Aristotle said into a despotism.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings


“Mankind adores its betrayers, and murders its saviors.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings


“When you are young you believe the world is all yours, glorious and exhilarating and fascinating and full of promise and trumpets and drums and marches and new worlds,” said Charles. “We don’t ask ourselves what we are living for then. We know. But we forget, later, or it all seems a foolish dream.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings


“money came from human misery and death and despair, as always it does.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings



“Forests, hills, mountains, rivers, and green streams had no protection in the face of rapacity.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings


“Profits. Joe, if you want to use just one word”—and Mr. Healey wagged a huge finger at Joseph—“to describe wars and the making of wars, it’s profits. Nothing else. Profits.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings


About the author

Taylor Caldwell
Born place: in Manchester, The United Kingdom
Born date September 7, 1900
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Popular quotes

“Sometimes we’re wrong when we think that we know the truth about our parents. Perhaps they weren’t weak. Perhaps something happened to give you the wrong impression. What if they were strong? What if they were willing to leave behind a disgraced name, allow themselves to be stripped of all honour, take the blame, to save the ones they loved? And if they were that strong, perhaps you’re strong, too.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from The Son


“I can’t see any other reason he would shut down the bookshop, unless it was to help you somehow. He loves books.' She gives me a tiny, owlish smile. 'He must love you more.”
― Jessica Spotswood, quote from Star Cursed


“Flowers
Are in the
Ground,
Where we
Cannot see
The
Future
Wonderment”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Sorta Like a Rock Star


“There was a time when wen we did not form all our words as we do now, in writing on a page. There was a time when the word "&" was written with several distinct & separate letters. It seems madness now. But there it is, & there is nothing we can do about it.

Humanity learned to ride the rails, & that motion made us what we are, a ferromaritime people. The lines of the railsea go everywhere but from one place straight to another. It is always switchback, junction, coils around & over our own train-trails.

What word better could there be to symbolize the railsea that connects & separates all lands, than “&” itself? Where else does the railsea take us, but to one place & that one & that one & that one, & so on? & what better embodies, in the sweep of the pen, the recurved motion of trains, than “&”?

An efficient route from where we start to where we end would make the word the tiniest line. But it takes a veering route, up & backwards, overshooting & correcting, back down again south & west, crossing its own earlier path, changing direction, another overlap, to stop, finally, a few hairs’ width from where we began.

& tacks & yaws, switches on its way to where it’s going, as we all must do.”
― China Miéville, quote from Railsea


“THERE FOR YOU

When it all went down
And the pain came through
I get it now
I was there for you

Don’t ask me how
I know it’s true
I get it now
I was there for you

I make my plans
Like I always do
But when I look back
I was there for you

I walk the streets
Like I used to do
And I freeze with fear
But I’m there for you

I see my life
In full review
It was never me
It was always you

You sent me here
You sent me there
Breaking things
I can’t repair

Making objects
Out of thoughts
making more
By thinking not

Eating food
And drinking wine
A body that
I thought was mine

Dressed as Arab
Dressed as Jew
O mask of iron
I was there for you

Moods of glory
Moods so foul
The world comes through
A bloody towel

And death is old
But it’s always new
I freeze with fear
And I’m there for you

I see it clear
I always knew
It was never me
I was there for you

I was there for you
My darling one
And by your law
It all was done

Don’t ask me how
I know it’s true
I get it now
I was there for you”
― Leonard Cohen, quote from Book of Longing


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