Quotes from Dreadnought

Robert K. Massie ·  1040 pages

Rating: (5K votes)


“He was said to ride hallooing through the night, to be ready to shoot, hunt, or swim anywhere in any weather, to be able to drink half a dozen young lieutenants from nearby garrisons under the table, to wake up his occasional guests by firing a pistol through their bedroom windows, to have seduced every peasant girl in all the villages, to have released a fox in a lady’s drawing room.”
― Robert K. Massie, quote from Dreadnought


“But I should think our patriotism was warped and stunted indeed if it did not embrace the Greater Britain beyond the seas—the young and vigorous nations carrying everywhere a knowledge of the English tongue and English love of liberty and law. With these feelings, I refuse to speak or think of the United States as a foreign nation. They are our flesh and blood.… Our past is theirs. Their future is ours.…”
― Robert K. Massie, quote from Dreadnought


“At dinner one night at Osborne House, the Queen entertained a famous admiral whose hearing was impaired. Politely, Victoria had asked about his fleet and its activities; then, shifting the subject, she asked about the admiral’s sister, an elderly dowager of awesome dignity. The admiral thought she was inquiring about his flagship, which was in need of overhaul. “Well, ma’am,” he said, “as soon as I get back I’m going to have her hauled out, roll her on her side and have the barnacles scraped off her bottom.” Victoria stared at him for a second and then, for minutes afterward, the dining room shook with her unstoppable peals of laughter.”
― Robert K. Massie, quote from Dreadnought


“Lord Salisbury’s basic educational philosophy was that higher authority could, at best, have only a marginal effect; real desire to learn had to come from within. “N. has been very hard put to it for something to do,” he wrote of a son who had been left alone with him for a few days at Hatfield. “Having tried all the weapons in the gun-cupboard in succession—some in the riding room and some, he tells me, in his own room—and having failed to blow his fingers off, he has been driven to reading Sydney Smith’s Essays and studying Hogarth’s pictures.” Lady Salisbury did not share her husband’s detached approach. “He may be able to govern the country,” she said, “but he is quite unfit to be left in charge of his children.”
― Robert K. Massie, quote from Dreadnought


“There is something restful in the unconsciousness of animals—unconscious, that is, of all the things that matter so much to us and do not matter at all to them.”
― Robert K. Massie, quote from Dreadnought



About the author

Robert K. Massie
Born place: in Lexington, The United States
Born date January 1, 1929
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“My life is up to me to define. I needed to make my own dreams come true.”
― Kaira Rouda, quote from Here, Home, Hope


“There was a fellow called Smiley married Ann Sercomb, Lord Sawley’s cousin. Damned pretty girl, Ann was, and went and married this fellow. Some funny little beggar in the Civil Service with an OBE and a gold watch. Sawley was damned annoyed.”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality


“All we really know of the universe is what filters in through our senses, and that isn’t a whole lot. Take the electromagnetic spectrum. It includes virtually every ripple of energy that powers the cosmos, from the long, lazy radio waves we communicate with through microwaves that we cook with all the way up to X-rays and gamma rays, which pack enough punch into their wavelengths to outshine an entire galaxy. All that majesty, all that infinite variety of energy, and all we see is a narrow little slice of it: seven measly colors. It’s like being invited to a royal banquet and then only being allowed to pick the crumbs off one plate.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from InterWorld


“or runs a more accommodating bank.”
― Napoleon Hill, quote from Law of Success


“Caring about what others think is the biggest jail one can put oneself in.”
― Durjoy Datta, quote from If It's Not Forever. It's Not Love.


Interesting books

The Girl In Times Square
(5.8K)
The Girl In Times Sq...
by Paullina Simons
The Four Loves
(34K)
The Four Loves
by C.S. Lewis
Luncheon of the Boating Party
(6.5K)
Luncheon of the Boat...
by Susan Vreeland
Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Quabbalistic, and Ro
(3K)
Secret Teachings of...
by Manly P. Hall
Heartsnatcher
(3.7K)
Heartsnatcher
by Boris Vian
Old Magic
(9.6K)
Old Magic
by Marianne Curley

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.