“If anything she was a shade too plump, but she knew the ninety-seven ways of making love that the Hindus are supposed to set much store by―though mind you, it is all nonsense, for the seventy-fourth position turns out to be the same as the seventy-third, but with your fingers crossed.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“I recognized the handwriting, and my heart gave a skip; when I opened it I got a turn, for it began, 'To my beloved Hector,' and I thought, by God she's cheating on me, and has sent me the wrong letter by mistake. But in the second line was a reference to Achilles, and another to Ajax, so I understood she was just addressing me in terms which she accounted fitting for a martial paladin; she knew no better. It was a common custom at that time, in the more romantic females, to see their soldier husbands and sweethearts as Greek heroes, instead of the whore-mongering, drunken clowns most of them were. However, the Greek heroes were probably no better, so it was not far off the mark.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“Now, look you here, Sekundar," says I, but he came up straight like a little bantam and cut me off.
"Sir Alexander. if you please," says he icily, as though I’d never seen him with his breeches down, chasing after some big Afghan bint.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“This myth called bravery, which is half-panic, half-lunacy (in my case, all panic), pays for all; in England you can’t be a hero and bad. There’s practically a law against it.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“We stood there for a full half hour, like so many scarecrows, while they jeered at us from a distance, and one or two of us were shot down.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“But I still state unhesitatingly, that for pure, vacillating stupidity, for superb incompetence to command, for ignorance combined with bad judgment --in short, for the true talent for catastrophe -- Elphy Bey stood alone. Others abide our question, but Elphy outshines them all as the greatest military idiot of our own or any other day.
Only he could have permitted the First Afghan War and let it develop to such ruinous defeat. It was not easy: he started with a good army, a secure position, some excellent officers, a disorganized enemy, and repeated opportunities to save the situation. But Elphy, with the touch of true genius, swept aside these obstacles with unerring precision, and out of order wrought complete chaos. We shall not, with luck, look upon his like again.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“You are a sorry creature, Flashman. I have failed in you. But even to you I must say, this is not the end. You cannot continue here, but you are young, Flashman, and there is time yet. Though your sins be as red as crimson, yet shall they be as white as snow. You have fallen very low, but you can be raised up again …”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“In her, ignorance and stupidity formed a perfect shield against the world: this, I suppose, is innocence. It”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
George MacDonald Fraser
Born place: in Carlisle, The United Kingdom
Born date April 2, 1925
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“...for they was never a young man yet who don't want to go out and right a wrong, or kill a man, or have to do something to earn his right to what is there for the taking, all along. Only he don't think he can ask, nor take, without earning it. Without no pain. Oftener than not, a young man's a regular fool.”
― Lee Smith, quote from Oral History
“Because wholeness and meaning in life are not the products of what you have or don’t have, what you’ve done or haven’t done. You are already a whole person and possess a life of infinite meaning and purpose because of who you are—a child of God.”
― Neil T. Anderson, quote from Victory Over the Darkness
“George, I know you’re tired. But President Lincoln, he didn’t free us to be lazy and no good. He freed us to work hard and improve ourselves.”-George’s Grandmother.”
― quote from Life is So Good
“A person who has had the misfortune to fall victim to the spell of a philosophical system (and the spells of sorcerers are mere trifles in comparison to the disastrous effect of the spell of a philosophical system!) can no longer see the world, or people, or historic events, as they are; he sees everything only through the distorting prism of the system by which he is possessed. Thus, a Marxist of today is incapable of seeing anything else in the history of mankind other than the “class struggle”.
What I am saying concerning mysticism, gnosis, magic and philosophy would be considered by him only as a ruse on the part of the bourgeois class, with the aim of “screening with a mystical and idealistic haze” the reality of the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie…although I have not inherited anything from my parents and I have not experienced a single day without having to earn my living by means of work recognised as “legitimate” by Marxists!
Another contemporary example of possession by a system is Freudianism. A man possessed by this system will see in everything that I have written only the expression of “suppressed libido”, which seeks and finds release in this manner. It would therefore be the lack of sexual fulfillment which has driven me to occupy myself with the Tarot and to write about it!
Is there any need for further examples? Is it still necessary to cite the Hegelians with their distortion of the history of humanity, the Scholastic “realists” of the Middle Ages with the Inquisition, the rationalists of the eighteenth century who were blinded by the light of their own autonomous reasoning?
Yes, autonomous philosophical systems separated from the living body of tradition are parasitic structures, which seize the thought, feeling and finally the will of human beings. In fact, they play a role comparable to the psycho-pathological complexes of neurosis or other psychic maladies of obsession. Their physical analogy is cancer.”
― quote from Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism
“Even in lies there are sometimes truths revealed.”
― Terry Brooks, quote from The Gypsy Morph
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There is No Light in...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.
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