Quotes from The Lost World

Arthur Conan Doyle ·  272 pages

Rating: (47.1K votes)


“There are times, young fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and justice, or you never feel clean again.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“So tomorrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word to those who are interested in our fate.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“One must wait till it comes.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“I have wrought my simple plan
If I give one hour of joy
To the boy who’s half a man,
Or the man who’s half a boy.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“He was too absurd to make me angry. Indeed, it was a waste of energy, for if you were going to be angry with this man you would be angry all the time.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World



“Some believe what separates men from animals is our ability to reason. Others say it’s language or romantic love, or opposable thumbs. Living here in this lost world, I’ve come to believe it is more than our biology. What truly makes us human is our unending search, our abiding desire for immortality.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“He has a gentle voice and a quiet manner, but behind his twinkling blue eyes there lurks a capacity for furious wrath and implacable resolution, the more dangerous because they are held in leash.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“Brain, character, soul—only as one sees more of life does one understand how distinct is each.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“لماذا لا يبذل الناس الذين يقولون أشياء جديرة بالسماع جهدًا بسيطًا لجعل صوتهم مسموعًا؟! هذا من أغرب الأمور في حياتنا المعاصرة!”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“There's many a man who never tells his adventures, for he can't hope to be believed.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World



“Оплетеният в жици свят е смърт. Всеки биолог знае, че малките изолирани групи се развиват най-бързо. Ако оставите хиляда птици на остров сред океана, тещ е се развият много бързо. Ако ги оставите на голям континент, еволюцията им ще се забави. При нашия вид, при хората, еволюцията се осъществява предимно чрез поведението. За да се приспособим, прибягваме към нов тип поведение. А всеки знае, че новото се появява само в малките групи. Създай комисия от трима души и може би ще свършват някаква работа. При десет души нещата стават сложни. При трийсет души няма никакъв резултат. При трийсет милиона просто няма какво да се надяваме. Това е ефектът от информационните медии - заради тях не може да се случи нищо. Унищожават разнообрацието. Целият свят постепенно става еднакъв. В Банкок, Токио или Лондон... на всеки ъгъл има "Макдоналдс" или "Бенетон". Регионалните различия изчезват. В света на медиите не съществува нищо друго освен първите десет песни, първите десет книги, първите десет филма, идеи и така нататък. Хората се тревожат, че в дъждоносните джунгли на Амазонка намалява разнообразието на видовете. Ами какво да кажем за интелектуалното разнообразие, нашия най-необходим ресурс? То изчезва по-бързо от дърветата. Само че ние все още не сме го разбрали и сега се каним да оплетем едва ли не пет милиарда души в компютърни мрежи. Та това ще доведе до стагнация на целия ни вид! Всичко ще замре. Всички ще мислят едно и също нещо по едно и също време.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“There are strange red depths in the soul of the most commonplace man.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“better to be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“My instincts are all against a woman being too frank and at her ease with me. It is no compliment to a man.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“It was surely well for man that he came late in the order of creation. There were powers abroad in earlier days which no courage and no mechanism of his could have met. What could his sling, his throwing-stick, or his arrow avail him against such forces as have been loose tonight? Even with a modern rifle it would be all odds on the monster.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World



“The bent head, the averted eye, the faltering voice, the wincing figure- these, and not the unshrinking gaze and frank reply, are the true signals of passion.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“It is decreed by a merciful Nature that the human brain cannot think of two things simultaneously, so that if it be steeped in curiosity as to science it has no room for merely personal considerations.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“I am an Irishman, sir." "Irish Irish?" "Yes, sir.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“really was the most tactless person upon earth,—a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“A third attempt, later in the day, provoked a terrific crash, and a subsequent message from the Central Exchange that Professor Challenger's receiver had been shattered. After that we abandoned all attempt at communication.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World



“Why on earth people who have something to say which is worth hearing should not take the slight trouble to learn how to make it heard is one of the strange mysteries of modern life.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“She could but refuse me, and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“Most interesting,” said Summerlee, bending over my shin. “An enormous blood-tick, as yet, I believe, unclassified.” “The first-fruits of our labors,” said Challenger in his booming, pedantic fashion. “We cannot do less than call it Ixodes Maloni. The very small inconvenience of being bitten, my young friend, cannot, I am sure, weigh with you as against the glorious privilege of having your name inscribed in the deathless roll of zoology. Unhappily you have crushed this fine specimen at the moment of satiation.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“for it is only when a man goes out into the world with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight of him, that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“Was it hardness, was it selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life for her own glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age; but never to ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World



“Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon earth,—a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. If anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his views upon bimetallism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an authority.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“Now, how did you know that I was going to propose?" I asked in genuine wonder. "Don't women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world was ever taken unawares?”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“Wadley sent a message: 'The President of the Zoological Institute presents his compliments to Professor Challenger, and would take it as a personal favor if he would do them the honor to come to their next meeting.' The answer was unprintable." "You don't say?" "Well, a bowdlerized version of it would run: 'Professor Challenger presents his compliments to the President of the Zoological Institute, and would take it as a personal favor if he would go to the devil.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“But chances are all around you. It is the mark of the kind of man I mean that he makes his own chances. You can't hold him back. I've never met him, and yet I seem to know him so well. There are heroisms all round us waiting to be done. It's for men to do them, and for women to reserve their love as a reward for such men. Look at that young Frenchman who went up last week in a balloon. It was blowing a gale of wind; but because he was announced to go he insisted on starting. The wind blew him fifteen hundred miles in twenty-four hours, and he fell in the middle of Russia. That was the kind of man I mean. Think of the woman he loved, and how other women must have envied her! That's what I should like to be,—envied for my man.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World


“That delicately bronzed skin, almost oriental in its coloring, that raven hair, the large liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lips,—all the stigmata of passion were there. But I was sadly conscious that up to now I had never found the secret of drawing it forth. However, come what might, I should have done with suspense and bring matters to a head tonight. She could but refuse me, and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Lost World



About the author

Arthur Conan Doyle
Born place: in Edinburgh, Scotland
Born date May 22, 1859
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