The Warden Quotes

“What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“Did you ever know a poor man made better by law or a lawyer!' said Bunce bitterly.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“She had no startling brilliancy of beauty, no pearly whiteness, no radiant carnation. She had not the majestic contour that rivets attention, demands instant wonder, and then disappoints by the coldness of its charms. You might pass Eleanor Harding in the street without notice, but you could hardly pass an evening with her and not lose your heart.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“He took such high ground that there was no getting on to it.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“They say that faint heart never won fair lady. It is amazing to me how fair ladies are won, so faint are often men's hearts!”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“A clergyman generally dislikes being met in argument by any scriptural quotation; he feels as affronted as a doctor does, when recommended by an old woman to take some favourite dose.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“What had passed between Eleanor Harding and Mary Bold need not be told. It is indeed a matter of thankfulness that neither the historian nor the novelist hears all that is said by their heroes or heroines, or how would three volumes or twenty suffice!”
― Anthony Trollope , The Warden

“He (The warden) was painfully afraid of a disagreement with any person in any subject....he felt horror at the thought of being made the subject of common gossip and public criticism.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“The bishop did not whistle. We believe that they lose the power of doing so on being consecrated; and that in these days one might as easily meet a corrupt judge as a whistling bishop; but he looked as though he would have done so, but for his apron.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“You might pass Eleanor Harding in the street without notice, but you could hardly pass an evening with her and not lose your heart.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“He never quarreled with his wife, but he never talked to her;--he never had time to talk, he was so taken up with speaking.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“(John Bold said): If an action is the right one, personal feelings must not be allowed to interfere. Of course I greatly like Mr Harding, but that is no reason for failing in my duty to those old men.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“In former times great objects were attained by great work. When evils were to be reformed, reformers set about their heavy task with grave decorum and laborious argument. An age was occupied in proving a grievance, and philosophical researches were printed in folio pages, which it took a life to write, and an eternity to read. We get on now with a lighter step, and quicker: ridicule is found to be more convincing than argument, imaginary agonies touch more than true sorrows,”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“Of all such reformers Mr. Sentiment is the most powerful. It is incredible the number of evil practices he has put down: it is to be feared he will soon lack subjects and that when he has made the working classes comfortable, and got bitter beer put into proper-sized pint bottles, there will be nothing further for him left to do. Mr. Sentiment is certainly a very powerful man, and perhaps not the less so that his good poor people are so very good; his hard rich people so very hard; and the genuinely honest so very honest. Namby-pamby in these days is not thrown away if it be introduced in the proper quarters. Divine peeresses are no longer interesting, though possessed of every virtue; but a pattern peasant or an immaculate manufacturing hero may talk as much twaddle as one of Mrs. Ratcliffe's heroines, and still be listened to. Perhaps, however, Mr. Sentiment's great attraction is in his second-rate characters. If his heroes and heroines walk upon stilts as heroes and heroines, I fear, ever must, their attendant satellites are as natural as though one met them in the street: they walk and talk like men and women, and live among our friends a rattling, lively life — yes, live, and will live till the names of their callings shall be forgotten in their own, and Buckett and Mrs. Gamp will be the only words left to us to signify detective police officer or a monthly nurse.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“he was doing nothing, thinking of nothing, looking at nothing; he was merely suffering.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“the public is defrauded when it is purposely misled. Poor public! how often is it misled! against what a world of fraud has it to contend!”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“He was not so anxious to prove himself right, as to be so.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“Gentle reader, did you ever feel yourself snubbed? Did you ever, when thinking much of your own importance, find yourself suddenly reduced to a nonentity? Such was Eleanor's feeling now.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“We get on now with a lighter step, and quicker: ridicule is found to be more convincing than argument, imaginary agonies touch more than true sorrows, and monthly novels convince, when learned quartos fail to do so.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“A man may have the best of causes, the best of talents, and the best of tempers; he may write as well as Addison, or as strongly as Junius; but even with all this he cannot successfully answer, when attacked by The Jupiter. In such matters it is omnipotent. What the Czar is in Russia, or the mob in America, that The Jupiter is in England. Answer such an article! No, warden; whatever you do, don't do that.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“Dr Grantly is by no means a bad man; he is exactly the man which such an education as his was most likely to form; his intellect being sufficient for such a place in the world, but not sufficient to put him in advance of it.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“It is probable that Tom Towers considered himself the most powerful man in Europe; and so he walked on from day to day, studiously striving to look a man, but knowing within his breast that he was a god.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“In judging of them, he judged leniently; the whole bias of his profession had taught him to think that they were more sinned against than sinning, and that the animosity with which they had been pursued was venomous and unjust; but he had not the less regarded their plight as most miserable.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“Dr Grantly would be ready enough to take up his cudgel against all comers on behalf of the church militant, but he would do so on the distasteful ground of the church's infallibility. Such a contest would give no comfort to Mr Harding's doubts. He was not so anxious to prove himself right, as to be so.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“Mrs Grantly after her father's death. This matter, therefore, had been taken out of the warden's hands”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“They say that faint heart never won fair lady; and it is amazing to me how fair ladies are won, so faint are often men's hearts! Were it not for the kindness of their nature, that seeing the weakness of our courage they will occasionally descend from their impregnable fortresses, and themselves aid us in effecting their own defeat, too often would they escape unconquered if not unscathed, and free of body if not of heart.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“it isn't easy to come down from affluence to poverty.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“What is any public question but a conglomeration of private interests? What is any newspaper article but an expression of the views taken by one side? Truth! it takes an age to ascertain the truth of any question!”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“The love of titles is common to all men, and a vicar or a fellow is as pleased at becoming Mr. Archdeacon or Mr. Provost, as a lieutenant at getting his captaincy, or a city tallow-chandler in becoming Sir John on the occasion of a Queen’s visit to a new bridge.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden