Over 40,000 Famous Quotes Sorted By Topic and Author

But wherefore thou alone? Wherefore with theeCame not all hell broke loose? Is pain to themLess pain, less to be fled, or thou than theyLess hardy to endure? Courageous chief,The first in flight from pain, hadst thou allegedTo thy deserted host this cause of flight,Thou surely hadst not come sole fugitive. - Paradise Lost.

Here at lastWe shall be free;the Almighty hath not builtHere for his envy, will not drive us hence:Here we may reign secure, and in my choiceTo reign is worth ambition though in Hell:Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven. - Paradise Lost.

When the waves are round me breaking,As I pace the deck alone,And my eye in vain is seekingSome green leaf to rest upon;What would not I give to wanderWhere my old companions dwell?Absence makes the heart grow fonder,Isle of Beauty, fare thee well! - Paradise Lost.

Beauty is but a flower,Which wrinkles will devour;Brightness falls from the air;Queens have died young and fair;Dust hath closed Helen's eye.I am sick, I must die;Lord have mercy on us. - Song in Time of Pestilence.

'Humph!' grunted Mr. Romford, seeing his worst fears about to be realized. He had dreamt that he had timbled over a poodle in the drawing-room, and squirted a bottle of porter right into a lady's face. 'Who's goin' besides ourselves?' asked Romford, wishing to know the worst at once. 'Better be killed than frightened to death,' thought he. - Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds.

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once.

The walls are the publishers of the poor.

Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.

In books, the proportion of exceptional to commonplace people is very high; in reality, very low.

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

Literature is my utopia.

The classics are only primitive literature. They belong to the same class as primitive machinery and primitive music and primitive medicine.

Literature is mostly about sex and not much about having children; and life is the other way around.

A sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to imitating yourself.

In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others.

Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.

Literature was formerly an art and finance a trade; today it is the reverse.

The universe is made up of stories, not of atoms.

A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of a man -- the biography of the man himself cannot be written.