Historical Quotes

Mechanically I carried on across the Irish Sea, noticing with a jaundiced eye that it had suddenly lost the sinister threat of no-man's-land and was transformed into a placid highway where ferry-steamers would soon chug peacefully over the unmarked graves of gallant seamen.

Jackie Moggridge

You dare quarrel with me Doerwyne?She wrinkled her nose. "It's not quarreling to express an opinion'""Women don't have opinions.""Then I must be a man, because I have plenty.

Georgia Fox

I am in complete alignment with my thinking with this statement by F. F. Bruce: 'Whether our approach is theological or historical, it does matter whether the New Testament documents are reliable or not'." ~R. Alan Woods [2013]

R. Alan Woods

Once upon a time, there was a civilization in the eastern side of the world. It was one of the most advanced civilizations on the planet that existed during that time.This civilization was the glorious Indus valley civilization. No, I am not talking about India. I am talking about the land of greatness that got lost in time. Today, in the same geographical location of that great civilization, we have a piece of earth, which is known as “India”. But do not mistake it to be the same glorious land that existed thousands of years ago, along with other magnificent civilizations, such as the Greeks, the Mayans, the Egyptians, the Babylonians etc.

Abhijit Naskar

As a historical novelist, there is very little I like more than spending time sorting through boxes of old letters, diaries, maps, trinkets, and baubles.

Sara Sheridan

All the while Martin attempted to catch his aunt with a remorseful gaze, but the young woman was reabsorbed into her mother’s orbit, and though Anna embraced him, pressed on him the importance of visiting soon, he could feel that she was already very far away, not really seeing him, but cruising with distant eyes and a feather’s touch over the summits of all her disappointments.

Carola Perla

The word "We" is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages. What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey? But I am done with this creed of corruption. I am done with the monster of "We," the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: "I.

Ayn Rand

The English language [during the Elizabethan era] wasn't standardized. There were no official dictionaries. There was no cultural belief that words should always be spelled the same way. So people spelled things however they heard them or however made sense. I mean the name Shakespeare had something like 16 different spellings, and the way he spelled it isn't the way we spell it.- School of Night - pg 44

Bayard Louis

When we are reading, a voice comes to us as in the dark and whispers, "Imagine!" Samuel Beckettas told by Bill Moyer in the Foreword he wrote for, The Public Library: A Photographic Essay by Robert Dawson. Afterword by Ann Patchett

Samuel Beckett

I was torn apart. But you, my knight, you found all the pieces and put me back together.

Juliette Cross

His legs may have been firmly rooted to the study floor, but his heart had just leaped the stile and was running down the lane.

Victoria Sue

Their love was so forbidden that their very touch could wrap a hangman's noose around them.

Victoria Sue

Be Patient to become a Patent

Zeeshan Ahmed

Rooks have clustered on either side of the long road. It is as if they line a grand parade route for our passage. Their black feathers are stark as soot against the white road and the snow. They stab at the ground with their strange bare bills and gray unfeathered faces. The birds are like rough-edged black stones on a string around this stripped cold neck of road. The old books tell us rooks bring the virtuous dead to heaven’s gate.

Ned Hayes

Stars flicker above, points of bright ice in a dark river. I pull a heavy sheepskin around my legs and stretch my feet toward the fire. Despite the cold, Liam plays his flute, the sound whistling through the night. Soon my eyes are heavy, my head nodding.I open my eyes at the deep melodious baritone of Salvius’s voice telling a tale. Liam’s flute is silent now. I have heard Salvius tell many tales on market days; he is known for his memory of wandering minstrels and mummers who visit us at Whitsunday and through Midsummer. Salvius is a mockingbird: he can give a fair charade of the rhythmic tones of any wandering bard or any noble of the Royal Court.In this darkness, his eyes catch the light like a cat in the night.

Ned Hayes

What do we do if we come across trouble, sir?' Cahill asked, slapping at a fly. 'As much as I enjoy giving the rebel turds a walloping, it should be down to the Militia to keep the buggers in check.''They are doing their job,' Mullone said, glancing at a free-standing Celtic Cross that had once been a prominent feature beside the road, but was now strangled with weeds, besieged with dark moss and deeply pitted with age.'If you call plundering, fighting and torture work, sir.''You don't have much faith in the peace talks then, Seán?''No, sir. There's more chance of me taking holy orders and becoming the Pope than there is of peace,' Cahill replied. 'The negotiations that spout from the politicians mouths are nothing but wet farts.

David Cook

I’m not only my father’s daughter, but also a daughter of the nation he founded. And protecting both is what I’ve always done.

Laura Kamoie

Sons of a revolution fight for liberty. They give blood, flesh, limbs, their very lives. But daughters . . . we sacrifice our eternal souls.

Laura Kamoie

I’m all alone against the darkness. Dark winds rising against me.

Mark Noce

Paying twenty-five dollars for me was your mistake, ma’am. I’m not worth more than fifteen.

Margaret Brownley

Haw! Haw! Inconceivable stupidity is just what you're going to get! (Brigadier-General Henry Wilson, on being challenged in 1910 about the likelihood of a European war)

Max Hastings

My very core clenches and spasms, my hips with a mind of their own, lurch. It is as if I no longer have control of any part of my body. ‘Ugh,’ I continue to groan in relief. And then, slowly, the rush is over and I am able to part my eyelids again. David is still looking at my face, a light sheen of sweat on his brow indicates that his task was not without effort. Finding his gaze too forthright in the currentcircumstances, my eyes move to the arm that still dwells beneath my skirts and thehand that clings viciously to his sleeve. My hand.

Ayana Prende

Shukhov stared at the ceiling and said nothing. He no longer knew whether he wanted to be free or not...it had gradually dawned on him that people like himself were not allowed to go home but were packed off into exile. And there was no knowing where the living was easier – here or there. The one thing he might want to ask God for was to let him go home. But they wouldn't let him go home.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Some people remember the sixties better than others do. Some weren't even there, some who were there were not really there, and some who were not really there were "really there".

Tom Hays

Under the sanctuary are the catacombs where the dead wait for resurrection. The living do not venture there. The caverns here underneath the Sanctuary are illuminated only by dim shafts of light from the sanctuary. The walls are etched with flowers of frost, but at least I am out of the wind. Dark bays line the hall in front of me, a vast rabbit warren, each hold filled to the brim with the scent of the past.

Ned Hayes

You have a spine of steel and fire in your eyes, Rosalie. To have such a quality, one must be shaken to the foundation of one’s soul and put back together. I want to know how you emerged from hell made of steel and fire.

Moriah Densley

I won’t pretend that I deserve you. I am faithless. I have done unforgivable things. And I am broken.” He gestured to his face and body with trembling hands. “I know you see past these things when you look at me . . . but I hope I can be enough for you.”“What? Enough for me? Gabriel, you are everything.

Rachel L. Demeter

Now, tomorrow, and always.

Rachel L. Demeter

Whether David believed in her affliction or not didn’t change the fact that it existed, and some day it would catch up with her.

Tamara Hughes

Let this moment whisper through eternity. Let it fill my every dream and visit me each night.

Rachel L. Demeter

In America, I appear more simple that I am, because I was completely out of my element. It was my misfortune, not my fault, that I was born in a country which was not congenial to my desires. -1815, in a letter to her father William Patterson

Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte

You are a soldier. A fighter. And now you must fight. Not for the emperor, not for France . . . but for yourself.

Rachel L. Demeter

There is always a danger that those who are less obviously and traditionally important, prominent, or powerful will be left out of the history of human experience.

Chloe Schama

Hot-blooded men make war. It’s up to cool-headed queens like us to make the peace.

Mark Noce

Why, on to the castle, to kill the royal family, and claim the throne that isn't mine by right!

Richard Curtis

She strove for poised composure, despite feeling like a powerless pawn in a despicable game of human chess, played for the amusement of those who enjoyed tragic endings at the expense of someone else’s happiness—no—their very existence.

Collette Cameron

Love should never be a game.

Sherry D Ficklin

If it’s only a kiss you want, I can kiss you with my clothes on.” Katie O'Reilly to Captain Lord Blackthorn in "Titanic Rhasody.

Jina Bacarr

It's time we woke up, women are pretty much people, seems to me. I know they dress like fools- but who´s to blame for that? We invent all those idiotic hats of theirs, and design their crazy fashions, and, what's more, if a woman is courageous enough to wear common-sense clothes -and shoes- which of us wants to dance with her? Yes, we blame them for gratifying us, but are we willing to let our wives work? We are not. It hurts our pride, that's all. We are always criticizing them for doing mercenary marriages, but what do we call a girl who marries a chump with no money? Just a poor fool, that's all. And they know it. As for Mother Eve- I wasn't there and I can't deny the story, but I will say this. If she brought evil into the world, we men have had the loin's share of keeping it going ever since- how about that?

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Percy, you are dismissed from my service.""Me? Why, my lord?""Why? Because, Percy, far from being a fit consort for a prince of the realm, you would bore the leggings off a village idiot. You ride a horse rather less well than another horse would. Your brain would make a grain of sand look large and ungainly, and the part of you that can't be mentioned, I am reliably informed by women around the court, wouldn't be worth mentioning even if it could be. If you put on a floppy hat and a funny codpiece, you might just get by as a fool, but since you wouldn't know a joke if it got up and gave you a haircut, I doubt it. That's why you're dismissed." "Oh, I see." "And as for you, Baldrick..." "Yes." "You're out, too.

Richard Curtis

I gave you three proofs of witchcraft. A cat that drinks blood! A horse that talks! And a man who propagates POODLES!

Richard Curtis

The greatest challenge of my life has been to see and accept the actual truth without great pain and struggle against it.

M.C. Halliday

Conformity is deformity

Sharon Desruisseaux

Jill, a comprehensive school teacher in her early thirties, has put her dark past behind her to become a lady in control of her own life. Successful in her career, soon to be divorced and with no emotional ties, she is content. Except that one morning, while trying to find work for a recalcitrant Year 9 class, she finds herself in a dark and murky street in Victorian England. The image soon disappears and she is back in the classroom, but the children she was teaching have gone and so has an hour of her life. Soon Jill finds herself living two parallel lives, one as a teacher and the other as a Victorian governess. And this is just the beginning

Jan Hunter

The clouds of night opened like ink blossoming in water.

Christopher Fowler

...graced by some delicate, perceptive and fine-boned writing, is at the heart of the book, and Creel gets it all just right.

Publishers Weekly

Jean-Baptiste Say may have coined the term 'entrepreneur' but he totally missed the opportunity to put it on a t-shirt and sell it.

Ryan Lilly

Oh, it was 1775.” “What?” “1775. The Battle of Bunker Hill.” “Oh.” I laughed. “We learned about it the day we met,” he added. “Another red-letter day in history.

J.M. Richards

Children, Hadley thinks to herself, children are more civilised than this gang on the sauce.

Naomi Wood

I was young--so young--naive, isolated in a small world of safety and comfort too soon shattered by a phone call.

Helen Picca

Ien stopped her voice with more kisses, more promises of a world filled with only them.

Christine Fonseca

There are no more gates, only hinges clinging to the walls like broken spiders.

J Anderson Coats

As a historical novelist, there are few jobs more retrospective.

Sara Sheridan

No, I will not join your Civil War reenactment troupe.

Aaron A.A. Smith

Though the heart may be cracked wide, pain can still seep in.

Rachelle Rea Cobb

Dying a thousand deaths in my head to protect you is better than losing you one time in the flesh."~ Gustaf Ræliksen

Renee Vincent

As long as it makes you happy. For the rest of my life, I will do whatever it takes to ensure it. As my wife, you will not want for anything. What you desire, I will provide.

Renee Vincent

If my brother, Dægan, was still alive to herald this moment, I know he would have something poetically moving to say. But where I lack in speech, I make up for in determination. Let my actions speak for themselves, for I will have my vengeance. As the last living son of Rælik, I will defend my father’s honor and uphold his noble name. Rally the men for council—my Æsa needs me.”~ Gustaf Ræliksen

Renee Vincent

He turned to look at her. "We've some talking to do.""Didn't we do that on the plane ride over here?""I doona remember talking. I remember kissing, touching, and many orgasms, but no talking.

Donna Grant

Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.

Anne Rice

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Historical Quotes

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