Best 57 quotes of Ellis Peters on MyQuotes

All the things of the wild have their proper uses. Only misuse makes them evil.

Bitter though it may be to many, Cadfael concluded, there is no substitute for truth, in this or any case.

Brother Cadfael knew better than to be in a hurry, where souls were concerned. There was plenty of elbow-room in eternity.

Death, after all, is the common expectation from birth. Neither heroes nor cowards can escape it.

Despair is deadly sin, but worse, it is mortal folly.

Even a saint may take pleasure, in retrospect, in having been once desired

Every man has within him only one life and one nature ... It behooves a man to look within himself and turn to the best dedication possible those endowments he has from his Maker. You do no wrong in questioning what once you held to be right for you, if now it has come to seem wrong. Put away all thought of being bound. We do not want you bound. No one who is not free can give freely.

Here I begin to know that blessedness is what can be snatched out the passing day and put away to think of afterwards.

I do believe I begin to grasp the nature of miracles! For would it be a miracle, if there was any reason for it? Miracles have nothing to do with reason. Miracles contradict reason, they strike clean across mere human deserts, and deliver and save where they will. If they made sense, they would not be miracles.

If ever you do go back, what is it you want of Evesham?" "Do I know? [...] The silence, it might be ... or the stillness. To have no more running to do ... to have arrived, and have no more need to run. The appetite changes. Now I think it would be a beautiful thing to be still.

I go to Prague every year if I can, value my relationships there like gold, and feel myself in a sense Czech, with all their hopes and needs. They are a people I not only love, but admire.

In the end there is nothing to be done but to state clearly what has been done, without shame or regret, and say: Here I am, and this is what I am. Now deal with me as you see fit. That is your right. Mine is to stand by the act, and pay the price. You do what you must do, and pay for it. So in the end all things are simple.

It takes a lot to wound a man without illusions.

Life goes not in a straight line, lad, but in a circle. The first half we spend venturing as far as the world's end from home and kin and stillness, and the latter half brings us back, by roundabout ways but surely, to that state from which we set out.

Nothing is more pleasing and engaging than the sense of having conferred benefits. Not even the gratification of receiving them.

Of all the reports that fly about the world, ill news is the surest of all to arrive!

One century's saint is the next century's heretic ... and one century's heretic is the next century's saint. It is as well to think long and calmly before affixing either name to any man.

Only people who're positive enough to have friends have enemies. When you're as glum and morose as he was, people just give up and go away.

The mountains of today are the molehills of tomorrow.

There is in the end no remedy but truth. It is the one course that cannot be evil.

There is no one who cannot be hated, against whatever odds. Nor anyone who cannot be loved, against all reason.

the success of a holiday depends on what you find for yourself on the spot, not what you bring with you.

The voices of cold reason were talking, as usual, to deaf ears.

They sell courage of a sort in the taverns. And another sort, though not for sale, a man can find in the confessional. Try the alehouses and the churches, Hugh. In either a man can be quiet and think.

To have faith in Divine protection is good, but even beter if backed by the pratical assistance heaven has a right to expect from sensible mortals.

Too much trust is folly, in an imperfect world.

Truth is a hard master, and costly to serve, but it simplifies all problems.

Truth, like the burgeoning of a bulb under the soil, however deeply sown, will make its way to the light.

What are wits for unless a man uses them?

You cannot demand truth, and then select half and throw the inconvenient remainder away.

You'll never get to be a saint if you deny the bit of the devil in you.

Youth is no less vulnerable, by the very quality it has of making the heart ache that beholds and has lost it.

And who knows, thought Cadfael, which is in the right, the young man who sees the best in all, and trusts all, or the old one who suspects all until he has probed them through and through? The one may stumble into a snare now and then, but at least enjoy sunshine along the way, between falls. The other may never miss his footing, but seldom experience joy. Better find a way somewhere between!

But there are some born to do penance by nature. Maybe they lift the load for some of us who take it quite comfortably that we're humankind, and not angels.

Child, [death] is with us always,” said Cadfael, patient beside him. “Last summer ninety-five men died here in the town, none of whom had done murder. For choosing the wrong side, they died. It falls upon blameless women in war, even in peace at the hands of evil men. It falls upon children who never did harm to any, upon old men, who in their lives have done good to many, and yet are brutally and senselessly slain. Never let it shake your faith that there is a balance hereafter. What you see is only a broken piece from a perfect whole.” “Such justice as we see is also but a broken shred. But it is our duty to preserve what we may, and fit together such fragments as we find, and take the rest on trust.

Don't reach for the halo too soon. You have plenty of time to enjoy yourself, even a little maliciously sometimes, before you settle down to being a saint.

God, nevertheless, required a little help from men, and what he mostly got was hindrance.

He prayed as he breathed, forming no words and making no specific requests, only holding his heart, like broken birds in cupped hands,

In happiness or unhappiness, living is a duty, and must be done thoroughly.

Innocence is an infinitely fragile thing and thought can sometimes injure, even destroy it. - Pg. 254

I think there are some who live on a knife-edge in the soul, and at times are driven to hurl themselves into the air, at the mercy of heaven or he'll which way to fall.

It's a kind of arrogance to be so certain you're past redemption.

Meet every man as you find him, for we're all made the same under habit, robe or rags. Some better made than others, and some better cared for, but on the same pattern, all.

Oh, sometimes I like to put the sand of doubt into the oyster of my faith." (Br. Cadfael)

Once, I remember, Father Abbot said that our purpose is justice, and with God lies the privilege of mercy. But even God, when he intends mercy, needs tools to his hand.

Questions are as supple as willow wands, it's easy to brush by them and slip them aside, and no one the worse for it.

So, wonder! I also wonder about you," said Cadfael mildly. "Do you know any human creatures who are not strangers, one to another?

There has many a man gone through that gate without a safe-conduct, who will reach heaven ahead of some who were escorted through with absolution and ceremony, and had their affairs in order. Kings and princes of the church may find shepherds and serfs preferred before them, and some who claim they have done great good may have to give place to poor wretches who have done wrong and acknowledge it, and have tried to make amends.

There never was, for all I could ever learn, a time when living was easy and peaceful.

There's an art in every labour.