Best 76 quotes in «victorian era quotes» category

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    All the carriages filed out in single file but in a fashion that seemed to mean that they were competing against each other. The only sound that could be heard for a while was the pounding of the horses’ hooves and the squeal and groan of the wheels against the road. Their hooves kicked up dirt, creating a storm of dust. Once the miniature storm and the sound of galloping horses subsided, I could only see one last person. He glared up at me and mouthed, “Next time.” Christopher dug his boots into Dawn’s muscled flank. She reared up and broke into a gallop through the sparse forest, heading for escape. The last trace of them was the particles of floating dust, bright like floating fire.

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    I am fascinated by history and particularly the Victorian era.

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    ...and yet, the only thing about this year, he thinks, the only times that he has been completely honest with himself are on the nights he's spent here. Only among the crowd of the failed has he felt comfortable living inside his own defeat.

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    An unhappy woman with access to weed killer had to be watched carefully.

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    As a general rule, political talk appears to me to be of all talk the most dreary and the most profitless.

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    But she had learnt, in those solemn hours of thought, that she herself must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it; and she tried to settle that most difficult problem, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working.

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    Abigail had no interest in the dolls themselves. Only in what she could keep from them.

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    But the loneliness of her life had developed in her a sensitiveness which could not endure situations such as the present; difficulties which are of small account to people who take their part in active social life, harassed her to the destruction of all peace.

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    But what if Oscar—” “Breathes fire and threatens to cook you over a grill?” “I was thinking what if he gets mad, but I think your way works as well.” “Then you shall make for a tasty meal.

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    Confound it! It's just because nobody does anything that things have come to this pass!

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    Dickens' London was a place of the mind, but it was also a real place. Much of what we take today to be the marvellous imaginings of a visionary novelist turn out on inspection to be the reportage of a great observer.

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    Firstly, Inspector,” Miss Trent interrupted. “The safety of the Society’s members is paramount to me. Secondly, I have the utmost trust in Lady Owston and Mr Locke. They would’ve intervened had Miss Webster not returned when expected. Therefore, your accusations are without foundation. They are also symptomatic of your categorical hatred of the Bow Street Society, and of what we are trying to do.” “Which is what, exactly?” “Ensuring justice is served for those who ask for it.” “And putting your members’ lives at risk in the process!” “Enough, Inspector!” Miss Trent stood and glared down at him. In a heartbeat, he, too, was on his feet. Towering over her five feet seven inches with his six feet four, he bellowed, “You will listen to me, Miss Trent, and you will listen carefully!” Miss Trent put her hand on her hip but remained silent. “If you and your Society insist on facing danger unnecessarily, you will do so under my terms. You will give me a full list of your members so I, and the Metropolitan Police, can stop them from being murdered, attacked, and robbed. Try to justify what you do as much as you like, Miss Trent, but, at the end of the day, you are all just bloody civilians playing at a copper’s game!” “And yet, we are the ones people look to when the police refuse to help them,” Miss Trent retorted as she stepped closer to the desk. Leaning forward, so their faces were mere inches apart, she went on, “Not every case we investigate is a crime, Inspector, and our clients expect discretion with the confidences they grant us.

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    Go find your own hiding spot!” I hissed. “The seat is not wide enough to hold me and that whale you call a nightgown.” Also, we were better off if whoever was coming caught one of us – and by one of us, I meant Rose.

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    Has anyone been corrupted or defiled?" "Since the age of twelve," West said. "I wasn't asking you, I was asking the girls." "Not yet," Cassandra replied cheerfully.

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    He is only fifteen! Does she really think he is prepared for marriage, especially with his intellectual range of a teacup?

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    Erano morbide e piene, le labbra di James. Sapevano di un che di dolciastro, che ben si sposava con il sapore salato delle labbra di Sebastian, rese tali dalle lacrime che non aveva saputo trattenere nella sua corsa disperata fino al fiume. Aveva baciato tante ragazze nella sua giovane vita, a Oxford o appartandosi durante ricevimenti che i Moran tenevano regolarmente. Ma baciare il suo migliore amico fu qualcosa di sorprendentemente diverso.

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    Father has taught me that when something is lost, whether dear or not, giving up the search is sometimes best and often enough the lost article finds its owner.

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    For reasons I have yet to define, Signor Arpelli stood out from his colleagues. The curled brim of his hat, perhaps. A certain mingling of gravity and levity- I thought the masks of Janus had merged in his eyes.

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    Honour looked so much like a child herself, confined to bed, a white nightgown, like one of those maudlin Victorian dolls. Her cheeks were red, like someone had painted them, but I knew it was from rubbing, wiping away her melancholy.

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    Hello, Bow Street Society, Miss Rebecca Trent, Society clerk speaking.

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    I am no stranger to danger,” Mr Locke pointed out. “Besides, if I should die, I shall take full responsibility.

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    I hope whomever Miss Trent is sending arrives soon.” Mr Maxwell shivered and wrapped his arms about himself. “Who does she usually send to these initial client meetings?” “I really couldn’t say,” [Miss Dexter] replied, honestly. “Miss Trent sends whomever she feels would be most appropriate.

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    I AM the current curator of the black trunk and the stories it holds within.

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    I’m not like others in my profession.” He frowned slightly and added, more to himself, “Might be why I’ve been an apprentice for the past three years.” [~ Mr Joseph Maxwell, Bow Street Society member.]

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    I ignore him and continue walking. I ignore the light drizzle that falls from the smog-filled sky and I ignore the mass of men who stand outside the public-house attempting to light their pipes with matchsticks that burn out as fast as they are struck alight. I ignore their thunderous cackles and cajoling as one of their friends gets sick on another's boots and I ignore my pseudo-name as my mentor yells it behind me.

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    In the mystifying world that was Victorian parenthood, obedience took precedence over all considerations of affection and happiness, and that odd, painful conviction remained the case in most well-heeled homes up until at least the time of the First World War.

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    Ho amato nella mia vita solo una volta, ho amato Rose da quando ho incontrato il suo sguardo battagliero e triste, e sapevo che non sarei stato il principe delle fiabe, eppure ho varcato il limite imposto dalle regole della nostra dimensione. Sono diventato io il suo cavaliere, un cavaliere povero, ma che avrebbe sacrificato se stesso come il Re aveva già fatto…

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    I see. I imagined that he was cast out of all decent society". "If society were really decent, he would have been

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    It is nine o'clock, and London has breakfasted. Some unconsidered tens of thousands have, it is true, already enjoyed with what appetite they might their pre-prandial meal; the upper fifty thousand, again, have not yet left their luxurious couches, and will not breakfast till ten, eleven o'clock, noon; nay, there shall be sundry listless, languid members of fast military clubs, dwellers among the tents of Jermyn Street, and the high-priced second floors of Little Ryder Street, St. James's, upon whom one, two, and three o'clock in the afternoon shall be but as dawn, and whose broiled bones and devilled kidneys shall scarcely be laid on the damask breakfast-cloth before Sol is red in the western horizon. I wish that, in this age so enamoured of statistical information, when we must needs know how many loads of manure go to every acre of turnip-field, and how many jail-birds are thrust into the black hole per mensem for fracturing their pannikins, or tearing their convict jackets, that some M'Culloch or Caird would tabulate for me the amount of provisions, solid and liquid, consumed at the breakfasts of London every morning. I want to know how many thousand eggs are daily chipped, how many of those embryo chickens are poached, and how many fried; how many tons of quartern loaves are cut up to make bread-and-butter, thick and thin; how many porkers have been sacrificed to provide the bacon rashers, fat and streaky ; what rivers have been drained, what fuel consumed, what mounds of salt employed, what volumes of smoke emitted, to catch and cure the finny haddocks and the Yarmouth bloaters, that grace our morning repast. Say, too, Crosse and Blackwell, what multitudinous demands are matutinally made on thee for pots of anchovy paste and preserved tongue, covered with that circular layer - abominable disc! - of oleaginous nastiness, apparently composed of rancid pomatum, but technically known as clarified butter, and yet not so nasty as that adipose horror that surrounds the truffle bedecked pate  de  foie gras. Say, Elizabeth Lazenby, how many hundred bottles of thy sauce (none of which are genuine unless signed by thee) are in request to give a relish to cold meat, game, and fish. Mysteries upon mysteries are there connected with nine o'clock breakfasts.

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    It is perhaps little wonder that the end of Victorianism almost exactly coincided with the invention of psychoanalysis.

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    I took my friend’s hand as she helped me up. With our hands still linked and our flower crowns tangled in our hair, we danced, laughing with joy, through the rain and towards the school, the lightning showing us our path with its powerful light.

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    It's a sin." "How do you know?" "Because it feels like one," she managed to say. He laughed quietly and pulled her hips farther toward him with a decisiveness that drew a little yelp from her. "In that case...I never sin by half measures.

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    I’m an idiot for trying to avoid these feelings because they have caused me pain in the past.

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    I've often thought a blind man could find his way through London simply by gauging the changes in innuendo: mild through Trafalgar Square, less veiled towards the river.

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    Lucille, please make them go away!” she moaned, her voice muffled. “Do you think I am a divine being sent from the celestial realm to guard you from the harsh punishment of rousing from your slumber?” “Is that a yes?” “I am surrounded by idiots.

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    It was the dog Abel, who - as animals have been reported to do - had made his way over all England's hills and rivers, to return to that home where he was first kindly treated. The warm fire, by which he sleeps even now, and the fattening dish will be his rewards to the end of his days.

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    Let no lady commence and continue a correspondence with a view to marriage, for fear that she may never have another opportunity. It is the mark of judgment and rare good sense to go through life without wedlock, if she cannot marry from love. Somewhere in eternity, the poet tells us, our true mate will be found. Do not be afraid of being an "old maid". The disgrace attached to that term long since passed away. Unmarried ladies of mature years are proverbially among the most intelligent, accomplished, and independent to be found in society.

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    Making friends is not a big deal. Replacing me with them after talking to them for only one bloody day is a big deal.

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    Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there really is some goodness here in our world. But if goodness existed, that must mean that darkness existed as well.

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    My wishing star glowed slightly and winked back at me. I could almost hear its voice, tinkling like wind chimes and church bells, reassuring me that everything would return to normal.

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    One character all messages had in common was vague generality. "Fly away with me," a tussie-mussie might suggest, but never "Meet me at the railway depot at six-thirty.

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    Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, on the 15th October, 1856, so that he is now about twenty-six years of age, but brief as has been his career, it has been full of promise for the future. The son of highly intellectual parents, he has had an exceptional education, has travelled much in wild and remote, through classic lands, and in the course of these journeys has learnt to appreciate the beauties of the old authors, in whose works whilst at college he attained exceptional proficiency. But his naturally enthusiastic temperament teaches him to hope for better in the future than has been achieved in the past, and to see how vast will be the influence of Art and Literature on the coming democracy of Intellect, when education and culture shall have taught men to pride themselves on what they have done, and not alone on the deeds of their ancestors.

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    Sebastian non aveva mai incontrato anima viva in quel luogo che sembrava essere dimenticato da tutto e da tutti, ogni volta che si era recato ad ammirare il salto nel vuoto compiuto dal fiume ogni anniversario della morte del suo amico del cuore. Del suo professore. Del suo amante...

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    Self-preservation and determination meant she could get away with anything. As her law-abiding, conventionally minded daughter, I secretly envied her this. She was not the clinging-vine type, nor one who could coax sugar from a lemon. Hers was the frontal attack with no inhibitions. She told the Nazis you could not trust Hitler, and they let her go. In the days of chaperones, she hitch-hiked a ride on a French destroyer along the coast of Crete; 'All quite proper, I had my cook with me,' she explained.

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    Sunlight streamed in a steady flow, casting flecks of gold onto the floor, bathing my skin. I inhaled deeply. Already, the air inside my bedroom had been perfumed with nature. A breeze whispered softly and breathed carefully onto my skin.

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    I was attempting to take the gun,” Mr Locke stated, “in the hope it would prevent it from firing.” “Take it from me, Mr Locke, that don’t work,” Mr Skinner said as he lifted his iron hand.

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    Mr Locke...took a long, slender pick from the unrolled bag and, bending over slightly, inserted it into the lock. It was a steel-cased lock with a smooth, brass knob of around three inches wide and a brass plate around the singular keyhole. Mounted into the door frame was another steel fixture, forming the second half of the lock. Recognising the type of lock, Percy knew the key’s function was to throw the lock’s bolt into dead lock, thus securing the door. Such a design would also include an internal, smaller knob sliding back and forth, drawing back the bolt. A snib, jutting out from the case on the internal side of the door, could be compressed to keep the bolt in an open position, thus allowing one to open and close the door freely. “Do be so kind as to keep an eye out for the return of our friend the constable.” Locke pulled his pocket watch out with his other hand to glance upon it. “We have nine minutes.” “This is breaking and entering!” Mr Maxwell cried, hurrying up the steps. “Miss Trent said such was forbidden by the Society.” “Unless there is a sufficiently justifiable reason for doing so,” Mr Locke replied, inserting a second pick into the lower half of the lock. “The welfare of our client is a sufficiently justifiable reason; do you not think so, Mr Maxwell?” “His welfare?” Mr Maxwell enquired, confused. Miss Dexter, wholly fascinated by what the illusionist was doing, stepped closer still. She softly enquired, “Do you suspect some harm may have come to Mr Dorsey, Mr Locke?” “I do not know but Mr Colby was very keen we should not speak with him. Furthermore, Miss Trent’s note stated her telephone conversation with Mr Dorsey was abruptly ended, by him, when another—angry—voice spoke,” Mr Locke explained. There was a sharp click as the bolt sprang back into the lock’s casing. Mr Locke smiled broadly. “Our constable friend is back.” Mr Maxwell looked panic sticken. “It’s only been a minute.” “Ah, that will be the Bow Street police station,” Locke replied as he turned the door knob. “Also, they tend to keep a closer eye upon the more affluent residences; greater targets for thieves, you know,” Mr Locke stated as he pushed the door open and ushered both Mr Maxwell and Miss Dexter inside. He’d just closed the door, after slipping in himself, when the constable reached the bottom of the steps and peered up at the porch. Mr Locke stood to the side of the door and watched as the constable, seemingly satisfied all was well, walked away. A glance down at the internal part of the lock confirmed Mr Locke’s earlier assumptions about it. His slender hand slid the smaller brass knob along to lock the bolt in place once more.

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    Poor Miss Porchester. She had sacrificed herself on the altar of Victorian morality, and I am afraid the consciousness that she had behaved beautifully was the only benefit she had got from it.

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    Soffia le ultime parole, sorreggendosi a me. È creta tra le mie dita che tremano. Sì, tremano perché vorrebbero farla sentire al sicuro, invece sono io ad angosciarla. Non le rispondo – Cosa potrei risponderle? – ma la forgio al mio petto, tra le pareti di questo corridoio buio più della mia anima, più del nostro futuro, più delle certezze: Rose è la sola luce nella mia esistenza programmata, il solo astro capace di rischiarire le tenebre del cuore.

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    The coppers, thinking I must be hacked to bits at the bottom of the Thames, now blame both murders on the Ripper. The theory is so ironic I cannot help but snort out a tirade of titters.