This is a list of Victorian Quotations, from authors such as Charles
Dickens and Edith Wharton, to leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, and
many others. If you have a quote that you think should appear on this
page, please send it to AthtenaIris@aol.com.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
charecter, give him power.
~Abraham Lincoln
It takes two flints to make a fire.
~Lousia May Alcott
Look twice before you leap.
~Charlotte Bronte
When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long
and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we donot see the ones
which open for us.
~Alexander Graham Bell
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things
that never were and ask why not.
~George Bernard Shaw
Blows are sarcasms turned stupid.
~George Eliot
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent
presipitation.
~Thomas Alva Edison
Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
~Mark Twain
It takes very little fire to make a great deal of smoke nowadays,
and notoriety is not real glory.
~Lousia May Alcott
You have no more right to consume happiness without producing it
than to consume wealth without producing it.
~George Bernard Shaw
In any really good subject, one has only to probe deep enough to
come to tears.
~Edith Wharton
Men judge us by the success of our efforts. God looks at the efforts
themselves.
~Charlotte Bronte
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people
always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can
become great.
~Mark Twain
It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever
refuse an offer of marriage.
~Jane Austen
A compliment is like a kiss through a veil.
~Victor Hugo
Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors!
~Lousia May Alcott
There is a great deal of unmapped country within us.
~George Eliot
If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good
time.
~Edith Wharton
Always do right! This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
~Mark Twain
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam, 1850, line 27, stanza 4
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age
of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was
the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter
of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to heaven, we were all doing direct the
other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period,
that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received,
for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
~Charles Dickens, opening line of A Tale of Two Cities
I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
~Arthur Conan Doyle
There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.
~George Bernard Shaw
If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has
at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things.
~Vincent Van Gogh
An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.
~Victor Hugo, Ninetythree, 1874
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned
my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for
him the spinal cord would suffice.
~Mark Twain
That a man is successful who has lived well, laughed often, and loved
much, who has gained the respect of the intelligent men and the love
of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who
leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved
poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked
appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who looked
for the best in others and gave the best he had.
~Robert Louis Stevenson
He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
~Victor Hugo
The writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which
he is not always master- something that at time strangely wills and
works for itself.
~Charlotte Bronte
It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it.
~Robert E. Lee
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it
is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.
~Charles Dickens, end of A Tale of Two Cities
The best way to know God is to love many things.
~Vincent van Gogh
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on
society.
~Mark Twain
Life is the flower for which love is the honey.
~Victor Hugo
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly
recognizes genius.
~Arthur Conan Doyle, Complete Sherlock Holmes, Valley of Fear
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that
never were and ask why not.
~George Bernard Shaw
And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our
incompleteness, Round our restlessness His rest.
~Elizabeth Barret Browning, Rhyme of the Duchess.
Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us
dare to do our duty as we understand it.
~Aberham Lincoln
After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather
bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others.
~Edith Wharton
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and
that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall
not perish from the earth.
~Aberham Lincoln
Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from
the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by
education; they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.
~Charlotte Bronte
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,--
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
~Edgar A. Poe, The Raven
Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed
by preparation, foolish preparation!
~Jane Austen
There are two ways of spreading light: To be the candle or the
mirror that reflects it.
~Edith Wharton
Feeling without judgement is a washy draught indeed; but judgement
untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human
deglutition.
~Charlotte Bronte
One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and
invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil. To think is to do.
~Victor Hugo
That is the last of my Victorian Quotation collection. If you want you
may
