Gilbert Parker Quotes

It's the people who try to be clever who never are; the people who are clever never think of trying to be.

There is no refuge from memory and remorse in this world. The spirits of our foolish deeds haunt us, with or without repentance.

The real business of life is trying to understand each other.

Love knows not distance; it hath no continent; its eyes are for the stars.

Every shot that kills ricochets.

Imagination is at the root of much that passes for love.

Memory is man's greatest friend and worst enemy.

There is no influence like the influence of habit.

Every man should have laws of his own, I should think; commandments of his own, for every man has a different set of circumstances wherein to work - or worry.

Man is born in a day, and he dies in a day, and the thing is easily over; but to have a sick heart for three-fourths of one's lifetime is simply to have death renewed every morning; and life at that price is not worth living.

It is not the broken heart that kills, but broken pride, monseigneur.

When a child is born the mother also is born again.

That which is loved may pass, but love hath no end.

In all secrets there is a kind of guilt, however beautiful or joyful they may be, or for what good end they may be set to serve. Secrecy means evasion, and evasion means a problem to the moral mind.

She belongs to a race of delightful women, who never do any harm, whom everybody calls good, and who are very severe on those who do not pretend to be good.

There's no credit in not doing what you don't want to do. There's no virtue in not falling, when you're not tempted.

Tomorrow is no man's gift.

Nothing is so unproductive as the law. It is expensive whether you win or lose.

Love knows not distance; it hath no continent; its eyes are for the stars, its feet for the swords; it continueth, though an army lay waste the pasture; it comforteth when there are no medicines; it hath the relish of manna; and by it do men live in the desert.

He came by a leap to the goal of purpose, not by the toilsome steps of reason. On the instant his headlong spirit declared his purpose: this was the one being for him in all the world: at this altar he would light a lamp of devotion, and keep it burning forever.

Ah, lady, when I gave my heart to thee, It passed into thy lifelong regency.

War is cruelty, and none can make it gentle.

But paying is part of the game of life: it is the joy of buying that we crave.

The music throbbed in a voice of singular and delicate power; the air was resonant with melody, love and pain. The meanest Italian in the gallery far up beneath the ceiling, the most exalted of the land in the boxes and the stalls, leaned indulgently forward, to be swept by this sweet storm of song.

It must be remembered that the sea is a great breeder of friendship. Two men who have known each other for twenty years find that twenty days at sea bring them nearer than ever they were before, or else estrange them.