Trollope Anthony 1815-1882 Quotes

“Genealogy was her favorite insanity.”

“He was incapable of anticipating to-morrow's griefs.”

“All decisions are taken two levels above the highest level of understanding”

“Conjugation of the irregular verb “to design”:I create, You interfere, He gets in the way.We cooperate, You obstruct, They conspire.”

“Anything the Austrians could do, the Prussians could do better.”

“Virtue became less the harsh and martial self-sacrifice of antiquity and more the modern willingness to get along with others for the sake of peace and prosperity.”

“In the decades following the Revolution, America changed so much and so rapidly that Americans not only became used to change, but came to expected and prize it.”

“Americans became so thoroughly democratic that much of the period's political activity, beginning with the Constitution, was diverted to finding means and devices to tame that democracy.”

“In monarchies, each man's desire to do what was right in his own eyes could be restrained by beer, or force, by patronage, or by honor, and by professional standing armies. By contrast, republics had to hold themselves together from the bottom up, ultimately.”

“If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty & property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.”