Augustine Birrell Quotes (1850-1933)

“It is pleasant to be admitted into the birth-chamber of a great idea destined to be translated into action.”

“Oh, those scoundrelly Charity Commissioners! […] By the side of these anthropoid apes, the genuine bookworm, the paper-eating insect, ravenous as he once was, has done comparatively little mischief.”

“We do not get many glimpses of Bodley's habits of life or ways of thinking, but there is no difficulty in discerning a strenuous, determined, masterful figure, bent during his later years, perhaps tyrannously bent, on effecting his object. He was not, we learn from a correspondent, 'hasty to write but when the posts do urge him, saying there need be no answer to your letters till more leisure breed him opportunity.' 'Words are women, deeds are men,' is another saying of his which I reprint without comment.”