F. Anstey Quotes (1856-1934)

“The knowledge that one has a remedy within reach is often as effectual as the remedy itself, if not more so.”

“He had had a warning, a practical moral lesson which had merely arrived, as such things often do, rather after date.”

“No doubt they would tolerate him now for the Professor’s sake; but who would not rather be ignored than tolerated?”

““Wisely was it written: ‘Let him that desireth oblivion confer benefits—but the memory of an injury endureth for ever.’””

“He was not a strong-minded man; but he had one quality which is almost as valuable a safeguard against temptation as strength of mind—namely, timidity.”

“I can’t call myself a busy man—unfortunately,” said Horace, with that frankness which scorns to conceal what other people know perfectly well already.”

““And you suppose that, knowing how I have changed, he will believe that!” she cried. “He will fire long before you can finish one of those fine sentences!””

““Thou hast heard of her incomparable charms, and verily the ear may love before the eye.”
”It may,” admitted Horace, “but neither of my ears is the least in love at present.””

“These statements were, as he felt even in making them, not only gratuitous, but utterly unconvincing, but he had arrived at that condition in which a man discovers with terror the unsuspected amount of mendacity latent in his system.”

““How excellent is the saying of one of old: ‘He that adventureth upon matrimony is like unto one who thrusteth his hand into a sack containing many thousands of serpents and one eel. Yet, if Fate so decree, he may draw forth the eel.’””

“He called to mind all the millionaires he had ever read or heard of; they didn’t seem to get much fun out of their riches. The majority of them were martyrs to dyspepsia. They were often weighed down by the cares and responsibilities of their position; the only people who were unable to obtain an audience of them at any time were their friends; they lived in a glare of publicity, and every post brought them hundreds of begging letters, and a few threats; their children were in constant danger from kidnappers, and they themselves, after knowing no rest in life, could not be certain that even their tombs would be undisturbed. Whether they were extravagant or thrifty, they were equally maligned, and, whatever the fortune they left behind them, they could be absolutely certain that, in a couple of generations, it would be entirely dissipated.”