I hate a stupid man who can't talk to me, and I hate a clever man who talks me down. I donโt like a man who is too lazy to make any effort to shine; but I particularly dislike the man who is always striving for effect. I abominate a humble man, but yet I love to perceive that a man acknowledges the superiority of my sex, and youth and all that kind of thing. . . A man who would tell me that I am pretty, unless he is over seventy, ought to be kicked out of the room. But a man who can't show me that he thinks me so without saying a word about it, is a lout.
Anthony TrollopeRomance is very pretty in novels, but the romance of a life is always a melancholy matter. They are most happy who have no story to tell.
Anthony TrollopeThe Church of England is the only church in the world that interferes neither with your politics nor your religion
Anthony TrollopeBut then the pastors and men of God can only be human,--cannot altogether be men of God; and so they have oppressed us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces, and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and idleness.
Anthony TrollopeWhen a man wants to write a book full of unassailable facts, he always goes to the British Museum.
Anthony TrollopeOne wants in a Prime Minister a good many things, but not very great things. He should be clever but need not be a genius; he should be conscientious but by no means strait-laced; he should be cautious but never timid, bold but never venturesome; he should have a good digestion, genial manners, and, above all, a thick skin.
Anthony Trollope