Quotes about Victorian

Victorian values meant brutalizing people who were often poor. Votes: 4

I am fascinated by history and particularly the Victorian era. Votes: 4

I want to lead the Victorian life, surrounded by exquisite clutter. Votes: 4

I love big, bold, truthful theater - the tradition of Victorian theater. Votes: 4

I wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall in a few Victorian parlours. Votes: 4

We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby. Votes: 4

I kind of have a Victorian sensibility - I don't understand stuff until I can classify it and name it. Votes: 4

My great-grandfather was in the army in India, and we have photographs of my family there in full Victorian dress. They're incredibly romantic. Votes: 4

My interests span biology, though sometimes I feel like an anachronism, somebody from the Victorian era when there weren't so many boundaries dividing the sciences. Votes: 4

I think of myself now as a writer, although I wouldn't go as far as to say 'novelist' because that sounds like a Victorian person. Votes: 4

The period after the First World War was an extremely different time, so that Sherlock Holmes would have been a different person following 1918 than he was during the Victorian era. Votes: 4

Many people have compared me to the Victorian adventure writer, Rider Haggard. I accept that as a compliment. As a boy growing up in Central Africa I read all Haggard's African novels. Votes: 4

My voice went recently, never happened before, off like a tap. I had to sit in silence for nine days, chalkboard around my neck. Like an old-school mime. Like a kid in the naughty corner. Like a Victorian mute. Votes: 4

I was once a graduate student in Victorian literature, and I believe as the Victorian novelists did, that a novel isn't simply a vehicle for private expression, but that it also exists for social examination. I firmly believe this. Votes: 4

Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old. Votes: 4

I'm in the early stages of a film called 'Freezing Time' about Eadweard Muybridge, the Victorian photographer who was really the forefather of cinema. Digital animators still treat his images like the Bible. He was a very obsessed man. Votes: 4

I don't watch television, but I saw 'The Office' by accident. I thought it was so sophisticated, the Victorian love story, and so bold. We'd do anything, all of us, to not work in that environment, and then I'm sitting there watching hours of it. Votes: 4

The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop. Votes: 4

The man Dickens, whom the world at large thought it knew, stood for all the Victorian virtues - probity, kindness, hard work, sympathy for the down-trodden, the sanctity of domestic life - even as his novels exposed the violence, hypocrisy, greed, and cruelty of the Victorian age. Votes: 4

My first attraction to writing novels was the plot, that almost extinct animal. Those novels I read which made me want to be a novelist were long, always plotted, novels - not just Victorian novels, but also those of my New England ancestors: Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Votes: 4

Journalists are always calling my features Edwardian or Victorian, whatever that means. I am small, and people were smaller in those times. I'm pale and sickly-looking. I look fragile-like a doll. But sometimes I just wish I had less of a particular look, one that was more versatile. Votes: 4

Verbosity was an established Victorian trait. Votes: 3

All of Victorian verse is pentameter. Votes: 3

Victorian literature was my subject at Harvard. Votes: 3

Certainly, Doctor. Let's talk about your chair. Victorian? Votes: 3

I was a bit of a Victorian Lady, fainting-wise. Votes: 3

The Victorian world is extremely dark and extremely bright. Votes: 3

My favourite men's clothes are like Victorian British clothing. Votes: 3

Victorian architecture in the United States was copied straight from England. Votes: 3

Redheads get so stereotyped. You're either exotic and wild or totally Victorian. Votes: 3

Simply put, if you are a Wayward Victorian Girl, I'll find you. Votes: 3

Redheads get so stereotyped. Youre either exotic and wild or totally Victorian. Votes: 3

The greatest architectural illusion is not Baroque fancy or Victorian flamboyant, but minimalism. Votes: 3

Modern Christians should not mistake our post-Victorian sense of propriety for moral purity. Votes: 3

Victorian sorrow: the stars are winking in the sky, but not for us. Votes: 3

The Victorian woman became her ovaries, as today's woman has become her "beauty. Votes: 3

If you look at Victorian England, being a soldier was considered a noble profession. Votes: 3

I wouldnt mind being a fly on the wall in a few Victorian parlours. Votes: 3

We, while noting many things amiss about Victorian society, more often sense them judging us. Votes: 3

The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it. Votes: 3

Like sex in Victorian England, the reality of Big Business today is our big dirty secret. Votes: 3

I collect Victorian automata and coming across them in the dark does give you a little shudder. Votes: 3

She liked Victorian novels. They were the only kind of novel you could read while eating an apple. Votes: 3

The stationmaster's whiskers are of a Victorian bushiness and give the impression of having been grown under glass. Votes: 3

It is no accident that the Victorian age, the heyday of conventionalism, was the cultural bloom of economic liberalism. Votes: 3

With the end of the Victorian era, we passed into what I feel I must call the terrible 20th century Votes: 3

The Greens simply don't understand that a strong economy is the key to a better Victoria for all Victorian families. Votes: 3

The reason Victorian society was so restricted and repressed was that it was impossible to move without knocking something over. Votes: 3

The Victorian era is the sexiest age for me, but I also like a woman in a pair of jeans. Votes: 3

The Greens will threaten the future of our strong economy. They will destroy jobs and put Victorian families at risk. Votes: 3

In her early days she had that beatific expression characteristic of Victorian prettiness - like a sheep painted by Raphael. Votes: 3

I think I would like to be in Victorian times. Small town. Bandstands. Summer. That kind of thing. Without disease. Votes: 3

I was asked whether I was trying to restore Victorian values. I said straight out I was. And I am. Votes: 3

Martha Stewart has two houses in East Hampton. She has an old fashioned Victorian house and a very new modern house. Votes: 3

I was brought up very conservatively. My father was positively Victorian - I wasn't even allowed to wear my hair down. Votes: 3

I've admired historical clothes like Victorian gowns since I was a child, and it's what motivated me to go into fashion. Votes: 3

Even in name, he seems like a Victorian oddity. "Igor, fetch 'the Crouch' from the catacombs, we're going to the graveyard". Votes: 3

The more I think you over, the more it comes home to me what an unmitigated Middle Victorian ass you are! Votes: 3

In Victorian times the purpose of life was to develop a personality once and for all and then stand on it. Votes: 3

There was only the cemetery itself, spread out in the moonlight like a soft grey hallucination, a stony wilderness of Victorian melancholy. Votes: 3

Years ago I had a house in Sussex, it was like Arcadia, with an old Victorian bridge, a pond and the Downs. Votes: 3

One of Dickens' biggest influences was the growth of London as a Victorian city, and the extremes being created as it expanded. Votes: 3

When women let their hair down, it means either sexiness or craziness or death, the three by Victorian times having become virtually synonymous. Votes: 3

I'm fascinated by steam engines and with Victorian engineering generally, and as a corollary to that, I'm fascinated by the idea of long-lived technologies. Votes: 3

In Victorian England, people were told they should discourage their wives from reading because it would lead them into all sorts of devilish wickedness. Votes: 3

The house I grew up in was a tall Victorian town house in Bristol. There were very big rooms, which were under-furnished and always cold. Votes: 3

I'm accustomed to reading Georgian and Victorian letters and sometimes you simply know in your gut that a blithe sentence is covering up a deeper emotion. Votes: 3

We all now tell stories by cutting from one dramatic scene to the next, whereas Victorian novelists felt free to write long passages of undramatic summary. Votes: 3

The Bible does not tell us that life in this world will be fair. Evil and sin are not Victorian gentlemen; they do not play fair. Votes: 3

Nothing seemed to offer more striking proof to the late Victorian mind of the infernal truth of social Darwinism than the supposed demise of the Tasmanian Aborigines. Votes: 3

Victorian theorists competed to identify how many biologically differentiated races lived on Earth and proposed inherent characteristics for them, formulated explanations for these presumed variations in humanity. Votes: 3

Today women have the rights and equality our Victorian sisters could only dream of, and with those privileges comes the responsibility of standing up and being counted. Votes: 3

After a day of rain the sun came out suddenly at five o'clock and threw a golden bar into the deep Victorian gloom of the front parlour Votes: 3

I like Victorian children's novels extremely a lot. If I would say I collect anything, that's what I'll hunt for now and again at old book stores. Votes: 3

I had never read Victorian novels before going overseas. I read a handful of authors, but I had not immersed myself in the literature of the 19th century. Votes: 3

I like all sorts of things, not necessarily just Victorian. Even though I tend to read a lot of Victorian novels, I like a lot of contemporary stuff. Votes: 3

I'm obsessed with the Victorian era and the British Royal Navy... I'd love to play a troubled sailor or captain or a boatman on a three masted ship. Votes: 3

I joined an Internet community of Victorian scholars, which meant that if I posted a question about 1875's lavender harvest, more than a thousand experts would ponder it. Votes: 3

A Rogue by Any Other Name' is the first book in the 'Rules of Scoundrels' series, centered on a legendary pre-Victorian casino and her four scandalous aristocratic owners. Votes: 3

I went to a grim Victorian school with classes of 40 or 50 children. It was a very rigid and unimaginative education, but it did teach us the three Rs. Votes: 3

To me, steampunk and urban fantasy are naturally hinged together. And I think that's because I love the early gothic Victorian literature, and both things spring from that movement. Votes: 3

When you think about Puritanism, you must begin by getting rid of the slang term 'Puritanism' as applied to Victorian religious hypocrisy. This does not apply to seventeenth-century Puritanism. Votes: 3

Victorian society was homogeneous without being homogenized. It was, to paraphrase the epigram about Parliament, a society of extreme eccentrics who agreed so well that they could afford to differ. Votes: 3

Thrift is not some obsolete Victorian notion. . . . It will be the difference between those who prosper and achieve respect and those who become a burden to their children and society. Votes: 3

Nothing - really, absolutely nothing - says more about Victorian Britain and its capacity for brilliance than that the century's most daring and iconic building was entrusted to a gardener. Votes: 3

The superstition that the hounds of truth will rout the vermin of error seems, like a fragment of Victorian lace, quaint, but too brittle to be lifted out of the showcase. Votes: 3

Us comics guys tend to get really good at the things we draw a lot. I'm good at creepy old forests, Victorian houses, underground goblin cities, and beautiful but creepy fairies. Votes: 3

It is a sort of great Victorian truth that actually, trying to do the right thing is pretty good for you and pretty good for business as well, by and large. Votes: 3

I get sent a lot of scripts which feature him as a kind of all-purpose Victorian literary character and really understand little, if anything, about him, his life or his books. Votes: 3

Actual Victorian mores and politics were a reaction to a specific series of historical events, technological and scientific developments, and ethical trends in which the commodification of people was de rigueur. Votes: 3

Oddly, in this age of the blinding white Oprah pantsuit, when everything is illuminated, it seems a Victorian lace curtain still hangs over the delicate womanly matter of our personal expenditures. Votes: 3

I used to be very fascinated by Victorian stuff, and my best-known books, the Mortal Engines series, have a sort of retro, Victorian vibe, despite being set in the far future. Votes: 3

Many people have compared me to the Victorian adventure writer, Rider Haggard. I accept that as a compliment. As a boy growing up in Central Africa I read all Haggard's African novels. Votes: 3

One of the things I really like about Victorian novels is the close anatomisation of character. People's gestures and mannerisms and the quality of their thought is very closely identified and analysed. Votes: 3

One of my ambitions has been to go back to what those great authors were doing then ... to bridge that sensibility of old Victorian Gothic tales and reconstruct them in a modern way. Votes: 3

In California we froze property taxes, school size increased, test scores declined, and there was a massive middle-class white flight to private schools. We're turning into Victorian England at a very rapid rate. Votes: 3

The Indian education system, like the Indian bureaucratic system, is Victorian and still in the 19th century. Our schools are still designed to produce clerks for an empire that does not exist anymore. Votes: 3

Within the sphere of steampunk, there seems to be a rapidly growing subsphere of gadgetless 'neo-Victorian' novels, most of which attempt to recapture the romance of the era without all the sociopolitical ugliness. Votes: 3

There have been 14 versions that I can find of Burke & Hare movies. They have all been horror films and all the movies have taken place in Victorian times, which doesn't make any sense. Votes: 3

Then years back, when I moved to California, I happened to see a book about fashions of 19th-century Victorian England, only four pages of which was devoted to the dress of the working class. Votes: 3

I was never going to get any sleep. I was going to have Alice in Wonderland conversation after Alice in Wonderland conversation until I died of exhaustion. Here, in the restful, idyllic Victorian era. Votes: 3

Then years back, when I moved to California, I happened to see a book about fashions of 19th-century Victorian England, only four pages of which was devoted to the dress of the working class. Votes: 3

If you walked around like David Bowie in 1973 in Reading, you'd get beaten up. The 1970s in a small town was more like the 1950s.. and that's the truth. The backdrop was probably Victorian. Votes: 3

But I think the most harmful change brought about by Victorian science in our attitude to nature lies in the demand that our relation with it must be purposive, industrious, always seeking greater knowledge. Votes: 3

The idea of close encounters of the zero'th kind - which is to say, not a close encounter at all, but simply uncovering evidence that someone's out there - dates back to the Victorian era. Votes: 3

The old Victorian laws against homosexuality were still on the statute books until the early 1990s. As a gay man living in Ireland, I and people like me found it easy to feel less than citizens. Votes: 3

What was exciting in the Victorian Age, would leave a man of franker epoch quite unmoved. The more prudes restrict the permissible degree of sexual appeal, the less is required to make such an appeal effective. Votes: 3

You have to put yourself to one side and get away from the 'Victorian poet' model where you are the universe. You have to do everything you can to take your ego out of the equation. Votes: 3

The Victorian Internet' is a must read for anyone interested in the history of technology and in the cycles of hype, boom, and bust that seem to only quicken with each new wave of innovation. Highly recommended. Votes: 3

The readership of Victorian novels, when they were published, was much less diverse. People were probably white, and had enough money to be literate. Very often, there are phrases in Italian, German and French that are left untranslated. Votes: 3

Conscience was the barmaid of the Victorian soul. Recognizing that human beings were fallible and that their failings, though regrettable, must be humored, conscience would permit, rather ungraciously perhaps, the indulgence of a number of carefully selected desires. Votes: 3

(E)ach generation thinks it invented sex; each generation is totally mistaken. Anything along that line today was commonplace both in Pompeii and in Victorian England; the differences lie only in the degree of coverup -- if any. Votes: 3

I was the eldest daughter with these four beautiful younger sisters with ringlets and pretty faces, and I used to dress them up in Victorian clothes and take them out for the day and pretend they were mine. Votes: 3

I myself love to read those Victorian novels which go on and on, and you don't read them in one sitting. You might read one over the course of a summer, but that isn't what I want to write. Votes: 3

At university, one of my areas of study was Victorian literature, so I decided to see if I could write a novel as carefully planned and constructed as those of George Eliot, but with the narrative energy of Dickens. Votes: 3

The history of life was not the bumbling progress - the very English, middle-class progress - Victorian thought had wanted it to be, but violent, a thing of dramatic, cumulative transformations: in the old formulation, more revolution than evolution. Votes: 3

To the best of my knowledge, when I became national secretary and, indeed, Victorian secretary, the - my predecessors in the union had detected wrong activities, activities which arent in the best traditions of the AWU or, indeed, trade unionism. Votes: 3

Technically and logically speaking, actual Victorian science fiction writers cannot be dubbed 'steampunks.' Although they utilized many of the same tropes and touchstones employed later by twenty-first-century writers of steampunk, in their contemporary hands these devices represented state-of-the-art speculation. Votes: 3

Steampunk, the repurposing of Victorian culture and technology for contemporary fun and profit, is so ubiquitous - in media, books, fashion, music, cosplay, and maker culture - that we tend to imagine its superficial aspects are all that define it. Votes: 3

I think worldwide, the movement has been towards accepting and respecting the individuality and the rights of gay people, lesbians and transgender people. Here, however, age-old cultural mindsets - which also comes from Victorian times, affect the thinking of people. Votes: 3

To the best of my knowledge, when I became national secretary and, indeed, Victorian secretary, the - my predecessors in the union had detected wrong activities, activities which aren't in the best traditions of the AWU or, indeed, trade unionism. Votes: 3

[The] BBC was known as Auntie suggesting someone prudish and Victorian and that she still is on some days. On others she's a champagne-soaked floozie, her skirts in disarray, her mind in the gutter, and the mixture can be quite wonderful. Votes: 3

Only a great genius like the Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell can be mother, wife and novelist without solitude. I couldn't write until my youngest child went to school, and then I began - the first morning - and I've never stopped. Votes: 3

In the mystifying world that was Victorian parenthood, obedience took precedence over all considerations of affection and happiness, and that odd, painful conviction remained the case in most well-heeled homes up until at least the time of the First World War. Votes: 3

Back in medieval times, Victorian repression hadn't come in yet. People were bawdy and wild and more in touch with their true natures. If you look at the Bosch paintings or Bruegel, you see, when people are dancing, they're totally cutting loose. Votes: 3

Hey,” the cabbie yelled. “How’s about a tip?” “You bet-ski,” Evie said, heading toward the old Victorian mansion, her long silk scarf trailing behind her. “Don’t kiss strange men in Penn Station. Votes: 3

We think of mortality so little these days...I thought of the stern Victorian determination to keep death in mind, the uncompromising tombstones.Remember, pilgrim, as you pass by,As you are now so once was I:As I am so will you be..." Votes: 3

One of my most sentimental items is my grandmother's engagement ring that my mom gave me a few years ago. It's a Victorian-style setting that's closed in the back, so it doesn't sparkle the way diamonds do now. I wear it as a pendant. Votes: 3

Apart from letters, it is the vulgar custom of the moment to deride the thinkers of the Victorian and Edwardian eras; yet there has not been, in all history, another agewhen so much sheer mental energy was directed toward creating a fairer social order. Votes: 3

We think of mortality so little these days...I thought of the stern Victorian determination to keep death in mind, the uncompromising tombstones.Remember, pilgrim, as you pass by,As you are now so once was I:As I am so will you be... Votes: 3

Victorian feminists made the mistake of making membership of the sisterhood conditional on signing up to a particular policy agenda. Marxist feminists made a similar mistake of saying, 'You can't be a real feminist unless you join with miners, the unions, the vegans.' Votes: 3

Here I am, ninety years old and ready for the cooling board, using a brand new Macintosh computer, and there you sit, twenty-two and gorgeous, fresh as a new peach, yet scrawling on a yellow legal pad like an old maid in a Victorian romance. Votes: 3

No wonder so many adults long to return to university, to all those deadlines--ahhh, that structure! Scaffolding to which we may cling! Even if it is arbitrary, without it, we're lost, wholly incapable of separating the Romantic from the Victorian in our sad, bewildering lives... Votes: 3

I've just written a very gritty, non-magical take on the King Arthur legend, 'Here Lies Arthur,' and I'm currently toying with some other historical ideas, as well as working with the illustrator David Wyatt on some sequels to my Victorian space opera 'Larklight.' Votes: 3

As I got older, I got more Victorian and morbid. I got into things that circled around death, like skulls or morgue photographs or handwritten diaries. They can be almost haunted with all this history, and you project onto it and then it gets onto you. Votes: 3

Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading. Stop them reading what they enjoy or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like - the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian 'improving' literature - you'll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and, worse, unpleasant. Votes: 3

I love the Victorian era, and I always have, but I had a leg up on the writing because I was familiar with a lot of the science from the Victorian era. And that led to a massive interest in the science of this time of history. Votes: 3

I've always been drawn to the Edwardian period in England. To me, it seems like such a fascinating time, when the British Empire was at the height of its powers and the strict mores of the Victorian age were dissipating into the decadence of King Edward's reign. Votes: 3

In one particular chapter in Ulysses, James Joyce imitates every major writing style that's been used by English and American writers over the last 700 years - starting with Beowulf and Chaucer and working his way up through the Renaissance, the Victorian era and on into the 20th century. Votes: 3

Art and Entertainment are the same thing, in that the more deeply and genuinely entertaining a work is, the better art it is. To imply that Art is something heavy and solemn and dull, and Entertainment is modest but jolly and popular, is neo-Victorian idiocy at its worst. Votes: 3

In one particular chapter in Ulysses, James Joyce imitates every major writing style that's been used by English and American writers over the last 700 years - starting with Beowulf and Chaucer and working his way up through the Renaissance, the Victorian era and on into the 20th century. Votes: 3

I read the best works of some of the best satirists, and indeed best writers from the beginning of the Victorian era to about the 1960s. If you want to be a blacksmith, you go and watch the blacksmith working, and you work out what the blacksmith does. Votes: 3

In large Victorian houses with many rooms and heavy doors, the occupants could be mysterious and exciting to one another in a way that those who live in rackety developments can never hope to be. Not even the lust of a Lord Byron could survive the fact of Levittown. Votes: 3

The Thames Torso murders almost fell into my lap. After deciding to use a real historical crime as the focus for the book, I went to Google and searched for unsolved murders in Victorian London, and they basically popped out at me about halfway down the first results page. Votes: 3

I don't have a collection, but I have a thing with jackets. I really like jackets. Whether it's an '80s motorbike jacket, or a Victorian jacket. I could wear the same jeans every day for months, but the jacket would be the thing that would change a lot. Votes: 3

In the great city of San Francisco, where I used to live, at 2 in the morning every other Victorian house has somebody who is writing the great American novel. And the city is not loaded with James Joyces or Virginia Woolfs. But entrepreneurship is about distorted views of reality. Votes: 3

I've always loved Victorian melodrama. And I've always liked larger-than-life theater, providing it's truthful and honest. I like what the theater can provide in energy and bombast - I enjoy it when it's large, and by that I don't mean in size, I mean in emotions. Shakespeare did that. Votes: 3

Napoleon, who had an aversion to the moral laxity of the eighteenth century, which he blamed on the domination of society by women, was determined to reform family life on Roman, or perhaps rather on Corsican, principles. It was with him, not with Queen Victoria, that Victorian morality originated. Votes: 3

If you agree with me that a poem can be as bountiful as a rich Victorian narrative, and as wise... then you'll want to join me here in the Wow, I Like No Need of Sympathy Club. Your membership fee is the same as your membership privileges: this book. Votes: 3

Vampires are so old that they don't need to impress anyone anymore. They're comfortable in their own skin. It's this enigmatic strength that's very romantic and old-fashioned. I think it goes back to something of a Victorian attitude of finding a strong man who's going to look after his woman. Votes: 2

The four of us enjoyed a most wonderful family atmosphere filled with love and reciprocal devotion. Both parents were highly cultured and instilled in us their high appreciation of intellectual pursuit. It was, however, a typical Victorian style of life, all decisions being taken by the head of the family, the husband and father. Votes: 2

My grandmother flew only once in her life, and that was the day she and her new husband ascended into the skies of Victorian London in the wicker basket of a hot-air balloon. They were soon to emigrate to Canada, and the aerial ride was meant to be a last view of their beloved England. Votes: 2

The growth of art seems to be in cycles, and often its vigorous lifetime is restricted to a century or two. The periods of distinctive drama, Greek, English, Spanish, fall within such a limit; the schools of painting and sculpture likewise; and, in poetry, the Victorian age or the school of Pope will serve as examples. Votes: 2

If I didn't already sense that I was different, I certainly was reminded, whether by my parents or by the other school kids. Not just reminded. Told... I was made to believe it wasn't right. If I went a little bit too off - slap! It was Dad's upbringing and it was Victorian, and that's the way he was. Votes: 2