Top quotes by John Galsworthy

Religion was nearly dead because there was no longer real belief in future life; but something was struggling to take its place - service - social service - the ants creed, the bees creed. Votes: 21

Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem. Votes: 17

The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy. Votes: 15

Love has no age, no limit; and no death. Votes: 9

I am still under the impression that there is nothing alive quite so beautiful as a thoroughbred horse. Votes: 9

There are moments when Nature reveals the passion hidden beneath the careless calm of her ordinary moods-violent spring flashing white on almond-blossom through the purple clouds; a snowy, moonlit peak, with its single star, soaring up to the passionate blue; or against the flames of sunset, an old yew-tree standing dark guardian of some fiery secret. Votes: 8

Come! Let us lay a lance in rest, And tilt at windmills under a wild sky! For who would live so petty and unblest That dare not tilt at something ere he die; Rather than, screened by safe majority, Preserve his little life to little end, And never raise a rebel cry! Votes: 8

Swithin! And the fellow had gone and died, last November, at the age of seventy-nine, renewing the doubt whether Forsytes could live for ever, which had first arisen when Aunt Ann passed away." Votes: 7

The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy, the building of a house, the writing of a novel, the demolition of a bridge, and, eminently, the finish of a voyage. Votes: 7

Headlines twice the size of the events. Votes: 6

A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else. Votes: 5

A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it. Votes: 5

Beginnings are always messy. Votes: 5

Humanism is the creed of those who believe that in the circle of enwrapping mystery, men's fates are in their own hands - a faith that for modern man is becoming the only possible faith. Votes: 5

It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what. Votes: 4

He was afflicted by the thought that where Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which no doubt, was why so many people looked on it as immoral. Votes: 3

Honesty of thought and speech and written word is a jewel, and they who curb prejudice and seek honorably to know and speak the truth are the only builders of a better life. Votes: 3

Life calls the tune, we dance. Votes: 2

It's not life that counts but the fortitude you bring into it. Votes: 2

Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives. Votes: 2

When a Forsyte was engaged, married, or born, the Forsytes were present; when a Forsyte diedbut no Forsyte had as yet died; they did not die; death being contrary to their principles, they took precautions against it, the instinctive precautions of highly vitalised persons who resent encroachments on their property. Votes: 2

An epoch which had gilded individual liberty so that if a man had money he was free in law and fact, and if he had not money he was free in law and not in fact. An era which had canonized hypocrisy, so that to seem to be respectable was to be." Votes: 1

That tendency...to lie awake between the hours of two and four, when the chrysalis of faint misgiving becomes so readily the butterfly of panic. Votes: 1

When Man evolved Pity, he did a queer thing - deprived himself of the power of living life as it is without wishing it to become something different. Votes: 1

There are houses whose souls have passed into the limbo of Time, leaving their bodies in the limbo of London. Such was not quite the condition of Timothy's on the Bayswater Road, for Timothy's soul still had one foot in Timothy Forsyte's body, and Smither kept the atmosphere unchanging, of camphor and port wine and house whose windows are only opened to air it twice a day. Votes: 0

I think the greatest thing in the world is to believe in people. Votes: 0

One's eyes are what one is, one's mouth is what one becomes. Votes: 0

The law is what it is-a majestic edifice, sheltering all of us, each stone of which rests on another. Votes: 0

Love is not a hot-house flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind. A wild plant that, when it blooms by chance within the hedge of our gardens, we call a flower; and when it blooms outside we call a weed; but, flower or weed, whose scent and colour are always, wild! Votes: 0

It isn't enough to love people because they're good to you, or because in some way or other you're going to get something by it. We have to love because we love loving. Votes: 0

If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one. Votes: 0

It isnot good enough tospend time and ink indescribing the penultimate sensations and physical movements of people getting into a state of rut, we all know them so well. Votes: 0

Beauty means this to one person, perhaps, and that to the other. And yet when any one of us has seen or heard or read that which to us is beautiful, we have known an emotion which is in every case the same in kind, if not in degree; an emotion precious and uplifting. Votes: 0

We are all familiar with the argument: Make war dreadful enough, and there will be no war. And we none of us believe it. Votes: 0

We are not living in a private world of our own. Everything we say and do and think has its effect on everything around us. Votes: 0

Wealth is a means to an end, not the end itself. As a synonym for health and happiness, it has had a fair trial and failed dismally. Votes: 0

The bicycle... has been responsible for more movement in manners and morals than anything since Charles the Second. Under its influence, wholly or in part, have blossomed weekends, strong nerves, strong legs, strong language... equality of sex, good digestion and professional occupation - in four words, the emanicipation of women. Votes: 0

the biggest tragedy of life is the utter impossibility to change what you have done Votes: 0

It is an age of stir and change, a season of new wine and old bottles. Yet, assuredly, in spite of breakages and waste, a wine worth the drinking is all the time being made. Votes: 0

Only out of stir and change is born new salvation. To deny that is to deny belief in man, to turn our backs on courage! Votes: 0

There is one rule for politicians all over the world: Don't say in Power what you say in opposition; if you do, you only have to carry out what the other fellows have found impossible. Votes: 0

Dawn has power to fertilise the most matter-of-fact vision. Votes: 0

The young man who, at the end of September, 1924, dismounted from a taxicab in South Square, Westminster, was so unobtrusively American that his driver had some hesitation in asking for double his fare. The young man had no hesitation in refusing it. Votes: 0

Love! Beyond meaure - beyond death - it nearly kills. But one wouldn't have been without it. Votes: 0

It is by muteness that a dog becomes for one so utterly beyond value; with him one is at peace, where words play no torturing tricks.Those are the moments that I think are precious to a dog-when, with his adoring soul coming through his eyes, he feels that you are really thinking of him. Votes: 0

See what perils do environ those who meddle with hot iron. Votes: 0

The talked-about is always the last to hear the talk . . . Votes: 0

Love could never come to full fruition till it was destroyed. Votes: 0

Society is built on marriage ... marriage and its consequences. Votes: 0

Early morning does not mince words. Votes: 0

Summer — summer — summer! The soundless footsteps on the grass! Votes: 0

Love of beauty is really only the sex instinct, which nothing but complete union satisfies. Votes: 0

Light-heartedness always made Soames suspicious - there was generally some reason for it. Votes: 0

Take modern courtships! They resulted in the same thing as under George the Second, but took longer to reach it, owing to the motor-cycle and the standing lunch. Votes: 0

From behind a wooden crate we saw a long black-muzzled nose poking round at us. We took him out-soft, wobbly, tearful; set him down on his four, as yet not quite simultaneous legs, and regarded him. He wandered a little round our legs, neither wagging his tail nor licking at our hands; then he looked up, and my companion said: "He's an angel!" Votes: 0

Only love makes fruitful the soul. Votes: 0

Men are in fact, quite unable to control their own inventions; they at best develop adaptability to the new conditions those inventions create. Votes: 0

Art is the one form of human energy in the whole world, which really works for union, and destroys the barriers between man and man. It is the continual, unconscious replacement, however fleeting, of oneself by another; the real cement of human life; the everlasting refreshment and renewal. For, what is grievous, dompting, grim, about our lives is that we are shut up within ourselves, with an itch to get outside ourselves. And to be stolen away from ourselves by Art is a momentary relaxation from that itching, a minute's profound, and as it were secret, enfranchisement. Votes: 0

By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of men's souls. Votes: 0

Justice is a machine which, when someone has once given it the starting push, rolls on of itself. Votes: 0

Essential characteristics of a gentleman: The will to put himself in the place of others; the horror of forcing others into positions from which he would himself recoil; and the power to do what seems to him to be right without considering what others may say or think. Votes: 0

It`s always worth while before you do anything to consider whether it`s going to hurt another person more than is absolutely necessary. Votes: 0

The value of a sentiment is the amount of sacrifice you are prepared to make for it. Votes: 0

Only love makes fruitful the soul. The sense of form that both had in such high degree prevented much demonstration; but to be with him, do things for him, to admire, and credit him with perfection; and, since she could not exactly wear the same clothes or speak in the same clipped, quiet, decisive voice, to dislike the clothes and voices of other men - all this was precious to her beyond everything. Votes: 0

Memory heaps dead leaves on corpse-like deeds, from under which they do but vaguely offend the sense. Votes: 0

Dreaming is the poetry of Life, and we must be forgiven if we indulge in it a little. Votes: 0

I drink the wine of aspiration and the drug of illusion. Thus I am never dull. Votes: 0

He might wish and wish and never get it - the beauty and the loving in the world! Votes: 0

The French cook; we open tins. Votes: 0

Once admit that we have the right to inflict unnecessary suffering and you destroy the very basis of human society. Votes: 0

How to save the old that's worth saving, whether in landscape, houses, manners, institutions, or human types, is one of our greatest problems, and the one that we bother least about. Votes: 0

Looking back on the long-stretched-out body of one's work, it is interesting to mark the endless duel fought within a man between the emotional and critical sides of his nature, first one, then the other, getting the upper hand, and too seldom fusing till the result has the mellowness of full achievement. One can even tell the nature of one's readers, by their preference for the work which reveals more of this side than of that. Votes: 0

Public opinion's always in advance of the law. Votes: 0

The Forsytes were resentful of something, not individually, but as a family; this resentment expressed itself in an added perfection of raiment, an exuberance of family cordiality, an exaggeration of family importance, and the sniff. Danger so indispensable in bringing out the fundamental quality of any society, group, or individual was what the Forsytes scented; the premonition of danger put a burnish on their armour. For the first time, as a family, they appeared to have an instinct of being in contact, with some strange and unsafe thing. Votes: 0

Slang is vigorous and apt. Probably most of our vital words were once slang. Votes: 0

Matters change and morals change; men remain. Votes: 0

As a man lives and thinks, so he will write. Votes: 0