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81 " Mr. Blake idly turned over the books on his bedroom table. I had taken the precaution of looking at them, when we first entered the room. THE GUARDIAN; THE TATLER; Richardson's PAMELA; Mackenzie's MAN OF FEELING; Roscoe's LORENZO DE MEDICI; and Robertson's CHARLES THE FIFTH—all classical works; all (of course) immeasurably superior to anything produced in later times; and all (from my present point of view) possessing the one great merit of enchaining nobody's interest, and exciting nobody's brain. I left Mr. Blake to the composing influence of Standard Literature, and occupied myself in making this entry in my journal. "
― Wilkie Collins , The Moonstone
82 " Now I saw, though too late, the Folly of beginning a Work before we count the Cost, and before we judge rightly of our own Strength to go through with it." Only "
83 " Cultivate a superiority to reason, and see how you pare the claws of all the sensible people when they try to scratch you for your own good! "
84 " As a general rule, political talk appears to me to be of all talk the most dreary and the most profitless. "
85 " The tone in which those words were spoken might have melted a stone. But, oh dear, what is the hardness of stone? Nothing, compared to the hardness of the unregenerate human heart! "
86 " [...] the father of lies is the Devil - and that mischief and the Devil are never far apart. "
87 " But, as to Mr. Franklin's bedroom (if THAT is to be put back to what it was before), I want to know who is responsible for keeping it in a perpetual state of litter, no matter how often it may be set right--his trousers here, his towel there, and his French novels everywhere. I say, who is responsible for untidying the tidiness of Mr. Franklin's room, him or me? "
88 " And then he said — not bitterly — that he would die as he had lived, forgotten and unknown. He maintained that resolution to the last. There is no hope now of making any discoveries concerning him. His story is a blank. "
89 " Let my grave be forgotten. Give me your word of honour that you will allow no monument of any sort — not even the commonest tombstone — to mark the place of my burial. Let me sleep, nameless. Let me rest, unknown. "
90 " I am indebted to my dear parents (both now in heaven) for having had habits of order and regularity instilled into me at a very early age. "
91 " When we are isolated and poor, we are not infrequently forgotten. "
92 " It is plain that she has loved him, throughout the estrangement between them. "
93 " I can’t say that I woke this morning; the fitter expression would be, that I recovered my senses. "
94 " God be praised for His mercy! I have seen a little sunshine-- I have had a happy time. "
95 " On hearing these dreadful words my daughter Penelope said she didn't know what prevented her heart from flying straight out of her. I thought privately it might have been her stays. "
96 " I found her at the head of the sofa when I returned. She was just touching his forehead with her lips. I shook my head as soberly as I could and pointed to her chair. She looked back at me with a bright smile and a charming colour in her face. "You would have done it," she whispered. "In my place. "
97 " Mr. Bruff, you have no more imagination than a cow!”“A cow is a very useful animal, Mr. Blake,” said the lawyer. "
98 " I set down here Mr. Franklin’s careless question, and my foolish answer, as a consolation and encouragement to all stupid people — it being, as I have remarked, a great satisfaction to our inferior fellow-creatures to find that their betters are, on occasions, no brighter than they are. "
99 " How can I thank you?”“I will tell you how. Don’t blame me for what happens afterwards! "
100 " There’s a bottom of good sense, Mr. Franklin, in our conduct to our mothers, when they first start us on the journey of life. We are all of us more or less unwilling to be brought into the world. And we are all of us right. "