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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| cd0cdc0 | Yet whether wisdom can be any more profitably pursued than happiness is a question. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| bd36d0a | Jack, I must tell you in your private ear that we have some allies ashore, rather curious allies, I admit, who look after these operations: I hope and trust that you will see many another yard burnt or burning before we reach Durazzo. I am aware that this is not your kind of war, brother: it is not glorious. Yet as you see, it is effective.' 'Do not take me for a bloody-minded man, Stephen, a death-or-glory swashbuckling cove. Believe me, I.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 104ebfa | It is only that I dislike the whole notion of subordination. The corporal lurks in almost every bosom, and each man tends to use authority when he has it, thus destroying his natural relationship with his fellows, a disastrous state of affairs for both sides. Do away with subordination and you do away with tyranny: without subordination we should have no Neros, no Tamerlanes, no Buonapartes.' 'Stuff,' said Jack. 'Subordination is the natura.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 83ac771 | he was a great believer in the healing powers of cheerfulness, if not of open mirth). Yet he had some faults, and one was a habit of dosing himself, generally from a spirit of enquiry, as in his period of inhaling large quantities of the nitrous oxide and of the vapour of hemp, to say nothing of tobacco, bhang in all its charming varieties in India, betel in Java and the neighbouring islands, qat in the Red Sea, and hallucinating cacti in S.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 5f68496 | and in the din Stephen cried, 'I insist upon a boat - I protest... Jack took him by the elbow and propelled him with affectionate violence into the cabin. 'My dear sir,' he said, 'I am afraid you must not insist, or protest: it is mutiny, you know, and you would be obliged to be hanged. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| de19c01 | You will not be afraid of all those rough men?' asked Sophie, when Clarissa came down. 'No. As far as I have seen, apart from mere brute strength they are no more formidable than we are. Less so, indeed, since most have that dog-does-not-bite-bitch rule deeply engrained, while nothing of that kind applies to us. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 61c8f81 | Why, the devil, do you see,' said Jack, 'is the seam between the deck-planking and the timbers, and we call it the devil, because it is the /devil/ for the caulkers to come at: in full we say, the devil to pay and no pitch hot; and what we mean is, that there is something hell-fire difficult to be done - must be done - and nothing to do it with. It is a figure. | nautical-terminology | Patrick O'Brian | |
| f9f676c | should very much like to see your excrement.' 'You shall, my dear sir, you shall. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 1251536 | At that time I attached a perhaps undue importance to staying alive, and I became moderately proficient with both the pistol and the small-sword. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| abfde10 | Round she went: the squared main and mizen yards lay parallel with the wind, the topsails shaking. Farther, farther; and now the wind was abaft her beam, and by rights her sternway should have stopped; but it did not; she was still travelling with remarkable speed in the wrong direction. He filled the topsails, gave her weather helm, and still she slid backwards in this insane contradiction of all known principles. For a moment all the cert.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 1de9332 | Well, as for slavery...it is true that I should not like to be one myself, yet Nelson was in favour of it and he said that the country's shipping would be ruined if the trade were put down. Perhaps it comes more natural if you are black...but come, I remember how you tore that unfortunate scrub Bosville to pieces years ago in Barbados for saying that the slaves liked it - that it was in their masters' interest to treat them kindly - that do.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| c7a6793 | What was independence but a word? What did any form of government matter? Freedom: to do what? | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| aa0dee0 | Stephen strode forward and as the Frenchman turned he brought the massive obsidian down on his head, breaking both. Pontet-Canet was on the floor, limp but breathing. Stephen bent over him, catling in hand, felt for the still beating common carotid, severed it, and stood back from the jet of blood. Then he pulled the body to the hip-bath, placed towels and mats to prevent the blood soaking through to the floor below, and went through the de.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 12256a1 | And then, sir,' he added, 'you would oblige me infinitely by marrying us, if you have the leisure.' Captain Broke paused for a moment: was this a strangely-timed pleasantry? Judging from the Doctor's demeanour and his pale, determined face, it was not. Should he wish him joy of the occasion? Perhaps, in view of Jack's silence and Maturin's cool, matter-of-fact, unfestive manner, that might be inappropriate. He remembered his own wedding-day.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| a289e3f | The back of my hand to guilt. | stephen-maturin | Patrick O'Brian | |
| a5962ee | The officer chiefly concerned, Mr Pullings, or the Maiden as the Kutaliotes called him because of his mild face and gentle manners, had but to hint that a wall, outhouse, chimney, dovecote might be in the way for it to vanish, plucked down if not by its owners then by his neighbours and the rest of the community. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| fdd5a60 | He was smiling openly when Stephen walked in, looking shrewish. Like many large, florid, good-natured men, Jack Aubrey was afflicted with an undue proportion of small pale, meagre friends of a shrewish turn. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 3de9493 | But is that not corruption, Jack? You were always very much against corruption when you were young, I mean younger.' 'So I am still: corruption in others is anathema to me. But you would scarcely credit the depths of turpitude I should descend to myself for a thousand a year; | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 55aca32 | Diana accepted the bait, spat out the hook with contempt, and hurried away to the stables to consult with Thomas, | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| e74c9c5 | How happy you make me, Jack," said Stephen. "And you might make me even happier, should you so wish, by giving me a hand with this. The unreasonable attitude, or lurch, of the ship caused me to overset the chest." "God help us," cried Jack, gazing at the mass of gold coins lying in a deep curve along the leeward side of the cabin. "What is this?" "It is technically known as money," said Stephen. "And was you to help me pick it up, instead o.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 3063dcb | Stephen writhed his neck round, directing a grim look at the young man: all his professional life ashore had been haunted by these vile messengers; innumerable concerts, theatres, operas, dinners, promised treats had been wrecked or interrupted by fools, mooncalves, who, to gain some private end, had broken a leg, had fits, or fallen into a catalepsy. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| f9d9d4d | But the whole point is this: Bach had a father.' 'Heavens, Jack, what things you tell me. Yet upon recollection I seem to have known other men in much the same case. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| b65bc35 | We must phrase it with great care, pointing out most respectfully that we will be damned if we receive him on board rather than one of the two other gentlemen we have put in for. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 3d202a5 | but there was another factor that had not come into play when they marched down to Suez in the darkness - by day the vast expanse of desert, perfectly level in every direction, offered no shelter for those who wished to relieve themselves; and as several of the Surprises, including their captain, were as shamefast and bashful in their actions as they were licentious in their speech, this led to a great loss of time as men hurried off so tha.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| dfbe0dc | Good morning, Doctor," cried Jack, appearing behind him. 'I did not know you were in the hotel.' 'Good morning, sir,' said Stephen. 'I was not. I slept with a friend.' 'Oh, I see,' said Jack. He was pleased, in that Stephen's frailty gave countenance and justification to his own, but at the same time he was disappointed, more disappointed than pleased, since a frail Stephen necessarily fell short of the very highest standard of virtue. Jack.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 771a9f7 | Put those pistols down at once,' he said coldly. 'Do not you know it is very rude to point a pistol at a person you do not mean to kill? For shame, Villiers. Where were you brought up? | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 78b1ad3 | Why, sir, what's all this? Surely you have not forgot you are entertaining the Captain?' 'And how am I supposed to entertain the Captain, for all love?' asked Stephen. 'Am I to grin at him through a horse-collar, propose riddles and conundrums, cut capers?' 'Come, sir,' said Calamy, 'the gunroom is entertaining the Captain to dinner, and you have only ten minutes to change. There is not a moment to be lost. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| c584a06 | Killick,' he cried, folding and sealing it. 'That's for the post. Is the Doctor ready?' 'Ready and waiting these fourteen minutes,' said Stephen in a loud, sour voice. 'What a wretched tedious slow hand you are with a pen, upon my soul. Scratch-scratch, gasp-gasp. You might have written the Iliad in half the time, and a commentary upon it, too. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 09c143c | Whether Mrs Williams liked her daughters at all was doubtful: she loved them, of course, and had 'sacrificed everything for them', but there was not much room in her composition for liking - it was too much taken up with being right | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| bb87902 | Oh yes, they assured him, with grave, anxious faces; they were in horrid danger of foundering, broaching-to, running violently into Australia; but there was a hope, just a very slight hope, of their meeting with a mountain of ice and clambering on to it - as many as half a dozen men might be saved. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| f4615ac | Few had much room to cast stones, but hypocrisy has never failed the English middle class in any latitude, and they flung them in plenty with delighted, shocked abandon - rocks, boulders, limited in size only by fear for their husband's advancement. Conciliating discretion had never been among Mrs Villiers's qualities, and if subjects for malignant gossip had been wanting she would have provided them by the elephant-load. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| d732ced | Good heavens,' cried Mr White. 'To fire great iron balls at people you have never even spoken to - barbarity is come again. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 0d99f8d | Christ's blood in heaven, you ignorant, incompetent whey-faced nestlecock, do you think I am a hired spy, an informer? That I have a master, a paymaster, for God's love? You silly little man. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 303aeb9 | There is a proverb in Ireland,' said Stephen, 'to the effect that there is good to be found even in an Englishman - is minic Gall maith. It is not often used, however. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 0f99520 | Ah,' said Loder, meaning by this that he regretted the turtle and the geese, that he thought Fox's refusal for his colleagues an abuse of authority, and that he for one dissociated himself from the barbarous incivility: a considerable burden for a single 'ah', but one that it bore easily. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 53bc0f9 | he was hungry; and he was cross with his wife, who had said in her clear ringing voice, 'I will tell you what, Maturin, if this baby of ours has anything like the discontented, bilious, liverish expression you have brought down from town, it shall be changed out of hand for something more cheerful from the Foundling Hospital. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 5bed120 | Tell me, sir, do you know of any banker that really understands his business? Some modern Fugger?' 'Oh, Stephen, if you please,' cried Jack. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 5ef1273 | As far as Stephen could see they were tolerably shipshape already. The bare little rooms had been sanded and scrubbed; various neat lockers economized space; a complication of white cordage in the corner showed that a hanging chair, that most comfortable of seats, was being made; and hammocks lashed up with seven perfectly even turns and covered with a rug formed a not inelegant sofa. Jack Aubrey had spent most of his naval life in quarters.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 8c97edf | Stephen reflected for some little while on the exact degree of calculated incivility allowed in a well-bred man. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 2e64cf9 | Love, sorrow, and wealth are the three things that cannot be concealed. | sorrow truth wealth | Patrick O'Brian | |
| c496a9f | when dinner was over he suggested that they should take their coffee on to the forecastle to look at the spectacle. Killick could not actually forbid the move, but with a pinched and shrewish look he poured the guests' coffee into villainous little tin mugs: he knew what they were capable of, if entrusted with porcelain, and he was quite right - each mug was dented when it came back, and the captain of the head had to deplore a trail of dar.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| bd40e3a | Two weevils crept from the crumbs. 'You see those weevils, Stephen?' said Jack solemnly. 'I do.' 'Which would you choose?' 'There is not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them.' 'But suppose you had to choose?' 'Then I should choose the right-hand weevil; it has a perceptible advantage in both length and breadth.' 'There I have you,' cried Jack. 'You are bit - .. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 70cee81 | Word of all this had reached Diana, an unusually passionate, impulsive woman; she had written to him in unusually passionate, impulsive terms and his letter was designed to do away with her resentment of what she saw not as immoral conduct (she had no particular objection to immoral conduct) but as an intolerable public affront. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 56c6332 | It was his sea-chest that gave him most trouble: it had two trays and a little inner chest or till, and time and again he filled the whole and forced down the lid, only to find that one of these three was lying on his bed or behind the door. Towards midnight he had the entirety closed and locked, and then he perceived that the pair of pocket-pistols he meant to take with him in the morning were in the lowest compartment of all. 'Life is no.. | Patrick O'Brian |