Best Quotes by Patrick O'Brian (Top 10)
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Wit is the unexpected copulation of ideas.
Patrick O'Brian
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We understood one another better before ever I opened my mouth
Patrick O'Brian
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They will not be pleased. But they know we must catch the monsoon with a well-found ship; and they know they are in the Navy—they have chosen their cake, and must lie on it.' You mean, they cannot have their bed and eat it.' No, no, it is not quite that either. I mean—I wish you would not confuse my mind, Stephen.
Patrick O'Brian
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Sir,' said Stephen, âI read novels with the utmost pertinacity. I look upon them—I look upon good novels—as a very valuable part of literature, conveying more exact and finely-distinguished knowledge of the human heart and mind than almost any other, with greater breadth and depth and fewer constraints.
Patrick O'Brian
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I am opposed to authority, that egg of misery and oppression; I am opposed to it largely for what it does to those who exercise it.
Patrick O'Brian
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...I have had such a sickening of men in masses, and of causes, that I would not cross this room to reform parliament or prevent the union or to bring about the millennium. I speak only for myself, mind - it is my own truth alone - but man as part of a movement or a crowd is indifferent to me. He is inhuman. And I have nothing to do with nations, or nationalism. The only feelings I have - for what they are - are for men as individuals; my loyalties, such as they may be, are to private persons alone.
Patrick O'Brian
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Go and see whether the Doctor is about,' said Jack, âand if he is, ask him to look in, when he has a moment.' Which he is in the fish-market, turning over some old-fashioned lobsters. No. I tell a lie. That is him, falling down the companion-way and cursing in foreign.
Patrick O'Brian
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No man born of woman has ever understood spoken Portuguese.
Patrick O'Brian
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Why there you are, Stephen,' cried Jack. 'You are come home, I find.' That is true,' said Stephen with an affectionate look: he prized statements of this kind in Jack.
Patrick O'Brian
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My dear creature, I have done with all debate. But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG, which is infamous, or MY COUNTRY IS ALWAYS RIGHT, which is imbecile.
Patrick O'Brian
More Patrick O'Brian Quotes
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He sat on as the sun's rays came slowly down through the trees, lower and lower, and when the lowest reached a branch not far above him it caught a dewdrop poised upon a leaf. The drop instantly blazed crimson, and a slight movement of his head made it show all the colours of the spectrum with extraordinary purity, from a red almost too deep to be seen through all the others to the ultimate violet and back again.
Patrick O'Brian
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I am in favour of leaving people alone, however imperfect their polity may seem. It appears to me that you must not tell other nations how to set their house in order; nor must you compel them to be happy.
Patrick O'Brian
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I do not say that all lawyers are bad, but I do maintain that the general tendency is bad: standing up in a court for whichever side has paid you, affecting warmth and conviction, and doing everything you can to win the case, whatever your private opinion may be, will soon dull any fine sense of honour. The mercenary soldier is not a valued creature, but at least he risks his life, whereas these men merely risk their next fee.
Patrick O'Brian