Three Men In A Boat Quotes
"The chief beauty of this book lies not so much in its literary style, or in the extent and usefulness of the information it conveys, as in its simple truthfulness."
"I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form."
"I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages."
"We sat there for half-an-hour, describing to each other our maladies."
"I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid’s knee."
"Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished."
"A week’s voyage round the coast, and before they started, the steward came to him to ask whether he would pay for each meal as he had it, or arrange beforehand for the whole series."
"Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need."
"But, in this world, we must consider others."
"Packing is one of those many things that I feel I know more about than any other person living."
"There is nothing does irritate me more than seeing other people sitting about doing nothing when I’m working."
"My tooth-brush is a thing that haunts me when I’m travelling, and makes my life a misery."
"They began in a light-hearted spirit, evidently intending to show me how to do it."
"Montmorency’s ambition in life, is to get in the way and be sworn at."
"I generally preferred to sleep inside a bed."
"The weather is a thing that is beyond me altogether."
"We are creatures of the sun, we men and women. We love light and life."
"It utterly spoils an excursion if you have folk in the boat who are thinking all the time a good deal more of their dress than of the trip."
"I shock respectable sextons by the imperturbability I am able to assume before exciting inscriptions."
"How good one feels when one is full—how satisfied with ourselves and with the world!"
"It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs."
"We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so."
"A soul-moving harmony, correctly performed, we should have taken as a spirit-warning, and have given up all hope."
"How beautiful the music seemed to us both then—far, far more beautiful than the voice of Orpheus or the lute of Apollo, or anything of that sort could have sounded."
"Reach not after morality and righteousness, my friends; watch vigilantly your stomach, and diet it with care and judgment."
"Then virtue and contentment will come and reign within your heart, unsought by any effort of your own."
"Why could not we be always like this—away from the world, with its sin and temptation, leading sober, peaceful lives, and doing good."
"It was the sort of thing I had often longed for myself."
"The earth seems far away and little; and the clouds, so close above your head, are brothers."
"We did not go into the realm of twilight; we went slap into that punt, where those three old men were fishing."
"We beat it out flat; we beat it back square; we battered it into every form known to geometry—but we could not make a hole in it."
"Fox-terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs."
"Then a sweet young lady entered, leading a meek-looking little fox-terrier, and left him, chained up there, between the bull-dog and the poodle."
"Then, without a word of warning, without the shadow of a provocation, he bit that poodle’s near fore-leg, and a yelp of agony rang through the quiet shades of that lobby."
"I love work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours."
"No man keeps his work in a better state of preservation than I do."
"There is something so beautifully calm and restful about his method. It is so free from that fretful haste, that vehement striving, that is every day becoming more and more the bane of nineteenth-century life."
"But, though I crave for work, I still like to be fair. I do not ask for more than my proper share."
"It shows you what can be done with economy and care."
"It was not till I came to the Thames that I got style."
"I never saw such a thing as potato-scraping for making a fellow in a mess."
"The sublime equanimity of the hired boatman under the ordeal affords us a beautiful lesson against ambition and uppishness."
"I have felt that myself when listening to my young friend. There is, it must be confessed, something very sad about the early efforts of an amateur in bagpipes."
"But it does not give you style. It was not till I came to the Thames that I got style."
"The interview is, however, extremely brief, most of the conversation being on his part, your remarks being mostly of an exclamatory and mono-syllabic order."
"Fancy old George talking about work!" he laughed; "why, about half-an-hour of it would kill him."
"It does not seem good to be always going with the current. There is more satisfaction in squaring one’s back, and fighting against it, and winning one’s way forward in spite of it."
"We thought we would give up gambling then. As Harris said, it breeds an unhealthy excitement when carried too far."
"The air of the river has a demoralising effect upon one’s temper."
"It’s only two days more, and we are young and strong. We may get over it all right, after all."
"We had come out for a fortnight’s enjoyment on the river, and a fortnight’s enjoyment on the river we meant to have. If it killed us! well, that would be a sad thing for our friends and relations, but it could not be helped."
"We felt that to give in to the weather in a climate such as ours would be a most disastrous precedent."
"Inside we were a still greater success. Our fine bronzed countenances and picturesque clothes were followed round the place with admiring gaze. We were the cynosure of every eye."
"We pegged and quaffed away in silence for a while, until the time came when, instead of sitting bolt upright, and grasping the knife and fork firmly, we leant back in our chairs and worked slowly and carelessly."
"Then Harris, who was sitting next the window, drew aside the curtain and looked out upon the street."
"It glistened darkly in the wet, the dim lamps flickered with each gust, the rain splashed steadily into the puddles and trickled down the water-spouts into the running gutters."
"Well," said Harris, reaching his hand out for his glass, "we have had a pleasant trip, and my hearty thanks for it to old Father Thames—but I think we did well to chuck it when we did. Here’s to Three Men well out of a Boat!"