H. Rider Haggard Quotes
The great wheel of Fate rolls on like a Juggernaut, and crushes us all in turn, some soon, some late
As I grow older, I regret to say that a detestable habit of thinking seems to be getting a hold of me.
How can a world be good in which Money is the moving power, and Self-interest the guiding star?
Men and women, empires and cities, thrones, principalities, and powers, mountains, rivers, and unfathomed seas, worlds, spaces, and universes, all have their day, and all must go.
Ah! If man would but see that hope is from within and not from without - that he himself must work out his own salvation.
There is no such things as magic, though there is such a thing as knowledge of the hidden ways of Nature.
Passion is like the lightning, it is beautiful, and it links the earth to heaven, but alas it blinds!
Mistrust all men, and slay him whom thou mistrustest overmuch; and as for women, flee from them, for they are evil, and in the end will destroy thee.
The Almighty gave us our lives, and I suppose He meant us to defend them, at least I have always acted on that, and I hope it will not be brought up against me when my clock strikes.
Adventurer: he that goes to meet whatever may come. Well, that is what we all do in the world one way or another.
Truly wealth, which men spend all their lives in acquiring, is a valueless thing at the last.
My death is very near to me, and of this I am glad, for I desire to pursue the quest in other realms, as it has been promised to me that I shall do.
Wealth is good, and if it comes our way we will take it; but a gentleman does not sell himself for wealth.
Strange are the pictures of the future that mankind can thus draw with this brush of faith and these many-coloured pigments of the imagination! Strange, too, that no one of them tallies with another!
Laughter and bitterness are often the veils with which a sore heart wraps its weakness from the world.
I have never observed that the religious are more eager to die than the rest of us poor mortals.
We were like confirmed opium-eaters: in our moments of reason we well knew the deadly nature of our pursuit, but we certainly were not prepared to abandon its terrible delights.
As for the girl, since she is well favoured, she shall brew the king's beer, and be numbered amongst the king's wives-unless, indeed, he is pleased to give her to me.
It is curious to look back and realize upon what trivial and apparently coincidental circumstances great events frequently turn as easily and naturally as a door on its hinges.
We run to place and power over the dead bodies of those who fail and fall; ay, we win the food we eat from out the mouths of starving babes.
There are things and there are faces which, when felt or seen for the first time, stamp themselves upon the mind like a sun image on a sensitized plate and there remain unalterably fixed.
The food that memory gives to eat is bitter to the taste, and it is only with the teeth of hope that we can bear to bite it.
There is no loneliness like the loneliness of crowds, especially to those who are unaccustomed to them.
I am not a nervous man in a general way, and very little troubled with superstitions, of which I have lived to see the folly.
The law of England is much more severe upon offences against property than against the person, as becomes a people whose ruling passion is money.
It is not wise to neglect the present for the future, for who knows what the future will be?
Take what life can give you, Ana, and do not trouble about the offerings which are laid in the tombs for time to crumble.
Be careful when power comes to thee also, lest thou too shouldst smite in thine anger or thy jealousy, for unconquerable strength is a sore weapon in the hands of erring man
Passion is like the lightening, it is beautiful and it links the earth to heaven, but it blinds.
Women love the last blow as well as the last word, and when they fight for love they are pitiless as a wounded buffalo.
How true is the saying that the very highest in rank are always the most simple and kindly. It is from you half-and-half sort of people that you get pomposity and vulgarity
What a tricky and uncomfortable thing is conscience, that nearly always begins to trouble us at the moment of, or after, the event, not before, when it might be of some use.
And now it appeared that there was a mysterious Queen clothed by rumour with dread and wonderful attributes, and commonly known by the impersonal but, to my mind, rather awesome title of She.
