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Victorian Quotes

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Victorian Quotes

“The growth of art seems to be in cycles, and often its vigorous lifetime is restricted to a century or two. The periods of distinctive drama, Greek, English, Spanish, fall within such a limit; the schools of painting and sculpture likewise; and, in poetry, the Victorian age or the school of Pope will serve as examples.”

ArtTwoSeemsAgeSchoolFallGrowthCenturyExamplePaintingPeriodsDramaLimitsLifetimeGreekCyclesPopeSculptureVigorousDistinctiveVictorianVictorian Age
Book:Two Phases of Criticism, Historical and Aesthetic: Lectures Delivered on the Larwill Foundation of Kenyon College, May Seventh and Eighth, 1913
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“Well, this is a story about books." About books?" About accursed books, about a man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of anovel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It's a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind." You talk like the jacket blurb of a Victorian novel, Daniel." That's probably because I work in a bookshop and I've seen too many. But this is a true story.”

MenWellsBookCharacterStoriesDreamLostNovelWindPagesShadowHatredBetrayalBrokeJacketsTrue StoryVictorianLost FriendshipBookshopsShadow Of The Wind
Book:The Shadow Of The Wind
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“A Grand Design we couldn't see because we were part of it. A Grand Design we only got occasional, fleeting glimpses of. A Grand Design involving the entire course of history and all of time and space that, for some unfathomable reason, chose to work out its designs with cats and croquet mallets and penwipers, to say nothing of the dog. And a hideous piece of Victorian artwork. And us.”

ReasonCoursesSpacePiecesDogDesignCatWork OutGlimpseTime And SpaceFleetingOccasionalInvolvingHideousArtworkVictorianUnfathomableCroquet
Book:To Say Nothing of the Dog
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“The surgeons are playing on the myth's double standard for the function of the body. A man's thigh is for walking, but a woman's is for walking and looking "beautiful." If women can walk but believe our limbs look wrong, we feel that our bodies cannot do what they are meant to do; we feel as genuinely deformed and disabled as the unwilling Victorian hypochondriac felt ill.”

IfsMenFeelsBelieveLooksBodyBeautifulFeltWalksWalkingStandardsFunctionIllMythLimbsDisabledUnwillingSurgeonsThighsVictorianDouble StandardFashion IndustryHypochondriacLooking Beautiful
Author:Naomi Wolf
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“What if all those strange and unexplainable bends in history were the result of supernatural interference? At which point I asked myself, what's the weirdest most eccentric historical phenomenon of them all? Answer:the Great British Empire. Clearly, one tiny little island could only conquer half the known world with supernatural aid. Those absurd Victorian manners and ridiculous fashions were obviously dictated by vampires. And, without a doubt, the British army regimental system functions on werewolf pack dynamics.”

IfsWorldLittlesAnswersResultsHalfKnownDoubtFashionStrangeFunctionArmyHistoricalBritishAidsTinyRidiculousAbsurdVampireConquerMannersIslandsEmpiresWhat IfPhenomenonPacksEccentricWerewolfInterferenceDynamicsVictorianBritish EmpireUnexplainableBritish Army
Author:Gail Carriger
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“There are many things in this world that are an outrage, to be sure, but death at our current life expectancy doesn’t strike me as one of them. Maybe I sound like some Victorian who felt that forty years ought to be enough for any man, but one of the marks of a life well lived has to be reaching a state of finally getting it, of not needing more, and of being able to sign off with something approaching peace of mind.”

MenWorldYearsMindWellsStatesEnoughAbleFeltSoundThis WorldOughtMarkCurrentsStrikesReachingFortyPeace Of MindOutrageVictorianExpectancyLife Well LivedLife ExpectancySigning Off
Author:David Rakoff
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“Eyeing the traffic circulating the lobby hung with bad art. Big invasive stuff unloaded on Stanley Bard in exchange for rent. The hotel is an energetic, desperate haven for scores of gifted hustling children from every rung of the ladder. Guitar bums and stoned-out beauties in Victorian dresses. Junkie poets, playwrights, broke-down filmmakers, and French actors. Everybody passing through here is somebody, if not in the outside world.”

IfsWorldChildrenArtBigsActorsStuffHavensPoetDressesGuitarPassingPassingsBrokeFilmmakerDesperateScoreHotelHungTrafficGiftedLaddersPlaywrightEnergeticHustleOutside WorldJunkieVictorianStanleyPassing ThroughBards
Author:Patti Smith
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“The greatest act of love was to make a tape for someone. It was the only way we could share music and it was also a way of advertising yourself. Selection, order, the lettering you used for the track list, how much technical detail you went into, whether or not you added artwork or offered only artwork and no track list at all, these choices were as codified as a Victorian bouquet.”

WayUsedOrderChoicesShareTrackDetailsListsAdvertisingTapeSelectionArtworkVictorianActs Of LoveBouquets
Book:The Importance of Music to Girls
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“In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography, man compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between sentences. Generations of twentieth-century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit.”

MenWellsAgeStuffDarkSpaceGenerationsCenturyTaughtHabitPeriodsBenefitsSentencesExtrasHittingTwentieth CenturyNineteenth CenturyVictorianSpace BetweenTypingTypographyQuaint
Author:Robert Bringhurst
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“Libraries are not just for reading in, but for sociable thinking, exploring, exchanging ideas and falling in love. They were never silent. Technology will not change that, for even in the starchiest heyday of Victorian self-improvement, libraries were intended to be meeting places of the mind, recreational as well as educational.”

ThinkingMindWellsIdeasSelfFallReadingTechnologySelf ImprovementMeetingsSilentFalling In LoveLibraryEducationalImprovementExploringVictorianExchangingSociableHeydayExchanging Ideas
Author:Ben Macintyre
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“Napoleon, who had an aversion to the moral laxity of the eighteenth century, which he blamed on the domination of society by women, was determined to reform family life on Roman, or perhaps rather on Corsican, principles. It was with him, not with Queen Victoria, that Victorian morality originated.”

MoralPrinciplesCenturyMoralityDeterminedReformQueensDominationFamily LifeAversionVictorianVictoria
Book:The Horizon book of the age of Napoleon
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“I wish you could see the two cats drowsing side by side in a Victorian nursing chair, their paws, their ears, their tails complementarily adjusted, their blue eyes blinking open on a single thought of when I shall remember it's their supper time. They might have been composed by Bach for two flutes.”

Has BeensTwoMightEyeRememberWishSidesCatEarsBlueChairsTailsMight Have BeenNursingWish YouBlue EyesVictorianSupperPawsFlutesSupper Time
Author:Sylvia Townsend Warner
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“Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child’s love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian “improving” literature. You’ll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and worse, unpleasant.”

GivingWellsChildrenBookReadingLiteratureEnjoyGenerationsCenturyWindAdultsWorthyConvincedDull21st CenturyImprovingVictorianLove Of ReadingUncool
Author:Neil Gaiman
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“My work is a fusion of personal experiences and influences - moody atmospheres, victorian-inspired couture, and timeless elements all laced with clandestine symbolism. The figures I paint exist in their own esoteric realm and time, and each painting offers a glimpse into their anomalous world.”

WorldInfluenceFiguresPaintingOffersElementsPaintInspiredAtmosphereRealmsTimelessGlimpseSymbolismPersonal ExperiencesVictorianFusionEsotericMoodyCoutureClandestine
Author:Lori Earley
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