[ShadowNymph]

I'm thinking it could be interesting. Just post your favourite quotes from books you've read here. It's a great way to get new reading recommendations. Let's give it a go.

[S.A.T.O.R.E-S.A.N]

"And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, Millions of mischiefs"

Octavius to Antony in julius ceasar.

[S.A.T.O.R.E-S.A.N]

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

Julius Caesar

[S.A.T.O.R.E-S.A.N]

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

As You Like It

[S.A.T.O.R.E-S.A.N]

In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practise it much. In the every-day affairs of life it is more useful to reason forwards, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.

Sherlock Holmes - in A Study in Scarlet

[S.A.T.O.R.E-S.A.N]

Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid

Sherlock Holmes - in "The Sign of the Four"

[ShadowNymph]

Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.

Herman Melville - Moby Di*k: or, The Whale

[Cerebral]

.........a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe...in the face of which... we must feel humble.

(Albert Einstein)

[ShadowNymph]

“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”


The sunlight was cold and clear as the note struck by a knife on a fine wine-glass.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke

[Cerebral]

....one`s opponent...must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy


(Mohandas Ghandi)

[S.A.T.O.R.E-S.A.N]

Most hearts of any quality are broken on two or three occasions in a lifetime. They mend, of course, and are often stronger than before, but something of the essence of life is lost at every break.

Robertson Davies - Leaven of Malice

[ShadowNymph]

The Prestige - Christopher Priest

Cutter: Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called The Pledge. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called The Turn. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call The Prestige.

Robert Angier: You never understood, why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you... then you got to see something really special... you really don't know?... it was... it was the look on their faces...

[S.A.T.O.R.E-S.A.N]

As a rule, when I have heard some slight indication of the course of events, I am able to guide myself by the thousands of other similar cases which occur to my memory. In the present instance I am forced to admit that the facts are, to the best of my belief, unique.

Sherlock Holmes in "The Red Headed League"

[S.A.T.O.R.E-S.A.N]

Speakers' nerves affect them in various ways. Some tremble, some become frenzied. I lose all confidence, and suffer from a leaden oppression that makes me wonder why I ever agreed to speak at all; the Tomb and the Conqueror Worm seem preferable to delivering the stupid and piffling speech I have so carefully prepared.

Robertson Davies - "One Half of Robertson Davies"