If a king cannot have a son, if he cannot do that, it matters not what else he can do. The victories, the spoils of victory, the just laws he makes, the famous courts he holds, these are as nothing.’...
I you ask me about the monks, I speak from experience, not prejudice, and though I have no doubt that some foundations are well governed, my experience has been of waste and corruption. May I suggest...
I tell you, dear Citizen Camille—it’s not the deaths I can’t stand. It’s the judgements, the judgements in the courtroom.
I once had every hope,’ he says. ‘The world corrupts me, I think. Or perhaps it's just the weather. It pulls me down and makes me think like you, that one should shrink inside, down and down to a litt...
I know she’s rather plain, but every girl has a right to conceal that fact from people who haven’t seen her.
I can remember the days,’ Mirabeau said, ‘when we didn’t have public opinion. No one had ever heard of such a thing.
He wonders again if the dead need translators; perhaps in a moment, in a simple twist of unbecoming, they know everything they need to know.
As Danton sees it, the most bizarre aspect of Camille's character is his desire to scribble over every blank surface; he sees a guileless piece of paper, virgin and harmless, and persecutes it till it...
Abroad? Oh no. I went to England in ’91, and you stood in the garden at Fontenay and berated me. He shook his head. This is my nation. Here I stay. A man can’t carry his country on the soles of his sh...
There are liasons which would put yours in the shade...
It's just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir, to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in the street and stamped on.
You cannot tell people just part of the tale and then stop, or just tell them the parts you choose.
The lawyers’ saying ‘Le mort saisit le vif’? The dead grip the living. The prince dies but his power passes at the moment of his death, there is no lapse, no interregnum
He takes as his text and example the unfortunate Ahab, seventh king of Israel, who lived in a palace of ivory. Under the influence of the wicked Jezebel he built a pagan temple and gave the priests of...
A grey wrinkled vastness, like the residue of a dream
You would save them. If you could.No. There are periods in revolution when to live is a crime, and people must know how to yield their heads if they are demanded. Perhaps mine will be. If that time co...
Why did you let her take the head off London Bridge?Cromwell:You know me, Stephen. The fluid of benevolence flows through my veins and sometimes overspills.
When have I, when have I ever forced anyone to do anything, he starts to say: but Richard cuts in, No, you don't, I agree, it's just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite diff...
Try always, Wolsey says, to find out what people wear under their clothes.
Thomas More syas that the imperial troops, for their enjoyment, are roasting live babies on spits. Oh, he would! says Thomas Cromwell. Listen, soldiers don't do that. They're too busy carrying away ev...