John Galsworthy Quotes & Sayings

Public opinion's always in advance of the law. — John Galsworthy

Summer - summer - summer! The soundless footsteps on the grass! — John Galsworthy

Some fifteen years ago in London there was an exhibition of the works of a certain sculptor, which contained many sane and admirable pieces. Two young ladies came in one day, and flitted from flower to flower with dissatisfied air, till at last one of them caught sight of a vast seated assemblage of elliptical rhomboids which was wooing the Public under the name of Venus. Before this supreme novelty she halted, if a butterfly can halt. 'Oh, my dear,' she said, 'here she is! Here's the Venus!' And putting her head on one side, she added: 'Isn't she a pet?' Such butterflies still exist and halt before the works of novelty for novelty's sake, because they are told to by some town-crier, who must have novelty at any cost. — John Galsworthy

Only out of stir and change is born new salvation. To deny that is to deny belief in man, to turn our backs on courage! — John Galsworthy

Wealth is a means to an end, not the end itself. As a synonym for health and happiness, it has had a fair trial and failed dismally. — John Galsworthy

It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what. — John Galsworthy

Society is built on marriage ... marriage and its consequences. — John Galsworthy

Beginnings are always messy. — John Galsworthy

I think the greatest thing in the world is to believe in people. — John Galsworthy

In choosing, moreover, for his father an amiable man of fifty-two, who had already lost an only son, and for his mother a woman of thirty-eight, whose first and only child he was, little Jon had done well and wisely. What had saved him from becoming a cross between a lap dog and a little prig, had been his father's adoration of his mother, for even little Jon could see that she was not merely just his mother, and that he played second fiddle to her in his father's heart: What he played in his mother's heart he knew not yet. — John Galsworthy

...that secret hostility natural between brothers, the roots of which --little nursery rivalries--sometimes toughen and deepen as life goes on, and, all hidden, support a plant capable of producing in season the bitterest fruits. — John Galsworthy

Memory heaps dead leaves on corpse-like deeds, from under which they do but vaguely offend the sense. — John Galsworthy

There are houses whose souls have passed into the limbo of Time, leaving their bodies in the limbo of London. Such was not quite the condition of "Timothy's" on the Bayswater Road, for Timothy's soul still had one foot in Timothy Forsyte's body, and Smither kept the atmosphere unchanging, of camphor and port wine and house whose windows are only opened to air it twice a day. — John Galsworthy

Curious how he jibbed away from sight of his wife and child!
One would have thought he must have rushed up at the first moment. On the contrary, he had a sort of physical shrinking from it - fastidious possessor that he was. He was afraid of what Annette was thinking of him, author of her agonies, afraid of the look of the baby, afraid of showing his disappointment with the present and - the future. — John Galsworthy

The bicycle ... has been responsible for more movement in manners and morals than anything since Charles the Second. Under its influence, wholly or in part, have blossomed weekends, strong nerves, strong legs, strong language ... equality of sex, good digestion and professional occupation - in four words, the emanicipation of women. — John Galsworthy

Youth, like a flame, burned ever in his breast, and to youth he turned, to the round little limbs, so reckless, that wanted care, to the small round faces so unreasonably solemn or bright, to the treble tongues, and the shrill, chuckling laughter, to the insistent tugging hands, and the feel of small bodies against his legs, to all that was young and young, and once more young. — John Galsworthy

The young man who, at the end of September, 1924, dismounted from a taxicab in South Square, Westminster, was so unobtrusively American that his driver had some hesitation in asking for double his fare. The young man had no hesitation in refusing it. — John Galsworthy

Only love makes fruitful the soul. The sense of form that both had in such high degree prevented much demonstration; but to be with him, do things for him, to admire, and credit him with perfection; and, since she could not exactly wear the same clothes or speak in the same clipped, quiet, decisive voice, to dislike the clothes and voices of other men - all this was precious to her beyond everything. — John Galsworthy

Love of beauty is really only the sex instinct, which nothing but complete union satisfies. — John Galsworthy

From behind a wooden crate we saw a long black-muzzled nose poking round at us. We took him out-soft, wobbly, tearful; set him down on his four, as yet not quite simultaneous legs, and regarded him. He wandered a little round our legs, neither wagging his tail nor licking at our hands; then he looked up, and my companion said: "He's an angel!" — John Galsworthy

Love could never come to full fruition till it was destroyed. — John Galsworthy

It isnot good enough tospend time and ink indescribing the penultimate sensations and physical movements of people getting into a state of rut, we all know them so well. — John Galsworthy

An epoch which had gilded individual liberty so that if a man had money he was free in law and fact, and if he had not money he was free in law and not in fact. An era which had canonized hypocrisy, so that to seem to be respectable was to be. — John Galsworthy

Early morning does not mince words. — John Galsworthy

Swithin! And the fellow had gone and died, last November, at the age of seventy-nine, renewing the doubt whether Forsytes could live for ever, which had first arisen when Aunt Ann passed away. — John Galsworthy

There are two irreconcilable ideas of God. There's the Unknowable Creative Principle---one believes in That. And there's the Sum of altruism in man---naturally one believes in That...The sublime poem of the Christ life was man's attempt to join those two irreconcilable conceptions of God. And since the Sum of human altruism was as much a part of the Unknowable Creative Principle as anything else in Nature and the Universe, a worse link might have been chosen after all! Funny---how one went through life without seeing it in that sort of way! — John Galsworthy

Youth to youth, like the dragon-flies chasing each other, and love like the sun warming them through and through. — John Galsworthy

It isn't enough to love people because they're good to you, or because in some way or other you're going to get something by it. We have to love because we love loving. — John Galsworthy

Religion was nearly dead because there was no longer real belief in future life; but something was struggling to take its place - service - social service - the ants creed, the bees creed. — John Galsworthy

Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives. — John Galsworthy

He might wish and wish and never get it - the beauty and the loving in the world! — John Galsworthy

It's always worth while before you do anything to consider whether it's going to hurt another person more than is absolutely necessary. — John Galsworthy

But all over-expression, whether by journalists, poets, novelists, or clergymen, is bad for the language, bad for the mind; and by over-expression, I mean the use of words running beyond the sincere feeling of writer or speaker or beyond what the event will sanely carry. From time to time a crusade is preached against it from the text: 'The cat was on the mat.' Some Victorian scribe, we must suppose, once wrote: 'Stretching herself with feline grace and emitting those sounds immemorially connected with satisfaction, Grimalkin lay on a rug whose richly variegated pattern spoke eloquently of the Orient and all the wonders of the Arabian Nights.' And an exasperated reader annotated the margin with the shorter version of the absorbing event. How the late Georgian scribe will express the occurrence we do not yet know. Thus, perhaps: 'What there is of cat is cat is what of cat there lying cat is what on what of mat laying cat.' The reader will probably the margin with 'Some cat! — John Galsworthy

The law is what it is-a majestic edifice, sheltering all of us, each stone of which rests on another. — John Galsworthy

Justice is a machine which, when someone has once given it the starting push, rolls on of itself. — John Galsworthy

Men are in fact, quite unable to control their own inventions; they at best develop adaptability to the new conditions those inventions create. — John Galsworthy

And yet, in books were comfort and diversion; and they were wanted! — John Galsworthy

The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy. — John Galsworthy

We are all familiar with the argument: Make war dreadful enough, and there will be no war. And we none of us believe it. — John Galsworthy

The Forsytes were resentful of something, not individually, but as a family; this resentment expressed itself in an added perfection of raiment, an exuberance of family cordiality, an exaggeration of family importance, and the sniff. Danger so indispensable in bringing out the fundamental quality of any society, group, or individual was what the Forsytes scented; the premonition of danger put a burnish on their armour. For the first time, as a family, they appeared to have an instinct of being in contact, with some strange and unsafe thing. — John Galsworthy

In his eyes, as in the eyes of all Forsytes, the pleasure of seeing these beautiful creatures in a state of captivity far outweighed the inconvenience of imprisonment to beasts whom God had so improvidently placed in a state of freedom! It was for the animals' good, removing them at once from the countless dangers of open air and exercise. Indeed, it was doubtful what wild animals were made for but tobe shut up in cages!
The Man of Property, p. 191 — John Galsworthy

Justice is a machine that, when someone has once given it the starting push, rolls on of itself. - John Galsworthy, Justice [1910], act II — John Galsworthy

Humanism is the creed of those who believe that in the circle of enwrapping mystery, men's fates are in their own hands - a faith that for modern man is becoming the only possible faith. — John Galsworthy

It is by muteness that a dog becomes for one so utterly beyond value; with him one is at peace, where words play no torturing tricks.Those are the moments that I think are precious to a dog-when, with his adoring soul coming through his eyes, he feels that you are really thinking of him. — John Galsworthy

It is an age of stir and change, a season of new wine and old bottles. Yet, assuredly, in spite of breakages and waste, a wine worth the drinking is all the time being made. — John Galsworthy

A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it. — John Galsworthy

The French cook; we open tins. — John Galsworthy

The talked-about is always the last to hear the talk ... — John Galsworthy

He went up to the globe and gave it a spin. It emitted a faint creak and moved about one inch, bringing into his purview a daddy long legs which had died on it in latitude 44. — John Galsworthy

Honesty of thought and speech and written word is a jewel, and they who curb prejudice and seek honorably to know and speak the truth are the only builders of a better life. — John Galsworthy

Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem. — John Galsworthy

I am still under the impression that there is nothing alive quite so beautiful as a thoroughbred horse. — John Galsworthy

He won't be happy till he gets it," said Michael, at last: "The only thing is, you see, he doesn't know what IT is. — John Galsworthy

Love is no hot-house flower,
but a wild plant, born of a wet night,
born of an hour of sunshine; sprung
from wild seed, blown along the road
by a
wild wind. — John Galsworthy

Life calls the tune, we dance. — John Galsworthy

There is one rule for politicians all over the world: Don't say in Power what you say in opposition; if you do, you only have to carry out what the other fellows have found impossible. — John Galsworthy

Once admit that we have the right to inflict unnecessary suffering and you destroy the very basis of human society. — John Galsworthy

One's eyes are what one is, one's mouth is what one becomes. — John Galsworthy

If you do not think about your future, you cannot have one. — John Galsworthy

A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else. — John Galsworthy

As a man lives and thinks, so he will write. — John Galsworthy

Slang is vigorous and apt. Probably most of our vital words were once slang. — John Galsworthy

Take modern courtships! They resulted in the same thing as under George the Second, but took longer to reach it, owing to the motor-cycle and the standing lunch. — John Galsworthy

His natural taciturnity was in his favour; nothing could be more calculated to give people, especially people with property (Soames had no other clients), the impression that he was a safe man. And he was safe. [ ... ] How could he fall, when his soul abhorred circumstances which render a fall possible - a man cannot fall off the floor! — John Galsworthy

There are moments when Nature reveals the passion hidden beneath the careless calm of her ordinary moods-violent spring flashing white on almond-blossom through the purple clouds; a snowy, moonlit peak, with its single star, soaring up to the passionate blue; or against the flames of sunset, an old yew-tree standing dark guardian of some fiery secret. — John Galsworthy

Matters change and morals change; men remain. — John Galsworthy

Really," said Winifred suddenly; "it almost seems like Fate. Only that's so old-fashioned. — John Galsworthy

Oh! isn't it stupid, the war?-as if it was not good to be alive."
He wanted to say: "You can't tell how good it is to be alive till you're facing death, because you don't live till then. And when a whole lot of you feel like that-and are ready to give their lives for each other, it's worth all the rest of life put together." But he couldn't get it out to this girl who believed in nothing. — John Galsworthy

Come! Let us lay a lance in rest,
And tilt at windmills under a wild sky!
For who would live so petty and unblest
That dare not tilt at something ere he die;
Rather than, screened by safe majority,
Preserve his little life to little end,
And never raise a rebel cry! — John Galsworthy

Dreaming is the poetry of Life, and we must be forgiven if we indulge in it a little. — John Galsworthy

He was a wanderer by nature, and even if England and the nearer East were closed to him, the world was wide, the sun shone in many places, the stars wheeled over one, books could be read, women had beauty, flowers scent, tobacco its flavour, music its moving power, coffee its fragrance, horses and dogs and birds were the same seductive creatures, — John Galsworthy

We are not living in a private world of our own. Everything we say and do and think has its effect on everything around us. — John Galsworthy

The value of a sentiment is the amount of sacrifice you are prepared to make for it. — John Galsworthy

Every phase and question of life is brought more and more into the limelight. Theatres, cinemas, the radio, and even lectures, assist the process. But they do not, and should not replace reading, because when we are just watching and listening, somebody is taking very good care that we should not stop and think. The danger in this age is not of our remaining ignorant; it is that we should lose the power of thinking for ourselves. Problems are more and more put before us, but, except to crossword puzzles and detective mysteries, do we attempt to find the answers for ourselves? Less and less. The short cut seems ever more and more desirable. But the short cut to knowledge is nearly always the longest way round. There is nothing like knowledge, picked up by or reasoned out for oneself. — John Galsworthy

When a Forsyte was engaged, married, or born, the Forsytes were present; when a Forsyte died - but no Forsyte had as yet died; they did not die; death being contrary to their principles, they took precautions against it, the instinctive precautions of highly vitalized persons who resent encroachments on their property. — John Galsworthy

It's not life that counts but the fortitude you bring into it. — John Galsworthy

That tendency ... to lie awake between the hours of two and four, when the chrysalis of faint misgiving becomes so readily the butterfly of panic. — John Galsworthy

James and the other eight children of 'Superior Dosset,' of whom there are still five alive, may be said to have represented Victorian England, with its principles of trade and individualism at five per cent, and your money back - if you know what that means. At all events they've turned thirty thousand pounds into a cool million between them in the course of their long lives. ( ... ) Their day is passing, and their type, not altogether for the advantage of the country. They were pedestrian, but they too were sound. — John Galsworthy

Dawn has power to fertilise the most matter-of-fact vision. — John Galsworthy

The biggest tragedy of life is the utter impossibility to change what you have done — John Galsworthy

If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one. — John Galsworthy

How to save the old that's worth saving, whether in landscape, houses, manners, institutions, or human types, is one of our greatest problems, and the one that we bother least about. — John Galsworthy

Wishes father thought, but they don't breed evidence. — John Galsworthy

Only love makes fruitful the soul. — John Galsworthy

Politics are popularly supposed to govern the direction, and statesmen to be the guardian angels, of Civilization. It seems to me that they have little or no power over its growth. They are of it, and move with it. Their concern is rather with the body than with the mind or soul of a nation. One needs not to be an engineer to know that to pull a man up a wall one must be higher than he; that to raise general taste one must have better taste than that of those whose taste he is raising. — John Galsworthy

We are a breed of spoilers!' thought Jolyon, 'close and greedy; the bloom of life is not safe with us. Let her come to me as she will, when she will, not at all if she will not. Let me be just her stand-by, her perching-place; never-never her cage! — John Galsworthy

By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of men's souls. — John Galsworthy

Headlines twice the size of the events. — John Galsworthy

Love is not a hot-house flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind. A wild plant that, when it blooms by chance within the hedge of our gardens, we call a flower; and when it blooms outside we call a weed; but, flower or weed, whose scent and colour are always, wild! — John Galsworthy

Mechanism! Everywhere
mechanism! Devices for getting away from life so complete that there seemed no life to get away from. — John Galsworthy

To every man of great age - to Sir Wlater Bentham himself - the idea of suicide has once at least been present in the ante-room of his soul; on the threshold, waiting to enter, held out from the inmost chamber by some chance reality, some vague fear, some painful hope.
The Man of Property, p. 363 — John Galsworthy

No one has told Jon's wife that he and I were once in love, I suppose?"
Holly shook her head.
"I'd rather they didn't, then."
"of course not, my dear. I'll see to it. The child's nice, I think."
"Nice," said Fleur, "but not important. — John Galsworthy

Looking back on the long-stretched-out body of one's work, it is interesting to mark the endless duel fought within a man between the emotional and critical sides of his nature, first one, then the other, getting the upper hand, and too seldom fusing till the result has the mellowness of full achievement. One can even tell the nature of one's readers, by their preference for the work which reveals more of this side than of that. — John Galsworthy

With the years his dislike of humbug had increased; the orthodoxy he had worn in the 'sixties', as he had worn side-whiskers out of sheer exuberance , had long dropped off, leaving him reverent before three things alone - beauty, upright conduct, and the sense of property; and the greatest of these now was beauty. — John Galsworthy

He was afflicted by the thought that where Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which no doubt, was why so many people looked on it as immoral. — John Galsworthy

Art is the one form of human energy in the whole world, which really works for union, and destroys the barriers between man and man. It is the continual, unconscious replacement, however fleeting, of oneself by another; the real cement of human life; the everlasting refreshment and renewal. For, what is grievous, dompting, grim, about our lives is that we are shut up within ourselves, with an itch to get outside ourselves. And to be stolen away from ourselves by Art is a momentary relaxation from that itching, a minute's profound, and as it were secret, enfranchisement. — John Galsworthy

Love! Beyond meaure - beyond death - it nearly kills. But one wouldn't have been without it. — John Galsworthy

Love has no age, no limit; and no death. — John Galsworthy

When Man evolved Pity, he did a queer thing - deprived himself of the power of living life as it is without wishing it to become something different. — John Galsworthy

See what perils do environ those who meddle with hot iron. — John Galsworthy