Rafael Sabatini Quotes & Sayings

It was Pope Innocent III who placed in the hands of the church this terrible weapon of persecution, and who, by the awful severity of his own attitude towards liberty of conscience, of thought, and of expression, afforded to fanaticism and religious intolerance an example that was to be their merciless guide through centuries to come. — Rafael Sabatini

I desire a society which selects its rulers from the best elements of every class and denies the right of any class or corporation to usurp the government itself
whether it be the nobles, the clergy, the bourgeoisie, or the proletariat. For government by any class is fatal to the welfare of the whole, — Rafael Sabatini

Life is an ephemeral business, and we waste too much of it in judging where it would beseem us better to accept, that we ourselves may come to be accepted by such future ages as may pursue the study of us. — Rafael Sabatini

Without entering here into a dissertation upon the historical romance, it may be said that in proper hands it has been and should continue to be one of the most valued and valuable expressions of the literary art. To render and maintain it so, however, it is necessary that certain well-defined limits should be set upon the licence which its writers are to enjoy; it is necessary that the work should be honest work; that preparation for it should be made by a sound, painstaking study of the period to be represented, to the end that a true impression may first be formed and then conveyed. Thus, considering how much more far-reaching is the novel than any other form of literature, the good results that must wait upon such endeavours are beyond question. The neglect of them - the distortion of character to suit the romancer's ends, the like distortion of historical facts, the gross anachronisms arising out of a lack of study, have done much to bring the historical romance into disrepute. — Rafael Sabatini

If Mr. Blood had condescended to debate the matter with these ladies, he might have urged that having had his fill of wandering and adventuring, he was now embarked upon the career for which he had been originally intended and for which his studies had equipped him; that he was a man of medicine and not of war; a healer, not a slayer. — Rafael Sabatini

A man may not fear to die, and yet be appalled by the form in which death comes to him. — Rafael Sabatini

There is no worse hell than that provided by the regrets for wasted opportunities. — Rafael Sabatini

A scarlet flame suffused her face. 'You are very insolent,' she said, lamely. 'I've often been told so. But I don't believe it. — Rafael Sabatini

It is human nature, I suppose, to be futile and ridiculous. — Rafael Sabatini

It is not human to be wise,' said Blood. 'It is much more human to err, though perhaps exceptional to err on the side of mercy. — Rafael Sabatini

I regret,' said he, 'that I have no cup; but, as you see, I can practise phlebotomy with a bottle. — Rafael Sabatini

I admit that it is audacious," said Scaramouche. "But at your time of life you should have learnt that in this world nothing succeeds like audacity. — Rafael Sabatini

I am not one of your repentant sinners, Kenneth. I have lived my life - God, what a life! - and as I have lived I shall die, unflinching and unchanged. Dare one to presume that a few hours spent in whining prayers shall atone for years of reckless dissoluteness? 'Tis a doctrine of cravens, who, having lacked in life the strength to live as conscience bade them, lack in death the courage to stand by that life's deeds. I am no such traitor to myself. — Rafael Sabatini

There remained the sea, which is free to all, and particularly alluring to those who feel themselves at war with humanity. — Rafael Sabatini

And where are the other gentry that were taken? - the real leaders of this plaguey rebellion. Grey's case explains their absence, I think. They are wealthy men that can ransom themselves. Here awaiting the gallows are none but the unfortunates who followed; those who had the honor to lead them go free. It's a curious and instructive reversal of the usual way of things. Faith, it's an uncertain world entirely! — Rafael Sabatini

Robbery is a serious, shameful matter, Captain Blood." "I know it is. I've practised a good deal of it myself. — Rafael Sabatini

Do you wonder that they will — Rafael Sabatini

I hate possibilities - God of God! I have lived on possibilities, and infernally near starved on them. — Rafael Sabatini

The love that is never to be realized will often remain a man's guiding ideal. — Rafael Sabatini

Take your time, now,' said Mr. Blood. 'I never knew speed made by overhaste. — Rafael Sabatini

It came to Mr. Blood, as he trudged forward under the laden apple-trees on that fragrant, delicious July morning, that man - as he had long suspected - was the vilest work of God, and that only a fool would set himself up as a healer of a species that was best exterminated. — Rafael Sabatini

You often show yourself without any faculty of deductive reasoning. — Rafael Sabatini

To deal justice by death has this disadvantage that the victim has no knowledge that justice has overtaken him. Had you died, had you been torn limb from limb that night, I should now repine in the thought of your eternal and untroubled slumber. Not in euthanasia, but in torment of mind should the guilty atone. You see, I am not sure that hell hereafter is a certainty, whilst I am quite sure that it can be a certainty in this life; and I desire you to continue to live yet awhile that you may taste something of its bitterness. — Rafael Sabatini

Gold has at all times been considered the best of testimonies of good faith ... — Rafael Sabatini

Peter Blood judged her- as we are all prone to do- upon insufficient knowledge. — Rafael Sabatini

Three degrees in the intelligence of mankind. To the first belong those who understand things for themselves by virtue of their own natural endowments; to the second those who have at least the wit to discern what others understand; and to the third those who neither understand things for themselves nor yet through the demonstrations which others afford them. — Rafael Sabatini

When all is said, a man's final judgment of his fellows must be based upon his knowledge of himself — Rafael Sabatini

The idea of equality is a by-product of the sentiment of envy. Since it must always prove beyond human ower to raise the inferior mass to a superior stratum, apostles of equality must ever be inferiors seeking to reduce their betters to their level. It follows that a nation that once admits this doctrine of equality will be dragged by it to the level, moral, intelletual and political, of its most worthless class. — Rafael Sabatini

I recognize myself for part of this mad world, I suppose. You wouldn't have me take it seriously? I should lose my reason utterly if I did; — Rafael Sabatini

The moments that followed were full of interest. A stillness, a brooding, expectant stillness, fell upon the company - and it numbered a round dozen - about Lord Gervase's richly appointed board. In the soft candlelight the oval table — Rafael Sabatini

You behold him at the age of four-and-twenty stuffed with learning enough to produce an intellectual indigestion in an ordinary mind. — Rafael Sabatini

Laughter broke from them. It spread into a roar of acclamation; for bluff is a weapon dear to every adventurer. — Rafael Sabatini

We are all, he says, the sport of destiny. Ah, but not quite. Destiny is an intelligent force, moving with purpose. — Rafael Sabatini

But they were fated to misunderstand each other. — Rafael Sabatini

From somewhere in the blue vault of heaven overhead came the joyous trilling of a lark, from below the silken rustling of the tideless sea. — Rafael Sabatini

SCARAMOUCHE Rafael — Rafael Sabatini

We are all too prone to judge - upon insufficient knowledge. — Rafael Sabatini

He still had, you see, illusions about Christians. — Rafael Sabatini

An intelligent observation of the facts of human existence will reveal to shallow-minded folk who sneer at the use of coincidence in the arts of fiction and drama that life itself is little more than a series of coincidences. Open the history of the past at whatsoever page you will, and there you shall find coincidence at work bringing about events that the merest chance might have averted. Indeed, coincidence may be defined as the very tool used by Fate to shape the destiny of men and nations. Observe it now at work in the affairs of Captain Blood and of some others. — Rafael Sabatini

In life we pay for the evil that in life we do. — Rafael Sabatini

It does not make me ridiculous simply to be less foul than those about me. — Rafael Sabatini

He was recovering his normal self amazingly under the inspiring stimulus of conflict. — Rafael Sabatini

Most of this world's misery is the fruit not as priests tell us of wickedness, but of stupidity ...
And we know that of all stupidities he considered anger the most deplorable. — Rafael Sabatini

But I like my madness. There is a thrill in it unknown to such sanity as yours. ~ Book 1, Chapter 9, — Rafael Sabatini

[W]e are all savages under the cloak that civilization fashions for us. — Rafael Sabatini

He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad." (the novel Scaramouche) — Rafael Sabatini

He was suffering from the loss of an illusion. — Rafael Sabatini

And yet she was content to pair off with this dull young adventurer in the tarnished lace! It was, he supposed, the sort of thing to be expected of a sex that all philosophy had taught him to regard as the maddest part of a mad species. — Rafael Sabatini

But he looks no more than thirty. He's very handsome
so much you will admit; nor will you deny that he is very wealthy and very powerful; the greatest nobleman in Brittany. He will make me a great lady.'
'God made you that, Aline. — Rafael Sabatini

Mind being the seat of the soul, and literature being the expression of the mind, literature, it follows, is the soul of an age, the surviving and immortal part of it. — Rafael Sabatini

I hope no man will call me timorous; and yet I'ld as soon be called that as rash. — Rafael Sabatini

Only he who is without anything is without enemies. — Rafael Sabatini

Evidently not. They are just governing — Rafael Sabatini

With you it is always the law, never equity. — Rafael Sabatini

They opposed brute force to reason and philosophy, and battalions of foreign mercenaries to ideas. As if ideas were to be impaled on bayonets! — Rafael Sabatini

He saw light, dazzling, blinding, and it scared him. — Rafael Sabatini

I am very poor - for a know nothing, understand nothing. It is not a calamitous condition until it is realized. — Rafael Sabatini

Out of his zestful study of Man, from Thucydides to the Encyclopaedists, from Seneca to Rousseau, he had confirmed into an unassailable conviction his earliest conscious impressions of the general insanity of his own species. — Rafael Sabatini

Enemies." "What Christian resignation!" "As for hating you, of all people! Why ... I consider you adorable. I envy Leandre every day of my life. I have seriously thought of setting him to play Scaramouche, and playing lovers myself. — Rafael Sabatini

Regret of neglected opportunity is the worst hell that a living soul can
inhabit — Rafael Sabatini

Life can be infernally complex,' he said. — Rafael Sabatini

Oh, you are mad!" she exclaimed, quite out of patience.
"Possibly. But I like my madness. — Rafael Sabatini

Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry - you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha! — Rafael Sabatini

If the windmill should prove too formidable," said he, from the threshold, "I may see what can be done with the wind. — Rafael Sabatini

Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish. — Rafael Sabatini

Thirstily he set it to his lips, and as its cool refreshment began to soothe his throat, he thanked Heaven that in a world of much evil there was still so good a thing as ale. — Rafael Sabatini

[Blood upon killing Levasseur] 'I think that cancels the articles between us,' he said. — Rafael Sabatini

Open the history of the past at whatsoever page you will and there you shall find coincidence at work bringing about events that the merest chance might have averted. Indeed, coincidence may be defined as the tool used by Fate to shape the destinies of men and nations. — Rafael Sabatini

Inshore, across the pellucid jade-green waters of the bay, gently ruffled by the north-easterly breeze that was sweetly tempering the torrid heat of the sun, rose the ramage of masts and spars of the shipping riding there at anchor. — Rafael Sabatini

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. — Rafael Sabatini

A man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad,' said he. 'Few realize it. That is why there are so many madmen in the world. — Rafael Sabatini

In endeavor itself there is a certain dynamic entertainment, affording an illusion of useful purpose. With achievement the illusion is dispelled. Man's greatest accomplishment is to produce change. The only good in life is study, because study is an endeavor that never reaches fulfillment. It busies a man to the end of his days, and it aims at the only true reality in all this world of shams and deceits. — Rafael Sabatini

To do what you imply would require nothing short of divine intervention. You must change man, not systems. — Rafael Sabatini

I am afraid, monsieur, you will have to kill me first, and I have a prejudice against being killed before nine o'clock. — Rafael Sabatini

Truth is so often disconcerting. — Rafael Sabatini

There was a great historian lost in Wolverstone. He had the right imagination that knows just how far it is safe to stray from the truth and just how far to colour it so as to change its shape for his own purposes. — Rafael Sabatini

A deadly sin that brings no evil material sequel to the satisfaction afforded by committing it is one thing. A deadly sin that gives you the stomach-ache is quite another. — Rafael Sabatini