Queen Victoria's Quotes & Sayings

There was soot and orphans everywhere, and gaslit cobbled streets full of fog and sinister gentlemen out for a night of illicit murder. It was a strict and unforgiving society; looking at a piano, eating too much butter, dancing with elan
the sour-faced Queen Victoria forbade all these things. And, it was also raining in the London of themdays
dirty grey slabs of rain that left everywhere shining and slippery. — Gideon Defoe

She was happy, yes, in her own way, as best as she knew.
But there's a difference between a single candle in darkness and a sunrise. — Victoria Aveyard

I am married to a prince who will one day be a king. Usually this is where the fairy tale ends. Stories don't go much further than this moment, and I fear there's a good reason for it. A sense of dread hung over today, a black cloud I still can't get rid of. It is an unease deep in the heart of me, feeding off my strength. — Victoria Aveyard

No civilization is complete which does not include the dumb and defenseless of God's creatures within the sphere of charity and mercy. — Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria, one of our more frumpy Queen's. They're all frumpy aren't they? Because it's a bad idea when cousin's marry. — Eddie Izzard

I want to talk to you. I want to listen to you. I want to walk with you and, yes, I want you in my bed. That's what I want today. That's what I'll want in a hundred years. If you promise to be my wife forever, I will pledge myself to your happiness. — Christina Dodd

In the 1970s, I used to buy opals and moonstones at the Queen Victoria Market, which were seen as old-fashioned and too heavy at the time. — Kerry Greenwood

[Queen Victoria had been denouncing the Women's Rights movement] ... And after chloroform was introduced to ease the pains of childbirth, she demanded that it be used on her. Religious and medical conservatives were shocked. They said God had decreed that women must suffer in childbirth as atonement for the sins of Eve. But queen Victoria wouldn't accept this particular anti-woman's-rights dictum. She became one of the first women to use anesthesia during childbirth , and knighted Dr. James Simpson, the Scottish physician who developed this use of chloroform, though he was excommunicated by his church for doing so. — Miriam Gurko

But our lives were not as they seemed, were they, Sophia? No one's life ever is. — Jean Plaidy

Oh! If those selfish men, who are the cause of all one's misery, only knew what their poor slaves go through! What suffering, what humiliation to the delicate feelings of a poor woman, above all a young one, especially with those nasty doctors. — Queen Victoria

You want me to pin my entire operation, the entire revolution on some teenaged love story? I can't believe this. — Victoria Aveyard

Compare King William with the philosopher Haeckel. The king is one of the anointed by the most high, as they claim - one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. Compare this king with Haeckel, who towers an intellectual colossus above the crowned mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with Queen Victoria. The Queen is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while George Eliot wears robes of glory woven in the loom of her own genius.
The world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart.
We have advanced. We have reaped the benefit of every sublime and heroic self-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act; and we should endeavor to hand the torch to the next generation, having added a little to the intensity and glory of the flame. — Robert G. Ingersoll

The writer's Queen Victoria is his public, and he would do well to keep a bust of the old Queen on his desk with the legend "We are not amused" hanging from it. — Henry Watson Fowler

One full wall was given over to Father's stamp albums, fat leather volumes whose colors indicated the reign of each monarch: black for Queen Victoria, red for Edward the Seventh, green for George the Fifth, and blue for our present monarch, George the Sixth. — Alan Bradley

A young English couple was visiting with me one summer after I had been composting humanure for about six years. One evening, as dinner was being prepared, the couple suddenly understood the horrible reality of their situation: the food they were about to eat was recycled human shit. When this fact abruptly dawned upon them, it seemed to set off an instinctive alarm, possibly inherited directly from Queen Victoria. "We don't want to eat shit!" they informed me, rather distressed (that's an exact quote), as if in preparing dinner I had simply set a steaming turd on a plate in front of them with a knife, fork and napkin. — Joseph Jenkins

I don't know how, but I hope you become queen one day. Imagine what you could do then? The Red queen. — Victoria Aveyard

Being married gives one one's position like nothing else can. — Queen Victoria

I'm a visual writer, so it's fitting that my first brush with 'Red Queen' was an image. I had the idea of a teenage girl in an arena, a bit like 'Gladiator,' and she's about to be executed. But instead of being killed, she kills her executioner with lightning. — Victoria Aveyard

In her famous proclamation of 1858, Queen Victoria declared that it was the will of the crown saying, "Our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to the offices in our service." But by 1870, only one Indian became an ICS officer. Higher services remained the exclusive preserve of the Europeans. — S. Lal

I saw the world. I learnt of new cultures. I flew across an ocean. I wore women's clothing. Made a friend. Fell in love. Who cares if I lost a wager? Queen Victoria: I do! I've got 20 quid riding on you — Jules Verne

Huzza for the Queen! Huzza for Old England! — Jules Verne

Beware of artists, they mix with all classes of society and are therefore most dangerous. — Queen Victoria

Nothing will turn a man's home into a castle more quickly and effectively than a dachshund. — Victoria Magazine

All right. Here's the deal, bigshot: suck my cock. Do that and I'll let you go. Straight trade."
He unzipped his fly and pulled down the elastic front of his shorts. Something that looked like a dead whitesnake fell out. Johnny observed the thin stream of blood driz-zling from it without surprise. The cop was bleeding from every other orifice, wasn't he?
"Speaking in the literature sense," the cop said, grinning, "this particular blowjob is going to be a little more Anne Rice than Armistead Maupin. I suggest you follow Queen Victoria's advice - close your eyes and think of strawberry shortcake. — Stephen King

Begum Hazrat Mahal of Oudh was the last of the breed of able queens and generals. The queen led her kingdom's army into battle during the revolt of 1857. Even after she was defeated she defied Queen Victoria's famous Proclamation and issued a counter Proclamation ... — Qurratulain Hyder

Rabindranath Tagore's family, connected to the British East India Company right from the settling of Calcutta in 1690, was a prominent beneficiary of the British economic and cultural reshaping of India. His grandfather was the first big local businessman of British India, and socialized with Queen Victoria and other notables on his trips to Europe; his elder brother was the first Indian to be admitted by the British into the Indian Civil Service (ICS). — Pankaj Mishra

Men never think, at least seldom think, what a hard task it is for us women to go through this very often. God's will be done, and if He decrees that we are to have a great number of children why we must try to bring them up as useful and exemplary members of society. — Queen Victoria

When I think of a merry, happy, free young girl - and look at the ailing, aching state a young wife generally is doomed to - which you can't deny is the penalty of marriage. — Queen Victoria

When his flame falls, my lightning rises, and so on. — Victoria Aveyard

Her grip is strong as she shakes my hand; for once someone isn't afraid I'll break like glass.
"Every happiness to you, Lady Mareena. I can see this one suits you." She jerks her head toward
Maven. "Not like fancy Samos," she adds in a playful whisper. "She'll make a sad queen, and you a
happy princess, mark my words."
"Marked, — Victoria Aveyard

I'm a sponge when it comes to stories. I'd say everything influences me in some way, but for 'Red Queen' in particular, I was really affected by the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series by George R. R. Martin. — Victoria Aveyard

Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, had a lamp shade on her head. Again. — Y.S. Lee

More attention should have been given to the fundamental transformation which took place during Queen Victoria's reign, from ruling sovereign to constitutional monarch. Again, gender mattered. If Albert had lived, it seems clear that he would have resisted that development much more tenaciously, which the gradual emasculation (and feminization) of monarchy was probably more easily accomplished when a woman was on the throne. — David Cannadine

If you look at the First World War, the Kaiser was actually, actively buying a lot of the armaments from Britain! in the years, in the run-up to the First World War. And I mean, there was a connection there. He was, indeed, Queen Victoria's grandson. You know, they were all related, all these royal families. — Jacqueline Winspear

There's four biggies. There was Elizabeth I, George III, Victoria, and the current queen, who really dominated four eras. — Geoffrey Rush

Wear that scarf," he said, pointing to a blue cashmere scarf hanging on a peg. "It matches your eyes."
Alec looked at it. Suddenly he was filled with hate - for the scarf, for Magnus, and most of all for himself. "Don't tell me," he said. "The scarf's a hundred years old, and it was given to you by Queen Victoria right before she died, for special services to the Crown or something."
Magnus sat up. "What's gotten into you?"
Alec stared at him. "Am I the newest thing in this apartment?"
"I think that honor goes to Chairman Meow. He's only two."
"I said newest, not youngest," Alec snapped. — Cassandra Clare

It is interesting to note that most kings, queens or princes/princesses of the British Empire and Europe were born either on a new moon day or a full moon day! That includes Queen Victoria and even the current Prince William and his consort Kate Middleton. — Greenstone Lobo

A little politeness might smooth the way ahead. Knowing it was his turn to be dispatched, the best he could hope for was as swift a death as the one Massetti had so thanklessly received. — Victoria Lamb

The thunder god stared for a while, broken only by bouts of acute blinking. Chester A. Arthur XVII scratched his shoulder. Catrina scratched the back of her neck. "Is he OK?" Timmy wondered. "He's just thinking," explained Catrina. "Oh god," said Queen Victoria XXX. "Should we help him?" "Give him a second. I think he can do it. — Eirik Gumeny

Once, I was afraid of these walls, frightened by such beauty. But I see the cracks now. It's like the day of the bombing, when I realized Silvers were not invincible. Then it was an explosion - now a few bullets have shattered diamondglass, revealing fear and paranoia beneath. Silvers fleeing from Reds - lions running from mice. The king and queen oppose each other, the court has their own alliances, and Cal - the perfect prince, the good soldier - is a torturous, terrible enemy. Anyone can betray anyone. — Victoria Aveyard

Monarchs not only fashion their age, but are fashioned by it, so that they can become a sort of personification of the age. If Elizabeth I, independent, strong, represents the age of Shakespeare's heroines, a woman's heyday, Victoria represents another image of womanhood, predominant in the nineteenth century: a woman who, although queen in her own right, leaned on her husband, looked up to him, and went into perpetual mourning after his death. The feminist movement filled her with shocked horror and outrage. — Eva Figes

The monarchy, as Lord Esher, adviser to Edward VII and editor of Queen Victoria's early letters and journals, would later say, was exchanging 'authority' for 'influence'.3 — A. N. Wilson

They trained me for this. It's their own fault. They helped make their own doom. — Victoria Aveyard

Make no mistake, my girl," he finally breathes. "You are playing the game as someone's pawn. — Victoria Aveyard

Then there's Queen Victoria, like a large tea cosy, & Wellington, sleek as a mastiff with paw extended ... — Virginia Woolf

It really is more natural to believe a preternatural story, that deals with things we don't understand, than a natural story that contradicts things we do understand. Tell me that the great Mr Gladstone, in his last hours, was haunted by the ghost of Parnell, and I will be agnostic about it. But tell me that Mr Gladstone, when first presented to Queen Victoria, wore his hat in her drawing-room and slapped her on the back and offered her a cigar, and I am not agnostic at all. That is not impossible; it's only incredible. But I'm much more certain it didn't happen than that Parnell's ghost didn't appear; because it violates the laws of the world I do understand. — G.K. Chesterton

I had a non-existent knowledge of Queen Victoria's early years. Like everyone else, I thought of her as an old lady dressed in black. My mom had told me about her, though, that she had a very loving relationship with Albert, that they had lots of kids, and that he died young. — Emily Blunt

The Queen is most anxious to enlist everyone in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Women's Rights'. It is a subject which makes the Queen so furious that she cannot contain herself. — Queen Victoria

I remember Queen Victoria's advice to her daughter. Close your eyes and think of England. — Margaret Atwood

He is a prince and, worst of all, the queen's son. I didn't want to trust him before this very reason, for the secrets he kept hidden. Or maybe this is what he was hiding all along...his own heart. — Victoria Aveyard

In 1897, troops from the greatest empire the world had ever seen marched down London's mall for Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. Seventy years later, Britain had government health care, a government-owned car industry, massive government housing, and it was a shriveled high-unemployment socialist basket-case living off the dwindling cultural capital of its glorious past. In 1945, America emerged from the Second World War as the preeminent power on earth. Seventy years later ... Let's not go there. — Mark Steyn

At dinner one night at Osborne House, the Queen entertained a famous admiral whose hearing was impaired. Politely, Victoria had asked about his fleet and its activities; then, shifting the subject, she asked about the admiral's sister, an elderly dowager of awesome dignity. The admiral thought she was inquiring about his flagship, which was in need of overhaul. "Well, ma'am," he said, "as soon as I get back I'm going to have her hauled out, roll her on her side and have the barnacles scraped off her bottom." Victoria stared at him for a second and then, for minutes afterward, the dining room shook with her unstoppable peals of laughter. — Robert K. Massie

I stare at the polished metal, examining my reflection. The girl I see is both familiar and foreign, Mare, Mareena, the lightning girl, the Red Queen, and no one at all. She does not look afraid. She looks carved of stone, with severe features, hair braided tight to her head, and a tangle of scars on her neck. She is not seventeen, but ageless, Silver but not, Red but not, human - but not. A banner of the Scarlet Guard, a face on a wanted poster, a prince's downfall, a thief... a killer. A doll who can take any form but her own. — Victoria Aveyard

There was a moment of silence, and he was aware of the servants' chiding stares. Suddenly, as a group, they broke into effusive compliments in an effort to atone for their master's boorishness.
"You're as lovely as a picture, miss!"
"...no one there will outshine you..."
"...a queen in that gown..."
A hot, troubling feeling expanded in Grant's chest, and he wanted to snap at them for being so ungodly solicitous of the feelings of a professional harlot. But he couldn't... because he was as much under her spell as the rest of them. — Lisa Kleypas

[To the bishop who suggested the widowed queen now consider herself 'as married to Christ':] That's what I call twaddle! — Queen Victoria

It's what I call common sense, properly understood,' replied Father Brown. 'It really is more natural to believe a preternatural story, that deals with things we don't understand, than a natural story that contradicts things we do understand. Tell me that the great Mr Gladstone, in his last hours, was haunted by the ghost of Parnell, and I will be agnostic about it. But tell me that Mr Gladstone, when first presented to Queen Victoria, wore his hat in her drawing-room and slapped her on the back and offered her a cigar, and I am not agnostic at all. That is not impossible; it's only incredible. But I'm much more certain it didn't happen than that Parnell's ghost didn't appear; because it violates the laws of the world I do understand. So it is with that tale of the curse. It isn't the legend that I disbelieve - it's the history. — G.K. Chesterton

Queen Victoria - a mixture of national landlady and actress. — V.S. Pritchett

One of my professors once told me that the last official act of the British monarchy was when Queen Victoria refused to sign a law that made same-sex acts illegal. It would have made me think more highly of her, except the reason she objected was because she didn't believe women would do anything like that. Parliament rewrote the law so it was specific to men, and she signed it. A tribute to enlightenment, Queen Victoria was not. Neither, as I have observed before, are werewolf packs. — Patricia Briggs

He felt as if he'd woken up, weak and confused, only to be told that he'd spent the last three weeks in bed with a fever
and that during his illness, Queen Victoria had abdicated the throne and run off with a lion-tamer from Birmingham. The world seemed an entirely different place. — Courtney Milan

Then, dear Mamma, I hope you will grant me the first request I make to you, as Queen. Let me be by myself for an hour. — Queen Victoria

To even be called the 'teen queen' is crazy. — Victoria Justice

Victoria was, at the time, far more empathetic and forgiving, chiding Albert for his narrow view of humanity. 'I always think that one ought always to be indulgent towards other people, as I always think, if we had not been well brought up and well taken care of, we might also have gone astray. — Leslie Carroll

Those two are carved from the same tree." the queen said.
By the same blade." The high king answered and offered her his arm in splendid dignity — Victoria Hanley

Lord Aberdeen was quite touched when I told him I was so attached to the dear, dear Highlands and missed the fine hills so much. There is a great peculiarity about the Highlands and Highlanders; and they are such a chivalrous, fine, active people. — Queen Victoria

I was born in 1927, the only child of middle-class parents, both English, and themselves born in the grotesquely elongated shadow, which they never rose sufficiently above history to leave, of that monstrous dwarf Queen Victoria. — John Fowles

They don't know the meaning of danger or fear or pain. It's only their pride that can be truly hurt. — Victoria Aveyard

Give my people plenty of beer, good beer, and cheap beer, and you will have no revolution among them. — Queen Victoria

If pushed to say what I like about Elizabeth, who, as I'm sure most of you know, overtook Queen Victoria this week to become our longest-serving monarch, it would be her uncomplaining, getting-on-with-it ethic. — John Niven

I think people really marry far too much; it is such a lottery after all, and for a poor woman a very doubtful happiness. — Queen Victoria

My kind publishers, Toby Mundy and Margaret Stead of Atlantic Books, have commissioned me to write the life of Queen Victoria. — A. N. Wilson

Red Queen. The lightning girl. She lives. Rise, Red as dawn. Rise. Rise. Rise. — Victoria Aveyard

I think baking cookies is equal to Queen Victoria running an empire. There's no difference in how seriously you take the job, how seriously you approach your whole life. — Martha Stewart

In India, as we saw, the Sepoy Mutiny led to a vast reorganization of British colonialism in the area, sending out a viceroy from London and before too long, Queen Victoria was proclaimed "Empress of India," with this great empire, ruling over maharajahs and other local potentates. — Webster Tarpley

Farewell best beloved, here at last I shall rest with thee, with thee in Christ I shall rise again'.(written on Prince Albert's and Queen Victorias's mausoleum) — Victoria Magazine

One of the very few valid criticisms of Queen Victoria is that she was not sufficiently concerned with improvement of the conditions in which a great mass of her subjects passed their lives. She lived through an age of profound social change, but neither public health, nor housing, nor the education of her people, nor their representation, engaged much of her time. — Cecil Woodham-Smith

As if etiquette weren't magnificently capable of being used to make others feel uncomfortable. All right. Miss Manners will give you an example, although you are spoiling her Queen Victoria mood: If you are rude to your ex-husband's new wife at your daughter's wedding, you will make her feel smug. Comfortable. If you are charming and polite, you will make her feel uncomfortable. Which do you want to do? On — Judith Martin

We poor creatures are born for man's pleasure and amusement, and destined to go through endless sufferings and trials. — Queen Victoria

Kell had told his brother about the deals he struck in Grey London, and in White, and even on occasion in Red, about the various things he'd smuggled, and Rhy had stared at him, and listened, and when he spoke, it wasn't to lecture Kell on all the ways it was wrong, or illegal. It was to ask why.
"I don't know," said Kell, and it had been the truth.
Rhy had sat up, eyes bleary from drink. "Have we not provided?" he'd asked, visibly upset. "Is there anything you want for?"
"No," Kell had answered, and that had been a truth and a lie at the same time.
"Are you not loved?" whispered Rhy. "Are you not welcomed as family?"
"But I'm not family, Rhy," Kell had said. "I'm not truly a Maresh, for all that the king and queen have offered me that name. I feel more like a possession than a prince."
At that, Rhy had punched him in the face.
For a week after, Kell had two black eyes instead of one, and he'd never spoken like that again, but the damage was done. — Victoria Schwab

Bring me a cup of tea and the 'Times.' — Queen Victoria

It's to bad we didn't stay longer", I murmur, looking out at the river. "I would have liked to die close to home. — Victoria Aveyard

It's not what they think of me that matters - but what I think of them. — Queen Victoria

I don't dislike babies, though I think very young ones rather disgusting. — Queen Victoria

If this is the way Queen Victoria treats her prisoners, she doesn't deserve to have any. — Oscar Wilde

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. — J. Christopher Herold

I'll make the other scream for you, Mare, every last one. Not just your parents. Not just your siblings. But every single one like you. I'm going to find them, and they will die with you in their thoughts, knowing this is the fate you have brought them. I am the king and you could've been my Red Queen. Now you are nothing. — Victoria Aveyard

They beg to a Silver king, and spit upon Red queens. — Victoria Aveyard

A rule which I cannot sufficiently recommend is, never to permit people to speak on subjects concerning yourself or your affairs, without your having yourself desired them to do so. The moment a person behaves improperly on this subject, change the conversation, and make the individual feel that he has made a mistake.... People will certainly try to speak to you on your own personal affairs; decline it boldly, and they will leave you alone.... — Queen Victoria

She's like an earthquake in tiny human form, breaking apart anything and everything in her way. — Victoria Aveyard

A marriage is no amusement but a solemn act, and generally a sad one. — Queen Victoria

Do not to let your feelings (very natural and usual ones) of momentary irritation and discomfort be seen by others don't (as you so often did and do) let every little feeling be read in your face and seen in your manner ... — Queen Victoria

I wrote a lot of 'Red Queen' wrapped in a blanket, cramped up while watching the snow come down. — Victoria Aveyard

I am the king and you could've been my Red Queen. — Victoria Aveyard

The great event of the evening was Jenny Lind's appearance and her complete triumph. She has a most exquisite, powerful and really quite peculiar voice, so round, soft and flexible and her acting is charming and touching and very natural. — Queen Victoria

At a tender age, I commandeered half a quire of foolscap from my father's desk and sat down to write a book ... I had observed onprinted fly leaves the words "By the author of, etc." ... So under the title of my prospective work I wrote: By the author of "Les Miserables," "The Woman in White," "Dombey and Son," "Tom Brown's Schooldays" and "Our Life in the Highlands," the last-named being an opus of good Queen Victoria. I had not read all these works but they existed on our bookshelves, and I hoped to produce something worthy of comparison. — Rheta Childe Dorr

The danger to the country, to Europe, to her vast Empire, which is involved in having all these great interests entrusted to the shaking hand of an old, wild, and incomprehensible man of 82, is very great! — Queen Victoria

Victoria had the discipline of being a queen to help her through the biggest trial of her life - when she lost Albert and faltered. I've had the discipline of the theatre to help me over the ups and downs. A wonderful life . Go it old girl. You've done it well. — Helen Hayes

Eighteen fifty-eight was a year of great technological advancement in the West. That was the year when Queen Victoria was able, for the first time, to communicate with President Buchanan, through the Transatlantic Telegraphic Cable. And they were the first to 'Twitter' transatlantically. — Hans Rosling

Reading about Queen Victoria has been a passion of mine since, as a child, I came across Laurence Housman's play 'Happy and Glorious,' with its Ernest Shepard illustrations. — A. N. Wilson

Affairs go on, and all will take some shape or other, but it keeps one in hot water all the time. — Queen Victoria

Though Queen Victoria in England had suggested that makeup was impolite, even vanity, Gideon saw it as yet another weapon. It was not so different from magic. — Thomm Quackenbush