Twenty-Five Top-Notch Lines From Literature
25. Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
24. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.
—Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
23. “Do you mean you think everything will come right if we do untie him?” said Scrubb.
“I don’t know about that,” said Puddleglum. “You see, Aslan didn’t tell Pole what would happen. He only told her what to do. That fellow will be the death of us once he’s up, I shouldn’t wonder. But that doesn’t let us off following the sign.”
—C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair
22. “Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
—George Orwell, 1984
Sumerian temple carving, possibly depicting Tiamat and Marduk
21. “When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained. Cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man.” But Gilgamesh said to Siduri the alewife, “How can I be silent, how can I rest, when Enkidu whom I love is dust, and I too shall die and be laid in the earth for ever?”
—The Epic of Gilgamesh
20. Sauron is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind.
—J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
19. But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
—Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
18. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way.
—Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
—Leo Tolstoy
16. There always comes a time in history when the person who dares to say that 2 + 2 = 4 is punished by death.
—Albert Camus, The Plague
15. I can’t stand to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.
—Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
—Jane Austen, Persuasion
13. The prince says that the world will be saved by beauty! And I maintain that the reason he has such playful ideas is that he is in love.
12. The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart.
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
William Blake, The Good and Evil Angels, 1795
11. What if I slept a little more and forgot about all this nonsense.
—Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
10. Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.
—Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
—George Orwell, Animal Farm
.8. As in a fish-pond clear and still, the fish
Draw to some dropped-in morsel as it moves,
Hoping it may provide a dainty dish,
So I saw splendors draw to us in droves,
Full many a thousand, and from each was heard,
“Lo, here is one that shall increase our loves!”
—Dante Alighieri, Paradiso
—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
—J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
.5. If I’d had the power not to be born, I would probably not have accepted existence on such ridiculous terms.
—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
.4. You are so brave and quiet I forget you are suffering.
—Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
.3. Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.
—Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus
.2. Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.
—Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
—C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle
This list was originally created by James Lucas for CLT’s account on X (formerly Twitter), and has been cross-posted with minor changes.
If you liked this piece, check out our podcast, Anchored; or, if you’re looking for something more to read, take a look at the list we compiled this spring, or the one gleaned from our founder Jeremy Tate’s interview with Dr. Cornel West.
Published on 16th July, 2024.