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Tobias Smollett Quotes

Tobias George Smollett was a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for his picaresque novels, such as The Adventures of Roderick Random , The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle and The Expedition of Humphry Clinker , which influenced later novelists including Charles Dickens. His novels were amended liberally by printers; a definitive edition of each of his works was edited by Dr O. M. Brack Jr to correct such variations. Wikipedia  

✵ 1721 – 17. September 1771  •  Other names Tobias George Smollett
Tobias Smollett photo

Works

The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
The Adventures of Roderick Random
Tobias Smollett: 11 quotes0 likes

Famous Tobias Smollett Quotes

“To exult
Ev'n o'er an enemy oppress'd, and heap
Affliction on the afflicted, is the mark
And the mean triumph of a dastard soul.”

Tobias Smollett

Act II, scene vii.
The Regicide (1749)

“Keen are the pangs
Of hapless love, and passion unapprov'd:
But where consenting wishes meet, and vows
Reciprocally breath'd, confirm the tie,
Joy rolls on joy, an inexhausted stream!
And virtue crowns the sacred scene.”

Tobias Smollett

Act I, scene iii.
The Regicide (1749)

“To send the injur'd unredress'd away,
How great soe'er th' offender, or the wrong'd
Howe'er obscure, is wicked—weak and vile:
Degrades, denies, and should dethrone a king!”

Tobias Smollett

Act IV, scene ix.
The Regicide (1749)

“To-day, in snow array'd, stern winter rules
The ravag'd plain—Anon the teeming earth
Unlocks her stores, and spring adorns the year:
And shall not we—while fate, like winter, frowns,
Expect revolving bliss?”

Tobias Smollett

Act I, scene vi.
The Regicide (1749)

“Those sculptur'd halls my feet shall never tread,
Where varnish'd vice and vanity combin'd,
To dazzle and seduce, their banners spread,
And forge vile shackles for the free-born mind.”

Tobias Smollett

Ode to Independence, antistrophe 3.

“Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye.
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.”

Tobias Smollett

Ode to Independence, strophe 1.

Tobias Smollett Quotes

“True courage scorns
To vent her prowess in a storm of words;
And, to the valiant, actions speak alone.”

Tobias Smollett

Act II, scene vii.
The Regicide (1749)

“As Love can exquisitely bless,
Love only feels the marvellous of pain;
Opens new veins of torture in the soul,
And wakes the nerve where agonies are born.”

Tobias Smollett

Edward Young, The Brothers (1753), Act V, scene i.
Misattributed

“Facts are stubborn things.”

Tobias Smollett

Translation of Gil Blas (1749), Book X, Chap. 1.
Also used by Bernard Mandeville in An Enquiry Into the Origin of Honour (1732), p. 162, and by Jared Elliot in Essay on Field Husbandry (1747), p. 35.

“Writing is all a lottery -- I have been a loser by the works of the greatest men of the age.”

Tobias Smollett book The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771).

“Thy fatal shafts unerring move,
I bow before thine altar, Love!”

Tobias Smollett book The Adventures of Roderick Random

The Adventures of Roderick Random (1848), Chapter xl, reported in Bartlett's Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

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