John Galsworthy quotes

John Galsworthy was an English novelist and playwright, best known for "The Forsyte Saga." His works explore social class, family dynamics, and moral values in early 20th-century England. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his distinguished art of narration. Here are 62 of his quotes:

If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one. (John Galsworthy)
the biggest tragedy of life is the utter impossibility to change what you have done. View quote
John Galsworthy
Love has no age, no limit; and no death. View quote
John Galsworthy
Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem. View quote
John Galsworthy
One's eyes are what one is, one's mouth is what one becomes. View quote
John Galsworthy
There are things worth being loyal to, surely. Coffee, for instance, or one's religion. View quote
John Galsworthy
Headlines twice the size of the events. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
John Galsworthy
Public opinion's always in advance of the law. View quote
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)
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. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
John Galsworthy
Love! Beyond measure - beyond death - it nearly kills. But one wouldn't have been without it. View quote
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. View quote
John Galsworthy
Life calls the tune, we dance. View quote
John Galsworthy
The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy, the building of a house, the writing of a novel, the demolition of a bridge, and, eminently, the finish of a voyage. View quote
John Galsworthy
Love of beauty is really only the sex instinct, which nothing but complete union satisfies. View quote
John Galsworthy
A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it. View quote
John Galsworthy
Summer - summer - summer! The soundless footsteps on the grass! (John Galsworthy)
The value of a sentiment is the amount of sacrifice you are prepared to make for it. View quote
John Galsworthy
Justice is a machine that, when some one has once given it the starting push, rolls on of itself. View quote
John Galsworthy
Sport, which still keeps a flag of idealism flying, is perhaps the most saving grace in the world at the moment, with its spirit of rules kept, and regard for the adversary, whether the fight is going for or against. View quote
John Galsworthy
What is creative instinct, if not an incessant living sympathy with Nature, a constant craving like that of Nature's own, to fashion something new out of all that comes within the grasp of those faculties with which Nature has endowed us? The qualities of vision, of fancy, and of imaginative power, are no more divorced from Nature, than are the qualities of common-sense and courage. They are rarer, that is all. View quote
John Galsworthy