H. Rider Haggard quotes

H. Rider Haggard was an English writer famous for his adventure novels set in exotic locations. His best-known works, such as "King Solomon's Mines" and "She", played a major role in popularizing the Lost World literary genre. He influenced generations of authors with his imaginative storytelling and vivid depictions of Africa. Here are 25 of his quotes:

The food that memory gives to eat is bitter to the taste, and it is only with the teeth of hope that we can bear to bite it.

H. Rider Haggard

We white people think that we know everything.

H. Rider Haggard

There is no loneliness like the loneliness of crowds, especially to those who are unaccustomed to them.

H. Rider Haggard

I am not a nervous man in a general way, and very little troubled with superstitions, of which I have lived to see the folly.

H. Rider Haggard

It is awkward to listen to oneself being praised, and I was always a shy man.

H. Rider Haggard

The great wheel of Fate rolls on like a Juggernaut, and crushes us all in turn, some soon, some late.

H. Rider Haggard

There are things and there are faces which, when felt or seen for the first time, stamp themselves upon the mind like a sun image on a sensitized plate and there remain unalterably fixed.

H. Rider Haggard

My death is very near to me, and of this I am glad, for I desire to pursue the quest in other realms, as it has been promised to me that I shall do.

H. Rider Haggard

I have never observed that the religious are more eager to die than the rest of us poor mortals.

H. Rider Haggard

For what man is there who does not prize that gift most rare and beautiful, that one perfect thing which no gold can buy – a woman's unfeigned love?

H. Rider Haggard

Then the irony of the situation forced itself upon me. There around us lay treasures enough to pay off a moderate national debt, or to build a fleet of ironclads, and yet we would have bartered them all gladly for the faintest chance of escape. Soon, doubtless, we should be rejoiced to exchange them for a bit of food or a cup of water, and, after that, even for the privilege of a speedy close to our sufferings. Truly wealth, which men spend their lives in acquiring, is a valueless thing at the last.

H. Rider Haggard

Altogether, a more miserable trio than we were that evening it would have been difficult to discover; and our only comfort lay in the reflection that we were exceedingly fortunate to be there to feel miserable, instead of being stretched dead upon the plain, as so many thousands of brave men were that night, who had risen well and strong in the morning.

H. Rider Haggard

For he was a merciful man, who loved not slaughter, although his fierce faith drove him from war to war.

H. Rider Haggard

You lie; you always were a liar, and you always will be a liar.

H. Rider Haggard

It is easier to destroy knowledge, Ignosi, than to gather it.

H. Rider Haggard

Those who go secretly, go evilly; and foul birds love to fly at night.

H. Rider Haggard

After spending a week in Cape Town, finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and having seen everything there was to see, including the botanical gardens, which seem to me likely to confer a great benefit on the country, and the new Houses of Parliament, which I expect will do nothing of the sort, I determined to go back to Natal.

H. Rider Haggard

On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changed presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across the desert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last they vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man. Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across the boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.

H. Rider Haggard

I do not believe in violence; it is the last resort of fools.

H. Rider Haggard

Love counts not its labour nor can it weigh its tenderness in the scale of purchase. That which it has it gives, and craves for more to give and give, till the soul's infinity be drained.

H. Rider Haggard

Listen! what is life? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes carried away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it may perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. It is well to try and journey one's road and to fight with the air. Man must die. At the worst he can but die a little sooner... Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life is nothing. Life is all. It is the Hand with which we hold off Death. It is the glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset.

H. Rider Haggard

As I grow older, I regret to say that a detestable habit of thinking seems to be getting a hold of me.

H. Rider Haggard