H. Rider Haggard Quotes

English adventure novelist (1856–1925)

Sir Henry Rider Haggard (22 June 1856 – 14 May 1925), born in Bradenham, Norfolk, England, was a Victorian writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations such as southern Africa, Central Asia, Egypt, Iceland and Mexico.

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Alternative Names: Henry Rider Haggard • Sir Henry Rider Haggard • H. R. Haggard • H Rider Haggard

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. . . little in the world is pretty, except the world itself.

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

Superstition is still king of most of the world, though often it calls itself Religion.

Fire may be lovely and attractive, also comforting at a proper distance, but he who sits on the top of it is cremated, as many a moth has found.

. . . these priests, after the fashion of priests all the world over, now aspired to the absolute rule of the race

Life is more than gold . . . and great honour is better than both.

. . . your praying men . . . are cast in one mould and measured with one rule, and say what they are taught to say, not thinking for themselves . . . Some of them think . . . and then the others fall on them with big sticks. The real priest is he to whom the Spirit comes, not he who feeds upon its wrappings, and speaks through a mask carved by his father’s fathers.

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

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.

Human nature does not change, Allan, and wine and women are ancient snares.

. . . all men are cowards . . . in one matter or another, though in the rest they may be brave enough.

The world is very old and there have been peoples in it of whom we have heard nothing

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

when men seek a god . . . they make one like themselves, only larger, uglier, and more evil . . . Also, often they say that this god was once their king, since at the bottom all worship their ancestors who gave them life, if they worship anything at all, and often, too, because they gave them life, they think that they must have been devils. Great ancestors were the first gods . . . and if they had not been evil they would never have been great. Look at Chaka, the Lion of the Zulus. He is called great because he was so wicked and cruel, and so it was and is with others if they succeed, though, if they fail, men speak otherwise of them.

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.