Marcus Clarke Quotes

Distrust the men who make bargains. They are a disgrace to humanity. No man ever saw a dog swap a bone with another dog.

A Man of Business is one who becomes possessed of other people's money without bringing himself under the power of the law.

Convictism having been safely got under hatches, and put to bed in its Government allowance of sixteen inches of space per man, cut a little short by exigencies of shipboard, the cuddy was wont to pass some not unpleasant evenings.

I have had many friends, like the hare in the fable, but most of them didn't pay expenses. Friendship is like mining; sometimes you drop into a good thing, but the majority of places are duffers.

I have examined you long enough. I have read your heart, and written out your secrets! You are but a shell—the shell that holds a corrupted and sinful heart. He shall live; you shall die!

As he sat there gloomily chewing, he was a spectacle to shudder at. Not so much on account of his natural hideousness, increased a thousand-fold by the tattered and filthy rags which barely covered him. Not so much on account of his unshaven jaws, his hare-lip, his torn and bleeding feet, his haggard cheeks, and his huge, wasted frame. Not only because, looking at the animal, as he crouched, with one foot curled round the other, and one hairy arm pendant between his knees, he was so horribly unhuman, that one shuddered to think that tender women and fair children must, of necessity, confess to fellowship of kind with such a monster. But also because, in his slavering mouth, his slowly grinding jaws, his restless fingers, and his bloodshot, wandering eyes, there lurked a hint of some terror more awful than the terror of starvation—a memory of a tragedy played out in the gloomy depths of that forest which had vomited him forth again; and the shadow of this unknown horror, clinging to him, repelled and disgusted, as though he bore about with him the reek of the shambles.

He couldn't be content with small profits, so he took to cards, and was shot aboard a river steamboat. God bless him. He died like a hero, with a king up his sleeve.

All my soul is slowly melting, all my brain is softening fast,
And I know that I'll be taken to the Yarr bend at last.
For at night from fitful slumbers I awaken with a start,
Murmuring of steak and onions, babbling of apple-tart.
While to me the Poet's cloudland a gigantic kitchen seems,
And those mislaid table-napkins haunt me even in my dreams
Is this right? — Ye sages tell me! — Does a man live but to eat?
Is there nothing worth enjoying but one's miserable meat?
Is the mightiest task of genius but to swallow buttered beans,
And has man but been created to demolish pork and greens?
Is there no unfed Hereafter, where the round of chewing stops?
Is the atmosphere of heaven clammy with perpetual chops?

Men change their dispositions as they change their climate.

Everything he touched turned to gold. When he married an heiress even she died of the yellow fever.

I used to be a dreadful fellow — nearly as bad as the drunkards in the storybook. I have been drunk for a year and a-half at a stretch. It was natural for me to drink. When I was about three days and a-half old, I saw my nurse hide a brandy bottle away in a cupboard that she couldn't get at afterwards. I never said anything about it then, but as soon as I could walk, I got the keys and drank that brandy.

You cannot bet on friends. They will go and do all sorts of things to spite you. I insured a friend's life once, and got him to assign me the policy. He was a chronic case of rheumatism, and might have died in the course of nature calmly in his bed at any time. We quarrelled one day, and the fellow deliberately sent out and bought a bottle of Connel's East Indian remedies, and took a pint of it every half hour, according to the directions on the label. At the tenth pint he gently dissolved, and the jury brought it in 'determined suicide'. I tried hard to put in a plea of insanity, but it was no use.After this I forswore friendship, except as a gentle stimulant, and in case of sickness.

I used to drink so that the publicans, when they went out of business, used to sell me among the valuable fixtures.

Friendship, if you know how to work it, is better than a cousin in Parliament.

What can I write in thee, O dainty book, About whose daintiness quaint perfume lingers—
Into whose pages dainty ladies look, And turn thy dainty leaves with daintier fingers? ...No melodies have I for ladies' ear, No roundelays for jocund lads and lasses—
But only brawlings born of bitter beer, And chorussed with the clink and clash of glasses. ...Thou breathest purity and humble worth— The simple jest, the light laugh following after,
I will not jar upon thy modest mirth With harsher jest, or with less gentle laughter.