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There are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do.They can't sit over their winethey can't play at wistand they can't pay a lady a compliment.

Wilkie Collins

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Wilkie Collins
Age: 65 †
Born: 1824
Born: January 8
Died: 1889
Died: September 23
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet Lawyer
Writer
London
England
William Collins
William Wilkie Collins
Pay
Generations
Present
Three
Compliment
Young
Lady
Play
Generation
Things
Wine
Men
None

More quotes by Wilkie Collins

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The mystery which underlies the beauty of women is never raised above the reach of all expression until it has claimed kindred with the deeper mystery in our own souls.
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I never paid you a compliment, Rachel, in my life. Successful love may sometimes use the language of flattery, I admit. But hopeless love, dearest, always speaks the truth.
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I am not against hasty marriages where a mutual flame is fanned by an adequate income.
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Well may your heart believe the truths Well may your heart believe the truths I tell 'Tis virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.
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Pedants, who have the least knowledge to be proud of, are impelled most by vanity.
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She looked so irresistibly beautiful as she said those brave words that no man alive could have steel his heart against her.
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Is there any wilderness of sand in the deserts of Arabia, is there any prospect of desolation among the ruins of Palestine, which can rival the repelling effect on the eye, and the depressing influence on the mind, of an English country town in the first stage of its existence, and in the transition state of its prosperity?
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But, ah me! where is the faultless human creature who can persevere in a good resolution, without sometimes failing and falling back?
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Tears are scientifically described as a Secretion. I can understand that a secretion may be healthy or unhealthy, but I cannot see the interest of a secretion from a sentimental point of view.
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I have noticed that the Christianity of a certain class of respectable people begins when they open their prayer-books at eleven o'clock on Sunday morning, and ends when they shut them up again at one o'clock on Sunday afternoon. Nothing so astonishes and insults Christians of this sort as reminding them of their Christianity on a week-day.
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I say what other people only think, and when all the rest of the world is in a conspiracy to accept the mask for the true face, mine is the rash hand that tears off the plump pasteboard and shows the bare bones beneath.
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Husbands and wives talk of the cares of matrimony, and bachelors and spinsters bear them.
Wilkie Collins
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No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman.
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The best men are not consistent in good-- why should the worst men be consistent in evil.
Wilkie Collins
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I used to attend scientific experiments when I was a girl at school. They invariably ended in an explosion. If Mr. Jennings will be so very kind, I should like to be warned of the explosion this time. With a view to getting it over, if possible, before I go to bed.
Wilkie Collins
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Habits of literary composition are perfectly familiar to me. One of the rarest of all the intellectual accomplishments that a man can possess is the grand faculty of arranging his ideas. Immense privilege! I possess it. Do you?
Wilkie Collins
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This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.
Wilkie Collins
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I sadly want a reform in the construction of children. Nature's only idea seems to be to make them machines for the production of incessant noise.
Wilkie Collins
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I roused myself from the book which I was dreaming over rather than reading, and left my chambers to meet the cool night air in the suburbs.
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service.
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