Tobias Smollett

Tobias Smollett circa 1770

Tobias George Smollett (c. March 16, 1721 – September 17, 1771) was a Scottish novelist, translator, historian and editor.

Quotes

• Facts are stubborn things.
  • Translation of Gil Blas (1749), Book X, Chap. 1.
  • Also used by Bernard Mandeville in An Enquiry Into the Origin of Honour (1732), p. 162, and by Jared Elliot in Essay on Field Husbandry (1747), p. 35.

• Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,
  Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye.
  Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
  Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
  • Ode to Independence, strophe 1.

• Those sculptur'd halls my feet shall never tread,
  Where varnish'd vice and vanity combin'd,
  To dazzle and seduce, their banners spread,
  And forge vile shackles for the free-born mind.
  • Ode to Independence, antistrophe 3.

• Writing is all a lottery -- I have been a loser by the works of the greatest men of the age.
  • The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771).

• Thy fatal shafts unerring move,
  I bow before thine altar, Love!
  • The Adventures of Roderick Random (1848), Chapter xl, reported in Bartlett's Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

The Regicide (1749)

• Keen are the pangs
  Of hapless love, and passion unapprov'd:
  But where consenting wishes meet, and vows
  Reciprocally breath'd, confirm the tie,
  Joy rolls on joy, an inexhausted stream!
  And virtue crowns the sacred scene.
  • Act I, scene iii.

• To-day, in snow array'd, stern winter rules
  The ravag'd plain—Anon the teeming earth
  Unlocks her stores, and spring adorns the year:
  And shall not we—while fate, like winter, frowns,
  Expect revolving bliss?
  • Act I, scene vi.

• To exult
  Ev'n o'er an enemy oppress'd, and heap
  Affliction on the afflicted, is the mark
  And the mean triumph of a dastard soul.
  • Act II, scene vii.

• True courage scorns
  To vent her prowess in a storm of words;
  And, to the valiant, actions speak alone.
  • Act II, scene vii.

• To send the injur'd unredress'd away,
  How great soe'er th' offender, or the wrong'd
  Howe'er obscure, is wicked—weak and vile:
  Degrades, denies, and should dethrone a king!
  • Act IV, scene ix.

Misattributed

• As Love can exquisitely bless,
  Love only feels the marvellous of pain;
  Opens new veins of torture in the soul,
  And wakes the nerve where agonies are born.
  • Edward Young, The Brothers (1753), Act V, scene i.