Цитаты из книги A Sentimental Journey

Когда путь мой бывает слишком тяжел для моих ног или слишком крут для моих сил, я сворачиваю на какую-нибудь гладкую бархатную тропинку, которую фантазия усыпала розовыми бутонами наслаждений, и, прогулявшись по ней, возвращаюсь назад, окрепший и посвежевший.

- Excuse me, Madame, replied I. I treated him most unfriendly; and from no provocations. - 'Tis impossible, said the lady.

Пятиминутный разговор в подобном положении стоит пятивекового разговора, при котором лица собеседников обращены к улице: ведь в последнем случае он питается внешними предметами и происшествиями — когда же глаза ваши устремлены на пустое место, вы черпаете единственно из самого себя.

We get forwards in the world, not so much by doing services, as receiving them; you take a withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then you water it, because you have planted it.

We have no jester at court, Monsieur le Count, said I; the last we had was in the licentious reign of Charles II.; - since which time our manners have been so gradually refining, that our court at present is so full of patriots, who wish for nothing but the honours and wealth of their country; - and our ladies are all so chaste, so spotless, so good, so devout, - there is nothing for a jester to make a jest of. -

Voila un persiflage! cried the Count.

- Indeed, Yorick, you have not, replied Eugenius; I know France and Italy better than you. - But you don’t consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do something or other for which I shall get clapp’d up into the Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at the king of France’s expense. - I beg pardon, said Eugenius drily: really I had forgot that resource.

Surely, - surely, man! it is not good for thee to sit alone: - thou wast made for social intercourse and gentle greetings; and this improvement of our natures from it I appeal to as my evidence.

I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of national characters more in these nonsensical minutiae than in the most important matters of state; where great men of all nations talk and stalk so much alike, that I would not give ninepence to choose amongst them.

The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris, - from Paris to Rome, - and so on; - but he set out with the spleen and jaundice, and every object he pass’d by was discoloured or distorted. - He wrote an account of them, but ’twas nothing but the account of his miserable feelings.

Lord! said I, hearing the town clock strike four, and recollecting that I had been little more than a single hour in Calais, - - What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests his heart in every thing, and who, having eyes to see what time and chance are perpetually holding out to him as he journeyeth on his way, misses nothing he can fairly lay his hands on!

I have always observed, when there is as much sour as sweet in a compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at a loss within himself, whether to take it, or let it alone: a Frenchman never is.