Anthony Trollope Quotes: Sources, Meanings & Themes
Browse quotations by Anthony Trollope with named works, context notes, meanings and recurring themes.
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“A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.”
Meaning & context
Trollope argues that modest work performed every day can outperform irregular bursts of heroic effort because a repeatable routine keeps progress accumulating.
Source details
An Autobiography, Chapter VII, Project Gutenberg #5978. Trollope describes his self-imposed quota and record-keeping system before saying that a genuinely daily small task can beat spasmodic heroic labour. It is autobiographical reflection on his own working method, not a universal productivity or health prescription.
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“There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.”
Meaning & context
Madeline Stanhope turns the convention of romantic closure into a cynical joke, separating the tidy endings of novels from the complications of lived relationships.
Source details
Barchester Towers, Chapter XXVII, ‘A Love Scene,’ Project Gutenberg #2432. Madeline Stanhope tells Mr Slope that there is no happiness in love except at the end of an English novel after a comic catalogue of tragic lovers. The sentence is witty fictional dialogue inside Trollope's satire, not a factual rule about love or happiness.
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“What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?”
Meaning & context
Mr Harding’s delight in a sofa, books and coffee turns an ordinary London room into temporary luxury through comfort, leisure and changed perspective.
Source details
The Warden, Project Gutenberg #619. The narrator describes Mr Harding settling into Tom Towers’s comfortable rooms after an exhausting day; this is comic fictional narration, not a claim about universal happiness.