Quotes from Sabine Baring-Gould


Sorted by Popularity


Each man seeks his own interest, not the general interest. Let his own selfish interests be touched, and all concord is at an end.


We are accustomed in England to chalk in rolling downs, except where bitten into by the sea, but elsewhere it is riven and presents cliffs, and these cliffs are not at all like that of Shakespeare at Dover but overhang, where hard beds alternate with others that are friable.


When the British became Christian, Christianity in no way altered their political organisation.


The whole of society is like a cabbage-stalk covered with caterpillars, and none is satisfied till it has crawled to the top.


The prime feature in Cornish geology is the upheaval of the granite, distorting, folding back, and altering the superincumbent beds.


The Breton peasant is said to have a hard head. He is obstinate and resists outside pressure to alter his creed or his customs.


Man, double-faced by nature, is placed by Revelation under a sharp, precise external rule, controlling his actions and his thoughts.


It is somewhat remarkable that Cornwall has produced no musical genius of any note, and yet the Cornishman is akin to the Welshman and the Irishman.


I look back with the greatest pleasure to the kindness and hospitality I met with in Yorkshire, where I spent some of the happiest years of my life.


Happiness is only attained by the free will agreeing in its freedom to accord with the will of God.


God's truth is helped by no man's ignorance.


One of the great advantages of the study of old Norse or Icelandic literature is the insight given by it into the origin of world-wide superstitions. Norse tradition is transparent as glacier ice, and its origin is as unmistakable.


Cyder was anciently the main drink of the country people in the West of England.


Cornish wrestling was very different from that in Devon - it was less brutal, as no kicking was allowed.


Black was not the universal hue of mourning in Europe. In Castile, white obtained on the death of its princes.


According to Celtic law, all sons equally divided the inheritance and principalities of their father.


The love of Louis XVI for mechanical works is well known. He had a little workshop at Versailles where he amused himself making locks, assisted by Francois Gamain, to whom he was much attached and with whom he spent many hours in projecting and executing mechanical contrivances.


I went to Iceland in 1861 and went over nearly every bit of the ground made famous by the adventures of Grettir.


No man need go blindly to destruction, for God has given him guidance and power of seeing whither he goes.


The tribal system from which the Celt never freed himself entirely was the curse of the Celtic race, predooming it to ruin.