A. J. Cronin Quotes

Archibald Joseph Cronin (1896-1981)

A. J. Cronin was a Scottish physician and novelist. His best-known novel The Citadel tells of a Scottish doctor in a Welsh mining village, who then shoots up the medical ladder in London. (A. J. Cronin Quotes)

“A good horse doesn’t need spurs.”
Hatter’s Castle

“A goodness of a religion is best valued by a goodness of it’s followers”
The Keys of the Kingdom

“A man must think about battles, which he conquers alone, as well as the invisible victories. Instead, he thinks only about visible defeats.”
The Keys of the Kingdom

“A tragedy can make some people sober, but for him, it drives in the opposite direction”
Hatter’s Castle

“Even if my country remains in war with yours…remember . . . I am not your enemy.”
The Keys of the Kingdom

“Fitzgerald is like the curate’s egg, good, very good, in parts, but the rest of it…”
Desmonde

“Green tramcar – one of the sedate and splendid vehicles which, in those days, bore the citizens of Glasgow immense distances for a single penny.”
Adventures in Two Worlds

“He who doesn’t look forward, falls behind.”
Grand Canary

“Hell is that state where one has ceased to hope.”
The Keys of the Kingdom

“His one little indulgence in a life of stark austerity had killed him.”
Desmonde

“Hugo Usher seemed lacking in inspiration of creative force, unprepared to make the sacrifice of blood and tears demanded by research, an opportunist who had achieved his position through a facility for tabulating statistics, but more especially through push, well-timed publicity, and a remarkable capacity for picking other people’s brains.”
Shannon’s Way

“I always stumble awkwardly with my clumsy tongue.”
Hatter’s Castle

“I couldn’t believe anyone could go on clowning like that, practically on the eve of giving himself to Our Lord.” (A. J. Cronin Quotes)
Desmonde

“I have a perfectly horrible name. I was called Alexander as a vain propitiation, quite useless, to my grandfather.”
Desmonde

“If we go on trying to make out that everything’s wrong outside the profession and everything is right within, it means the death of scientific progress.”
The Citadel

“Now I no longer felt like little David, but like one of the bottles he had half washed out.”
Desmonde

“Religions are many, reason is one, we are all brothers.”
The Keys of the Kingdom

“Silence. Andrew glanced desperately round the table. Dodd-Canterbury, with his legs outstretched, had his eyes on the ceiling. Gatsby was drawing diagrams upon his blotter, Whinney frowning, Challis inflating his chest for speech. But it was Abbey who said: ‘Surely,”
The Citadel

“Some temptations cannot be fought. One must close one’s mind and fly from them”
The Keys of the Kingdom

“The Colosseum is quite a spectacle. But only by moonlight, and for half an hour. Who wants to look at a blasted ruin all the time?”
Shannon’s Way

“The face was that of a madonna but the hands, red, conspicuous, coarse-grained, and slightly swollen, were the hands of a servant; and if it was suffering which had sublimated the face to a more exquisite beauty, the hands spoke eloquently of bitter toil that had blemished them into this pathetic, contrasting ugliness.”
Hatter’s Castle

“There are many religions, reason is one, we are all brothers”
The Keys of the Kingdom

“To live like this, spartan lives, nobly and cheerfully, is truly saintly.”
Desmonde

“Wanted to find someone with whom I could discuss books and music; who would respond eagerly with his own views when I tried to articulate the new ideas towards which I was reaching out fumblingly. But whenever I brought up such subjects, I felt myself suspect of showing off, and quickly relapsed into silence.”
The Green Years

“With his bragging is just like with the meat of salmon: if you eat him by a bit – it pleases; but, if it’s served you constantly, then it, really, get’s you tired of it.”
Hatter’s Castle