Samuel Pepys Quotes

Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody.

He that will not stoop for a pin will never be worth a pound.

The truth is, I do indulge myself a little the more in pleasure, knowing that this is the proper age of my life to do it; and, out of my observation that most men that do thrive in the world do forget to take pleasure during the time that they are getting their estate, but reserve that till they have got one, and then it is too late for them to enjoy it.

And so to bed.

A fish kept in a glass of water will live forever

Strange, to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition, every man and wife gazing and smiling at them.

Great talk among people how some of the Fanatiques do say that the end of the world is at hand, and that next Tuesday is to be the day. Against which, whenever it shall be, good God fit us all!

God forgive me, I was sorry to hear that Sir W Pens maid Betty was gone away yesterday, for I was in hopes to have had a bout with her before she had gone, she being very pretty. I have also a mind to my own wench, but I dare not, for fear she should prove honest and refuse and then tell my wife.

Now public business takes up so much of my time that I must get time a Sundays or a nights to look after my own matters.

I find it a hard matter to settle to business after so much leisure and pleasure.

Though Charles II both craved and enjoyed female companionship till the end of his life, there is no question that by the cold, rainy autumn of 1682 his physical appetites had diminshed considerably. The Duchess of Portsmouth was, after all, more than twenty years his junior; and there comes a time in nearly every such relationship when the male partner is simply unable to fully accommodate the female partner. Or as Samuel Pepys tartly noted in his diary, "the king yawns much in council, it is thought he spends himself overmuch in the arms of Madame Louise, who far from being wearied, seems fresher than ever after sporting with the king.

Working quickly was the trick of it. When Samuel Pepys underwent a lithotomy—the removal of a kidney stone—in 1658, the surgeon took just fifty seconds to get in and find and extract a stone about the size of a tennis ball. (That is, a seventeenth-century tennis ball, which was rather smaller than a modern one, but still a sphere of considerable dimension.)

neighbour of ours, Mr. Hollworthy, a very able man, is also dead by a fall in the country from his horse, his foot hanging in the stirrup, and his brains beat out.

I do find myself to become more and more thoughtful about getting of money than ever heretofore.

I saw the girl of the house, being very pretty, go into a chamber, and I went in after her and kissed her.

I thought we’d done with that. Who’s the celebrity this time?’ ‘Samuel Pepys.

I want to convict Samuel Pepys in a court of law,’ Cressida said, ‘and I want that court to impose an appropriate, if theoretical, prison sentence on him.

Perhaps the most irrational fashion act of all was the male habit for 150 years of wearing wigs. Samuel Pepys, as with so many things, was in the vanguard, noting with some apprehension the purchase of a wig in 1663 when wigs were not yet common. It was such a novelty that he feared people would laugh at him in church; he was greatly relieved, and a little proud, to find that they did not. He also worried, not unreasonably, that the hair of wigs might come from plague victims. Perhaps nothing says more about the power of fashion than that Pepys continued wearing wigs even while wondering if they might kill him.

It is strange what weather we have had all this winter; no cold at all; but the ways are dusty, and the flyes fly up and down, and the rose-bushes are full of leaves, such a time of the year as was never known in this world before here.

I was mightily troubled with a looseness, and feeling for a chamber-pott, there was none, I having called the maid up out of her bed, she had forgot I suppose to put one there; so I was forced in this strange house to rise and shit in the chimney twice.

George Vines felvitt a tornya tetejébe, ahol az áruló Cooke feje van kitűzve, meg Harrisoné a Westminster Hall másik oldalán. Innen jól láttam őket, és a szép londoni panorámát is.

Egész nap orvosságot szedtem, és Isten ne vegye bűnömül, holmi francia regények olvasásával mulattam magam.

Hanem ezentúl kevésbé tisztelem a királyokat, látva, hogy az esőnek ők sem tudnak parancsolni.

Ma reggel álmomból hirtelen felriadva, könyökömmel úgy arcon és nyakon találtam ütni a feleségemet, hogy a fájdalomra felébredt, amit nagyon sajnáltam; aztán ismét elaludtam.

Ma járt le a borivás és a színház ellen tett fogadalmam, s úgy határoztam, élek is e szabadságommal, mielőtt újra fogadalmat teszek.

And here je did baiser elle, but had not opportunity para hazer some with her as I would have offered if je had had it.

This day I have the news that my sister was married on Thursday last to Mr. Jackson; so that work is, I hope, well over.

to my office till very late, and my eyes began to fail me, and be in pain which I never felt to now-a-days, which I impute to sitting up late writing and reading by candle-light.

I did answer the letter

I to church, and with my mourning, very handsome, and new periwigg, make a great shew.

she costing me but little compared with other wives, and I have not many occasions to spend on her.

But I do not see much thorough joy, but only an indifferent one, in the hearts of people, who are much discontented at the pride and luxury of the Court, and running in debt.

He showed me a black boy that he had, that died of a consumption, and being dead, he caused him to be dried in an oven, and lies there entire in a box.

He tells me we are like to receive some shame about the business of his bastarde with Jack Noble; but no matter, so it cost us no money.

having not for some days been in the streets; but now how few people I see, and those looking like people that had taken leave of the world.

Up and with my wife to church, where Mr. Mills made an unnecessary sermon on Original Sin, neither understood by himself, nor the people.

Lord of Sandwich came in, but whether it be my doubt or no I cannot tell, but I do not find that he made any sign of kindnesse or respect to me, which troubles me more than any thing in the world.

[…] folyvást azon gondolkodom, milyen nagyot is fordult mostanában a világ, és hogy az emberek holnap mit meg nem tesznek az ellen, amit ma még félelmükben vagy érdekből vallanak és meg is cselekszenek.

for I was in hopes to have had a bout with her before she had gone, she being very pretty. I had also a mind to my own wench, but I dare not for fear she should prove honest and refuse and then tell my wife.

Úgy hozta hát a véletlen, hogy lássam a király lefejezését a White Hall udvarán, és lássam az első vért is, amely a király megbosszulására kiontatott a Charing Crosson. Polcokat állítattam be dolgozószobámba.

did here sit two or three hours calling for twenty books to lay this money out upon, and found myself at a great losse where to choose, and do see how my nature would gladly return to laying out money in this trade.

All our physicians cannot tell what an ague is, and all our arithmetique is not able to number the days of a man;" which, God knows, is not the fault of arithmetique, but that our understandings reach not the thing.

I do find by my riding a little swelling to rise just by my anus. I had the same the last time I rode, and then it fell again, and now it is up again about the bigness of the bag of a silkworm, makes me fearful of a rupture.

and in general it was a great pleasure all the time I staid here to see how I am respected and honoured by all people; and I find that I begin to know now how to receive so much reverence, which at the beginning I could not tell how to do.

But I could not stay with him myself, for having got a great cold by my playing the fool in the water yesterday I was in great pain, and so went home by coach to bed, and went not to the office at all, and by keeping myself warm, I broke wind and so came to some ease. Rose and eat some supper, and so to bed again.

Mr. Moore-tól hallom a nagy újságot, hogy Lady Castlemaine kegyvesztett lett és ma reggel elhagyta az udvart. Okát nem tudja, csak azt, hogy így van, amit én nagyon sajnálok, de ha a király nemcsak őt hagyja el, hanem a többi szeretőit is, akkor szívből örülök ennek, mert úgy lehet, akkor majd többet törődik az ország dolgaival.

The plague, it seems, grows more and more at Amsterdam; and we are going upon making of all ships coming from thence and Hambrough, or any other infected places, to perform their Quarantine (for thirty days as Sir Rd. Browne expressed it in the order of the Council, contrary to the import of the word, though in the general acceptation it signifies now the thing, not the time spent in doing it) in Holehaven, a thing never done by us before.

I did to my trouble see all the way that 'elle' did get as close 'a su marido' as 'elle' could, and turn her 'mains' away 'quand je' did endeavour to take one.... So that I had no pleasure at all 'con elle ce' night. When we landed I did take occasion to send him back a the bateau while I did get a 'baiser' or two, and would have taken 'la' by 'la' hand, but 'elle' did turn away, and 'quand' I said shall I not 'toucher' to answered 'ego' no love touching, in a slight mood.

Among others, there were two pretty women alone, that walked a great while, which being discovered by some idle gentlemen, they would needs take them up; but to see the poor ladies how they were put to it to run from them, and they after them, and sometimes the ladies put themselves along with other company, then the other drew back; at last, the last did get off out of the house, and took boat and away. I was troubled to see them abused so; and could have found in my heart, as little desire of fighting as I have, to have protected the ladies.

This done and finished my Proclamation, I returned to the Nazeby, where my Lord was much pleased to hear how all the fleet took it in a transport of joy, showed me a private letter of the King's to him, and another from the Duke of York in such familiar style as to their common friend, with all kindness imaginable. And I found by the letters, and so my Lord told me too, that there had been many letters passed between them for a great while, and I perceive unknown to Monk. And among the rest that had carried these letters Sir John Boys is one, and that Mr. Norwood, which had a ship to carry him over the other day, when my Lord would not have me put down his name in the book. The King speaks of his being courted to come to the Hague, but do desire my Lord's advice whither to come to take ship.

Saw a wedding in the church. It was strange to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition.

But Lord! to see how much of my old folly and childishnesse hangs upon me still that I cannot forbear carrying my watch in my hand in the coach all this afternoon, and seeing what o'clock it is one hundred times; and am apt to think with myself, how could I be so long without one; though I remember since, I had one, and found it a trouble, and resolved to carry one no more about me while I lived.

Criminals beheaded in Palermo, heretics burned alive in Toledo, assassins drawn and quartered in Paris—Europeans flocked to every form of painful death imaginable, free entertainment that drew huge crowds. London, the historian Fernand Braudel tells us, held public executions eight times a year at Tyburn, just north of Hyde Park. (The diplomat Samuel Pepys paid a shilling for a good view of a Tyburn hanging in 1664; watching the victim beg for mercy, he wrote, was a crowd of "at least 12 or 14,000 people.") In most if not all European nations, the bodies were impaled on city walls and strung along highways as warnings. "The corpses dangling from trees whose distant silhouettes stand out against the sky, in so many old paintings, are merely a realistic detail," Braudel observed. "They were part of the landscape." Between 1530 and 1630, according to Cambridge historian V.A.C. Gatrell, England executed seventy-five thousand people. At that time, its population was about three million, perhaps a tenth that of the Mexica empire. Arithmetic suggests that if England had been the size of the Triple Alliance, it would have executed, on average, 7,500 people per year, roughly twice the number Cortes estimated for the empire. France and Spain were still more bloodthirsty than England, according to Braudel.

Reviewed by Vincent Dublado for Readers' Favorite Another Time in a Vacuum by Roland Burisch is a witty fantasy adventure of anachronistic proportions. Meet Monty, a timetraveling historian who travels back to 1673. Imagine the thrill of excitement that greets him as he meets one of history’s most important diarists, Samuel Pepys. He musters the courage to tell Pepys that he has important information, but the eminent diarist is suspicious that he could be an extortionist. Monty tells Pepys that he is from the future and that he is familiar with the contents of Pepys’s diaries. Monty introduces the diarist to his mobile phone to lend authenticity to his claim. Monty remembers that Sir Isaac Newton is alive in the same period, with which Pepys concurs, unless Newton is beheaded for heresy. But Monty tells him that Newton will go down in history for his work. This fills Pepys with disbelief. Monty brings the two men into the present, and these two historical figures will witness the contemporary period with awe and bewilderment, an adventure that they will fill with many questions. Another Time in a Vacuum is a fascinating time-travel adventure that is intelligent, witty, and at times, sad. While this novel takes the idea of time travel as an essential element in the storyline, it is more about a comparative look at the lifestyle and norms of the past with the present. It is inevitable that the two famous men will not understand Monty initially. But Roland Burisch equips his plot with confidence in the intelligence of Pepys and Newton. They eventually understand why Monty exists in their time without many ramifications about the historical timeline getting altered. Burisch wisely hinges on the mechanics of dialogue and the interaction of the trio for the plot. It is also one of the reasons why this novel works because you like the quirks of the characters. They are wise, funny, and fish out of water. It sounds like a story that you will enjoy reading. It is.

Reviewed by Vincent Dublado for Readers' Favorite Another Time in a Vacuum by Roland Burisch is a witty fantasy adventure of anachronistic proportions. Meet Monty, a timetraveling historian who travels back to 1673. Imagine the thrill of excitement that greets him as he meets one of history’s most important diarists, Samuel Pepys. He musters the courage to tell Pepys that he has important information, but the eminent diarist is suspicious that he could be an extortionist. Monty tells Pepys that he is from the future and that he is familiar with the contents of Pepys’s diaries. Monty introduces the diarist to his mobile phone to lend authenticity to his claim. Monty remembers that Sir Isaac Newton is alive in the same period, with which Pepys concurs, unless Newton has been beheaded for heresy. But Monty tells him that Newton will go down in history for his work. This fills Pepys with disbelief. Monty brings the two men into the present, and these two historical figures will witness the contemporary period with awe and bewilderment, an adventure that they will fill with many questions. Another Time in a Vacuum is a fascinating time-travel adventure that is intelligent, witty, and at times, sad. While this novel takes the idea of time travel as an essential element in the storyline, it is more about a comparative look at the lifestyle and norms of the past with the present. It is inevitable that the two famous men will not understand Monty initially. But Roland Burisch equips his plot with confidence in the intelligence of Pepys and Newton. They eventually understand why Monty exists in their time without many ramifications about the historical timeline getting altered. Burisch wisely hinges on the mechanics of dialogue and the interaction of the trio for the plot. It is also one of the reasons why this novel works because you like the quirks of the characters. They are wise, funny, and fish out of water. It sounds like a story that you will enjoy reading. It is.

Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody. Samuel Pepys

It is always easier to play on fears than to build hopes.

So many different strands fed into The Handmaid’s Tale – group executions, sumptuary laws, book burnings, the Lebensborn program of the S.S. and the child-stealing of the Argentinian generals, the history of slavery, the history of American polygamy…the list is long. But there’s a literary form I haven’t mentioned yet: the literature of witness. Offred records her story as best she can; then she hides it, trusting that it may be discovered later, by someone who is free to understand it and share it. This is an act of hope: every recorded story implies a future reader. Robinson Crusoe keeps a journal. So did Samuel Pepys, in which he chronicled the Great Fire of London. So did many who lived during the Black Death, although their accounts often stop abruptly. So did Roméo Dallaire, who chronicled both the Rwandan genocide and the world’s indifference to it. So did Anne Frank, hidden in her attic room.

He has the good reporter’s gift for being in the right place at the right moment, and the structure and rhythm of his sentences show how well he has mastered his medium.

saying my fellow-officers are obliged to me, as indeed they

23rd. This my birthday, 28 years.

If we beat the king ninety and nine times, yet he is king still and so will his posterity be after him; but if the king beat us once, we shall all be hanged, and our posterity made slaves.

Pepys was a good scholar, able to read Latin for pleasure all his life; and that very skill may have helped to leave his English free and uncluttered for the Diary, the language of life as opposed to the elaborately constructed formulations of the classroom and study.

He has the good reporter’s gift for being in the right place at the right moment, and the structure and rhythm of his sentences show how well he has mastered his medium. After

This is businesslike stuff, but he also lets us feel how his own awareness of the importance of the day through which he is living expands and permeates everything as the hours go by:

As Samuel Pepys would chirp—

Many people shared the view expressed by the diarist Samuel Pepys ‘that he that doth get a wench with child and marries her afterward, it is as if a man should shit in his hat and then clap it upon his head’.2

this disease making us more cruel to one another than if we are doggs.

but now how few people I see, and those looking like people that had taken leave of the world.

then they will not care a fart for us.

else I am grown worse to please than heretofore.

You can’t read these pages without being moved as Pepys becomes one with the crowd and its excitement and relief at Monck’s determination to break the political deadlock, and at the same time impressed by his capacity to watch, listen and take in everything. The entry may look as though it wrote itself, but the effects are worked with skill, the rhythm of the long unpunctuated sentences leading you through the streets, their momentum occasionally broken by natural pauses to drink, observe or talk. The three pieces of direct speech that do punctuate the passage raise the sense of immediacy, the warning to Haslerig, the greeting to Monck and the ‘God bless them’s of the people to the soldiers.

The excitement in London gave no guarantees about the future, and he still committed himself to no direct expression of opinion in his Diary.

our late maid Nell, who cried for joy to see me,

Sok szó esik az emberek között arról, hogy némely fanatikusok szerint elközelgett a világ vége, és a jövő kedden lesz a napja. Bármikor lesz is, készítsen fel arra valamennyiünket a jó Isten.

Az igazat megvallva egy kicsit nagyon is hajhászom az örömöket, tudva, hogy most vagyok életemnek abban az idejében, mely erre leginkább való; és mert látom, hogy a legtöbb ember, aki a világban sokra viszi, a szerzés idején megfeledkezik az élvezetekről, arra az időre halasztva azokat, amikor vagyona már elegendő, hanem akkor már késő, semmi örömét nem lelheti bennük.