Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian, CBE, born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series, a series of sea novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and centred on the friendship of English naval captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish–Catalan physician Stephen Maturin. The 20-novel series, the first of which is Master and Commander, is known for its well-researched and highly detailed portrayal of early 19th-century life, as well as its authentic and...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth12 December 1914
I am opposed to authority, that egg of misery and oppression; I am opposed to it largely for what it does to those who exercise it.
Go and see whether the Doctor is about,’ said Jack, ‘and if he is, ask him to look in, when he has a moment.’ Which he is in the fish-market, turning over some old-fashioned lobsters. No. I tell a lie. That is him, falling down the companion-way and cursing in foreign.
Authority is a solvent of humanity: look at any husband, any father of a family,and note the absorption of the person by the persona, the individual by the role. Then multiply the family, and the authority, by some hundreds and see the effect upon a sea-captain, to say nothing of an absolute monarch.Surely man in general is born to be oppressed or solitary, if he is to be fully human; unless it so happens that he is immune to the poison.
For you must know, gentlemen, that when the mariner is dosed, he likes to know that he has been dosed: with fifteen grains or even less of this valuable substance scenting him and the very air about him there can be no doubt of the matter; and such is the nature of the human mind that he experiences a far greater real benefit than the drug itself would provide, were it deprived of its stench.
Why there you are, Stephen,' cried Jack. 'You are come home, I find.' That is true,' said Stephen with an affectionate look: he prized statements of this kind in Jack.
...for very strangely his officers looked upon Jack Aubrey as a moral figure, in spite of all proofs of the contrary...
Other people's marriages are a perpetual source of amazement.
For a moment Jack felt the strongest inclination to snatch up his little gilt chair and beat the white-faced man down with it...
We are always the most violent against those whom we have injured.
I sew his ears on from time to time, sure.
I have often observed that extremely violent noise and activity go with good-fellowship and heightened spirits.
Stephen had spared no expense in making himself more unhappy, his own position as a rejected lover clearer.
Never mind manoeuvres, always go at them.
My dear creature, I have done with all debate. But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG, which is infamous, or MY COUNTRY IS ALWAYS RIGHT, which is imbecile.