Set it to music

Pity you couldn’t set it to music and sing it as an anthem, thinks I.

Flashman's Lady, p.147, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, antehm.

Delight in cruelty

Oh, the holy satisfaction of the godly – when it comes to delight in cruelty I’m just a child compared to them.

Flash For Freedom!, p.120, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes.

William Wilberforce and pious humbug

Why my pious acquaintances won’t believe this [African involvement in ths slave trade], I can’t fathom. They enslaved their own kind, in mills and factories and mines, and made ‘em live in kennels that an Alabama planter wouldn’t have dreamed of putting a black into. Aye, and our dear old dead Sir William Wilberforce cheered ‘em on, too – weeping his pious old eyes out over niggers* he had never seen, and damning the soul of anyone who suggested it was a bit hard to make white infants pull coal sledges for 12 hours a day. Of course he knew where his living came from. My point is; if he and his kind did it to their people, why should they suppose the black rulers were any different where their kinsfolk were concerned? They make me sick with their pious humbug.

Flash For Freedom!, pp.63-64, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

*Flashman's use of racial epitahs is a continuing problem for more enlightened, contemporary readers. The inclusion of these passages should not be taken as tacit support of his misanthropic, 19th century view of race relations.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,William Wilberforce.

Bucks and blades

It was the end of the great days of the bucks and blades; we had a queen on the throne, and her cold white hand and her poker-backed husband’s were already settling their grip on the nation’s life, smothering the old wild ways in their come-to-Jesus hypocrisy.

Royal Flash, pp.12-13, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,hypocrisy.

Vicious amusement

I had already given a good deal of thought to how I should conduct myself in the army. I was bent on as much fun and vicious amusement as I could get - my contemporaries, who praise God on Sundays and sneak off to child-brothels during the week would denounce it piously as vicious, anyway..."




Flashman, p. 30, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, contemporaries, hypocrisy.