Ivanhoe

Why,' said Wamba, 'an valour be so dull, you will please to learn, that those honest fellows balance a good deed with one not quite so laudable; as a crown given to a begging friar with an hundred byzants taken from a fat abbot, or a wench kissed in the greenwood with the relief of a poor widow.

Which of these was the good deed, which was the felony?' interrupted the Knight. A good gibe! A good Gibe!

Quoted on October 5, 2011

Say not my art is fraud - all live by seeming .
The beggar begs with it, and the gay courtier
Gains land and title, rank and rule, by seeming;
The clergy scorn it not, and the bold soldier
Will eke with it his service.--All admit it,
All practise it; adn he who is content
With shewing what he is, shall have small credit
In church, or camp, or state--So wags the world.
-- Old Play

Quoted on October 5, 2011

I forgive you, Sir Knight,' said Rowena, 'as a Christian.

That means,' said Wamba, 'that she does not forgive him at all.

Quoted on October 5, 2011

Holy Mother, said the monk, as he addressed the assembled knights, I am at last safe and in Christian keeping!

Safe thou art," replied De Bracy; "and for Christianity, here is the stout Baron Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, whose utter abomination is a Jew; and the good Knight Templar, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, whose trade is to slay Saracens—-If these are not good marks of Christianity, I know no other which they bear about them.

Quoted on October 5, 2011

Wamba whispered to Gurth, 'If this be the habitation of a thief, it makes good the old proverb, The nearer the church the farther from God.'

Quoted on October 5, 2011

His features might have been called good, had there not lurked under the pent-house of his eye, that sly epicurean twinkle which indicates the cautious voluptuary.

Quoted on October 5, 2011