The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (139 page)
Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Online
Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1885–1962
A herd of elephant…pacing along as if they had an appointment at the end of the world.
Out of Africa
(1937) pt. 1, ch. 1
What is man, when you come to think upon him, but a minutely set, ingenious machine for turning, with infinite artfulness, the red wine of Shiraz into urine?
Seven Gothic Tales
(1934) "The Dreamers"
c.
400
bc
Alexander…asked him if he lacked anything. "Yes," said he, "that I do: that you stand out of my sun a little."
Plutarch
Parallel Lives
"Alexander" ch. 14, sect. 4 (translated by T. North, 1579)
of Halicarnassus fl. 30
bc
History is philosophy from examples.
Ars Rhetorica
ch. 11, sect. 2
1901–66
Fancy being remembered around the world for the invention of a mouse!
during his last illness
Leonard Mosley
Disney's World
(1985)
, Lord Beaconsfield 1804–81
The Continent will [not] suffer England to be the workshop of the world.
speech, House of Commons, 15 March 1838.
Thus you have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish Question.
speech, House of Commons, 16 February 1844
The noble Lord is the Prince Rupert of Parliamentary discussion.
of Edward Stanley, later Lord Derby
speech, House of Commons, 24 April 1844.
The right hon. Gentleman caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes.
on Sir Robert Peel's abandoning protection in favour of free trade, traditionally the policy of the Whig Opposition
speech, House of Commons, 28 February 1845
A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.
speech, House of Commons, 17 March 1845
Party is organized opinion.
speech at Oxford, 25 November 1864
Is man an ape or an angel? Now I am on the side of the angels.
speech at Oxford, 25 November 1864
You behold a range of exhausted volcanoes.
of the Treasury Bench
speech at Manchester, 3 April 1872
Coffee house babble.
on the Bulgarian Atrocities, 1876
in R. W. Seton-Watson
Britain in Europe 1789–1914
(1955)
Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own.
speech at Guildhall, 9 November 1877.
Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace—but a peace I hope with honour.
speech on returning from the Congress of Berlin, 16 July 1878
A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity.
of Gladstone
in
The Times
29 July 1878
I will not go down to posterity talking bad grammar.
while correcting proofs of his last Parliamentary speech, 31 March 1881
Robert Blake
Disraeli
(1966) ch. 32
No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.
Coningsby
(1844) bk. 2, ch. 1
"A sound Conservative government," said Taper, musingly. "I understand: Tory men and Whig measures."
Coningsby
(1844) bk. 2, ch. 6
It seems to me a barren thing this Conservatism—an unhappy cross-breed, the mule of politics that engenders nothing.
Coningsby
(1844) bk. 3, ch. 5.
Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.
Contarini Fleming
(1832) pt. 1, ch. 23.
His Christianity was muscular.
Endymion
(1880) ch. 14
An insular country, subject to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen.
Endymion
(1880) ch. 37
As for our majority…one is enough.
Endymion
(1880) ch. 64
"Sensible men are all of the same religion." "And pray what is that?"…"Sensible men never tell."
Endymion
(1880) ch. 81.
The sweet simplicity of the three per cents.
Endymion
(1880) ch. 91.
The blue ribbon of the turf.
of the Derby
Lord George Bentinck
(1852) ch. 26
"Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws." "You speak of—" said Egremont, hesitatingly, "
the rich and the poor.
"
Sybil
(1845) bk. 2, ch. 5.
London is a modern Babylon.
Tancred
(1847) bk. 5, ch. 5
All power is a trust.
Vivian Grey
(1826) bk. 6, ch. 7.
Let me die eating ortolans to the sound of soft music!
The Young Duke
(1831) bk. 1, ch. 10.
Damn your principles! Stick to your party.
attributed to Disraeli and believed to have been said to Edward Bulwer-Lytton
E. Latham
Famous Sayings and their Authors
(1904)
Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.
to Matthew Arnold
G. W. E. Russell
Collections and Recollections
(1898) ch. 23
I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole.
on becoming Prime Minister
W. Monypenny and G. Buckle
Life of Benjamin Disraeli
vol. 4 (1916) ch. 16
Never complain and never explain.
J. Morley
Life of William Ewart Gladstone
(1903) vol. 1.
Pray remember, Mr Dean, no dogma, no Dean.
W. Monypenny and G. Buckle
Life of Benjamin Disraeli
vol. 4 (1916) ch. 10
The school of Manchester.
describing the free trade politics of Cobden and Bright
Robert Blake
Disraeli
(1966) ch. 10
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.
attributed to Disraeli in Mark Twain
Autobiography
(1924) vol. 1
When I want to read a novel, I write one.
W. Monypenny and G. Buckle
Life of Benjamin Disraeli
vol. 6 (1920) ch. 17.