The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (140 page)
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Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1837–98
As with gladness men of old
Did the guiding star behold.
"As with gladness men of old" (1861 hymn)
1840–1921
All passes. Art alone
Enduring stays to us;
The Bust outlasts the throne,—
The Coin, Tiberius.
"Ars Victrix" (1876); translation of Gautier's "L'Art".
Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays,
we
go.
"The Paradox of Time" (1877)
1931–
Freud's theory was that when a joke opens a window and all those bats and bogeymen fly out, you get a marvellous feeling of relief and elation. The trouble with Freud is that he never had to play the old Glasgow Empire on a Saturday night after Rangers and Celtic had both lost.
in
Guardian
30 April 1991; quoted in many, usually much contracted, forms since the mid-1960s
1702–51
O God of Bethel, by whose hand
Thy people still are fed,
Who through this weary pilgrimage
Hast all our fathers led.
Hymns
(1755) "O God of Bethel"
Confound those who have said our remarks before us.
St Jerome
Commentary on Ecclesiastes
bk 1
1926–
When you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both it's health.
The Ginger Man
(1955) ch. 5
1572–1631
1
No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace,
As I have seen in one autumnal face.
Elegies
"The Autumnal" (
c.
1600)
License my roving hands, and let them go,
Behind, before, above, between, below.
O my America, my new found land,
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned.
Elegies
"To His Mistress Going to Bed" (
c.
1595)
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.
Holy Sonnets
(1609) no. 6 (ed. J. Carey, 1990)
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death thou shalt die.
Holy Sonnets
(1609) no. 6 (ed. J. Carey, 1990)
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for, you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.
Holy Sonnets
(after 1609) no. 10 (ed. J. Carey, 1990)
What if this present were the world's last night?
Holy Sonnets
(after 1609) no. 19 (ed. J. Carey, 1990)
As thou
Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now,
Thou lov'st not, till from loving more, thou free
My soul; who ever gives, takes liberty.
"A Hymn to Christ, at the Author's last going into Germany" (1619)
Since I am coming to that holy room,
Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made thy music; as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think now before.
"Hymn to God my God, in my Sickness" (1623)
Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which is my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive those sins, through which I run
And do them still: though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For, I have more.
"A Hymn to God the Father" (1623)
Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant,
The only harmless great thing.
"The Progress of the Soul" (1601) st. 39
On a huge hill,
Cragged, and steep, Truth stands, and he that will
Reach her, about must, and about must go.
Satire
no. 3 (1594–5) l. 79
Air and angels.
title of poem,
Songs and Sonnets
All other things, to their destruction draw,
Only our love hath no decay;
This, no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday,
Running it never runs from us away,
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.
Songs and Sonnets
"The Anniversary"
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
Songs and Sonnets
"The Bait"
For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love.
Songs and Sonnets
"The Canonization"
I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I
Did, till we loved, were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the seven sleepers den?
Songs and Sonnets
"The Good-Morrow"
I long to talk with some old lover's ghost,
Who died before the god of love was born.
Songs and Sonnets
"Love's Deity"
'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's.
Songs and Sonnets
"A Nocturnal upon St Lucy's Day"
When my grave is broke up again
Some second guest to entertain,
(For graves have learnt that woman-head
To be to more than one a bed)
And he that digs it, spies
A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
Will he not let us alone?
Songs and Sonnets
"The Relic"
Go, and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me, where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing.
Songs and Sonnets
"Song: Go and catch a falling star"
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Songs and Sonnets
"The Sun Rising"
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.
Songs and Sonnets
"The Sun Rising"
I have done one braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
Songs and Sonnets
"The Undertaking"
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.
Songs and Sonnets
"A Valediction: forbidding mourning"
Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls.
"To Sir Henry Wotton" (1597–8)
But I do nothing upon my self, and yet I am mine own Executioner.
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
(1624) "Meditation XII"
No man is an Island, entire of it self.
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
(1624) "Meditation XVII"
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
(1624) "Meditation XVII"
When a whirlwind hath blown the dust of the Churchyard into the Church, and the man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the Churchyard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again, and to pronounce, This is the Patrician, this is the noble flower, and this the yeomanly, this the Plebeian bran.
LXXX Sermons
(1640) 8 March 1621/2
I throw myself down in my Chamber, and I call in, and invite God, and his Angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.
LXXX Sermons
(1640) 12 December 1626 "At the Funeral of Sir William Cokayne"
Poor intricated soul! Riddling, perplexed, labyrinthical soul!
LXXX Sermons
(1640) 25 January 1628/9
John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done.
in a letter to his wife, on being dismissed from the service of his father-in-law, Sir George More
Izaak Walton
The Life of Dr Donne
(first printed in
LXXX Sermons
, 1640)