The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (144 page)
Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Online
Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1631–1700
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.
Absalom and Achitophel
(1681) pt. 1, l. 83
Of these the false Achitophel was first,
A name to all succeeding ages curst.
Absalom and Achitophel
(1681) pt. 1, l. 150
A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit.
Absalom and Achitophel
(1681) pt. 1, l. 159
Great wits are sure to madness near allied.
Absalom and Achitophel
(1681) pt. 1, l. 163
In friendship false, implacable in hate:
Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.
Absalom and Achitophel
(1681) pt. 1, l. 173
All empire is no more than power in trust.
Absalom and Achitophel
(1681) pt. 1, l. 411.
And pity never ceases to be shown
To him, who makes the people's wrongs his own.
Absalom and Achitophel
(1681) pt. 1, l. 725
Nor is the people's judgement always true:
The most may err as grossly as the few.
Absalom and Achitophel
(1681) pt. 1, l. 781
Beware the fury of a patient man.
Absalom and Achitophel
(1681) pt. 1, l. 1005
None but the brave deserves the fair.
Alexander's Feast
(1697) l. 7
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
Alexander's Feast
(1697) l. 60
Revenge, revenge! Timotheus cries.
Alexander's Feast
(1697) l. 131
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls must dive below.
All for Love
(1678) prologue
Men are but children of a larger growth;
Our appetites as apt to change as theirs,
And full as craving too, and full as vain.
All for Love
(1678) act 4, sc. 1.
I am as free as nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
The Conquest of Granada
(1670) pt. 1, act 1, sc. 1
T'abhor the makers, and their laws approve,
Is to hate traitors and the treason love.
The Hind and the Panther
(1687) pt. 3, l. 706.
And love's the noblest frailty of the mind.
The Indian Emperor
(1665) act 2, sc. 2.
War is the trade of kings.
King Arthur
(1691) act 2, sc. 2
Fairest Isle, all isles excelling,
Seat of pleasures, and of loves;
Venus here will choose her dwelling,
And forsake her Cyprian groves.
King Arthur
(1691) act 5 "Song of Venus".
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
MacFlecknoe
(1682) l. 19
But treason is not owned when 'tis descried;
Successful crimes alone are justified.
The Medal
(1682) l. 207
And Antony, who lost the world for love.
Palamon and Arcite
(1700) bk. 2, l. 607
But 'tis the talent of our English nation,
Still to be plotting some new reformation.
"The Prologue at Oxford, 1680" (prologue to Nathaniel Lee
Sophonisba
, 2nd ed., 1681)
And this unpolished rugged verse I chose
As fittest for discourse and nearest prose.
Religio Laici
(1682) l. 453
For secrets are edged tools,
And must be kept from children and from fools.
Sir Martin Mar-All
(1667) act 2, sc. 2
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
A Song for St Cecilia's Day
(1687) st. 2
There is a pleasure sure,
In being mad, which none but madmen know!
The Spanish Friar
(1681) act 1, sc. 1
Wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
"To the Memory of Mr Oldham" (1684)
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He, who can call to-day his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
translation of Horace
Odes
bk. 3, no. 29
She knows her man, and when you rant and swear,
Can draw you to her
with a single hair
.
Translation of Persius
Satires
no. 5, l. 246
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by fate,
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore.
translation of Virgil
Aeneid
(
Aeneis
, 1697) bk. 1, l. 1.
The famous rules, which the French call
Des Trois Unitez
, or, the Three Unities, which ought to be observed in every regular play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action.
An Essay of Dramatic Poesy
(1668)
He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great.
on Shakespeare
An Essay of Dramatic Poesy
(1668)
'Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty.
of Chaucer
Fables Ancient and Modern
(1700) preface
ek, Alexander1921–92
In the service of the people we followed such a policy that socialism would not lose its human face.
in
Rudé Právo
19 July 1968
1522–60
France, mère des arts, des armes et des lois.
France, mother of arts, of warfare, and of laws.
Les Regrets
(1558) sonnet no. 9
Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage
Happy he who like Ulysses has made a great journey.
Les Regrets
(1558) Sonnet no. 31