The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (18 page)
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Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1930–
That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
as the craft touched down, he had radioed "Houston. Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed"
in
New York Times
21 July 1969; interference in the transmission obliterated "a"
1927–
It contains a misleading impression, not a lie. It was being economical with the truth.
during the "Spycatcher" trial in New South Wales
in
Daily Telegraph
19 November 1986. ,
1832–1904
Nor ever once ashamed
So we be named
Press-men; Slaves of the Lamp; Servants of Light.
"The Tenth Muse" (1895) st. 18
1822–88
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another!
"Dover Beach" (1867) l. 21
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
"Dover Beach" (1867) l. 35
Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
"The Forsaken Merman" (1849) l. 1
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
"The Forsaken Merman" (1849) l. 4
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye.
"The Forsaken Merman" (1849) l. 43
Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn
Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?
"Parting" (1852) l. 19
Eternal Passion!
Eternal Pain!
of the nightingale
"Philomela" (1853) l. 31
Cruel, but composed and bland,
Dumb, inscrutable and grand,
So Tiberius might have sat,
Had Tiberius been a cat.
"Poor Matthias" (1885) l. 40
Not deep the Poet sees, but wide.
"Resignation" (1849) l. 214
Go, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill.
"The Scholar-Gipsy" (1853) l. 1
All the live murmur of a summer's day.
"The Scholar-Gipsy" (1853) l. 20
Tired of knocking at Preferment's door.
"The Scholar-Gipsy" (1853) l. 35
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe.
"The Scholar-Gipsy" (1853) l. 74
The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall.
"The Scholar-Gipsy" (1853) l. 129
Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we,
Light half-believers in our casual creeds…
Who hesitate and falter life away,
And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day—
Ah, do not we, Wanderer, await it too?
"The Scholar-Gipsy" (1853) l. 171
Still nursing the unconquerable hope,
Still clutching the inviolable shade.
"The Scholar-Gipsy" (1853) l. 211
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge.
"Shakespeare" (1849)
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.
"Sohrab and Rustum" (1853) l. 656
And that sweet City with her dreaming spires.
of Oxford
"Thyrsis" (1866) l. 19
The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I.
"Thyrsis" (1866) l. 57
Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole:
The mellow glory of the Attic stage;
Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child.
of Sophocles
"To a Friend" (1849)
France, famed in all great arts, in none supreme.
"To a Republican Friend—Continued" (1849)
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.
"To Marguerite—Continued" (1852) l. 24
The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light…He who works for sweetness and light united, works to make reason and the will of God prevail.
Culture and Anarchy
(1869) ch. 1
When I want to distinguish clearly the aristocratic class from the Philistines proper, or middle class, [I] name the former, in my own mind
the Barbarians.
Culture and Anarchy
(1869) ch. 3
Whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age…Home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties!
of Oxford
Essays in Criticism
First Series (1865) preface.
In poetry, no less than in life, he is "a beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain".
Essays in Criticism
Second Series (1888) "Shelley" (quoting from his own essay on Byron in the same work)
Poetry is at bottom a criticism of life.
Essays in Criticism
Second Series (1888) "Wordsworth"
I am past thirty, and three parts iced over.
letter, 12 February 1853
The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.
Literature and Dogma
(1873) ch. 1
Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.
G. W. E. Russell
Collections and Recollections
(1898) ch. 13