The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (210 page)
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Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1783–1826
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid.
"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning" (1827 hymn)
From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand.
"From Greenland's icy mountains" (1821 hymn)
What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle;
Though every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile:
In vain with lavish kindness
The gifts of God are strown;
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone.
"From Greenland's icy mountains" (1821 hymn); Heber later altered "Ceylon's isle" to "Java's isle".
Holy, Holy, Holy! all the saints adore thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea,
Cherubim and Seraphim falling down before thee,
Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.
"Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!" (1826 hymn)
1770–1831
What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction
(1830, tr. H. B. Nisbet, 1975) introduction
Only in the state does man have a rational existence…Man owes his entire existence to the state, and has his being within it alone.
Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction
(1830, tr. H. B. Nisbet, 1975)
When philosophy paints its grey on grey, then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey on grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.
Philosophy of Right
(1821, tr. T. M. Knox, 1952)
1797–1856
Dort, wo man Bücher
Verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.
Wherever books will be burned, men also, in the end, are burned.
Almansor
(1823) l. 245
Auf Flügeln des Gesanges.On wings of song.
title of song (1823)
Maximilien Robespierre was nothing but the hand of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the bloody hand that drew from the womb of time the body whose soul Rousseau had created.
Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland
(1834) bk. 3, para. 3
Dieu me pardonnera, c'est son métier.God will pardon me, it is His trade.
on his deathbed
Alfred Meissner
Heinrich Heine. Erinnerungen
(1856) ch. 5.
1901–76
An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and who manages to avoid them.
Der Teil und das Ganze
(1969) ch. 17 (tr. A. J. Pomerans as
Physics and Beyond
, 1971)
1923–99
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind…Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.
Catch-22
(1961) ch. 5
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three.
Catch-22
(1961) ch. 9.
When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as
Catch-22
I'm tempted to reply, "Who has?"
in
The Times
9 June 1993