The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (224 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
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Horsley, Samuel
1733–1806
1
In this country…the individual subject…"has nothing to do with the laws but to obey them."
defending a maxim he had used earlier in committee

speech, House of Lords, 13 November 1795

Housman, A. E.
1859–1936
1
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
first drafted in summer 1895, following the trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde

Collected Poems
(1939) "Additional Poems" no. 18

2
The Grizzly Bear is huge and wild;
He has devoured the infant child.
The infant child is not aware
He has been eaten by the bear.

"Infant Innocence" (1938)

3
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.

Last Poems
(1922) no. 12

4
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.

Last Poems
(1922) no. 37 "Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries"

5
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.

More Poems
(1936) no. 36

6
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

A Shropshire Lad
(1896) no. 2

7
And naked to the hangman's noose
The morning clocks will ring
A neck God made for other use
Than strangling in a string.

A Shropshire Lad
(1896) no. 9

8
In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear.
Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
And hear the larks so high
About us in the sky.

A Shropshire Lad
(1896) no. 21

9
On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves.

A Shropshire Lad
(1896) no. 31

10
To-day the Roman and his trouble
Are ashes under Uricon.

A Shropshire Lad
(1896) no. 31

11
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

A Shropshire Lad
(1896) no. 40

12
Clunton and Clunbury,
Clungunford and Clun,
Are the quietest places
Under the sun.

A Shropshire Lad
(1896) no. 50 (epigraph)

13
By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid.

A Shropshire Lad
(1896) no. 54

14
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.

A Shropshire Lad
(1896) no. 62.

15
Mithridates, he died old.

A Shropshire Lad
(1896) no. 62

Houston, Samuel
1793–1863
1
The North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction…they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche.
in 1861, warning the people of Texas against secession

Geoffrey C. Ward
The Civil War
(1991) ch. 1

Howe, Geoffrey
1926–
1
It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find the moment that the first balls are bowled that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain.
on the difficulties caused him as Foreign Secretary by Margaret Thatcher's anti-European views

resignation speech as Deputy Prime Minister, in the House of Commons, 13 November 1990

2
The time has come for others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties with which I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long.
resignation speech

in the House of Commons, 13 November 1990

Howe, Julia Ward
1819–1910
1
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

"Battle Hymn of the Republic" (1862)

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