The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (314 page)
Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Online
Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1533–92
I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but caring little for it, and even less about the imperfections of my garden.
Essais
(1580, ed. M. Rat, 1958) bk. 1, ch. 20
The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.
Essais
(1580, ed. M. Rat, 1958) bk. 1, ch. 20
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
Essais
(1580, ed. M. Rat, 1958) bk. 1, ch. 23
There is scarcely any less bother in the running of a family than in that of an entire state. And domestic business is no less importunate for being less important.
Essais
(1580, ed. M. Rat, 1958) bk. 1, ch. 39
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be oneself.
Essais
(1580, ed. M. Rat, 1958) bk. 1, ch. 39
When I play with my cat, who knows whether she isn't amusing herself with me more than I am with her?
Essais
(1580, ed. M. Rat, 1958) bk. 2, ch. 12
Que sais-je?What do I know?
on the position of the sceptic
Essais
(1580, ed. M. Rat, 1958) bk. 2, ch. 12
It could be said of me that in this book I have only made up a bunch of other men's flowers, providing of my own only the string that ties them together.
Essais
(1580, ed. M. Rat, 1958) bk. 3, ch. 12
1689–1755
If the triangles were to make a God they would give him three sides.
Lettres Persanes
(1721) no. 59 (tr. J. Ozell, 1722)
The English are busy; they don't have time to be polite.
Pensées et fragments inédits…
vol. 2 (1901) no. 1428
Happy the people whose annals are blank in history-books!
attributed to Montesquieu by Thomas Carlyle in
History of Frederick the Great
bk. 16, ch. 1
of Alamein 1887–1976
Here
we will stand and fight; there will be no further withdrawal. I have ordered that all plans and instructions dealing with further withdrawal are to be burnt, and at once. We will stand and fight
here
. If we can't stay here alive, then let us stay here dead.
speech in Cairo, 13 August 1942
Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow"…[Rule 2] is: "Do not go fighting with your land armies in China."
speech in the House of Lords, 30 May 1962
1807–55
The solitary monk who shook the world.
Luther: a Poem
(1842) ch. 3 "Man's Need and God's Supply"
1768–1843
Have no truck with first impulses for they are always generous ones.
attributed.
1612–50
Let them bestow on every airth a limb.
"Lines written on the Window of his Jail the Night before his Execution"
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That puts it not unto the touch
To win or lose it all.
"My Dear and Only Love" (written
c.
1642)