The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (371 page)
Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Online
Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1858–1919
Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
speech in Chicago, 3 April 1903
A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.
speech at the Lincoln Monument, Springfield, Illinois, 4 June 1903
The men with the muck-rakes are often indispensable to the well-being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.
speech in Washington, 14 April 1906.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.
"Citizenship in a Republic", speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, 23 April 1910
There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism.
speech in New York, 12 October 1915
One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called "weasel words". When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a "weasel word" after another, there is nothing left of the other.
speech in St Louis, 31 May 1916
I have got such a bully pulpit!
his personal view of the presidency
in
Outlook
(New York) 27 February 1909.
1847–1929
I have never known the sweets of place with power, but of place without power, of place with the minimum of power—that is a purgatory, and if not a purgatory it is a hell.
in
Spectator
6 July 1895
There are two supreme pleasures in life. One is ideal, the other real. The ideal is when a man receives the seals of office from his Sovereign. The real pleasure comes when he hands them back.
Sir Robert Peel
(1899)
1916–53 and
Rosenberg, Julius
1918–53
We are innocent…To forsake this truth is to pay too high a price even for the priceless gift of life.
petition for executive clemency, filed 9 January 1953
1830–94
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot.
"A Birthday" (1862)
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream.
"Echo" (1862)
In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter,
Long ago.
"Mid-Winter" (1875)
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
"Remember" (1862)
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
"Up-Hill" (1862)
Our Indian Crown is in great measure the trapping of a splendid misery.
letter to Amelia Heimann, 29 July 1880
1828–82
The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.
"The Blessed Damozel" (1870) st. 1
Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.
The House of Life
(1881) pt. 2 "A Superscription"
Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes.
The House of Life
(1881) pt. 2 "A Superscription"
I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.
"Sudden Light" (1870)
"I saw the Sibyl at Cumae"
(One said) "with mine own eye.
She hung in a cage, and read her rune
To all the passers-by.
Said the boys, "What wouldst thou, Sibyl?”
She answered, "I would die.” "
translation of Petronius
Satyricon
"Cena Trimalchionis" ch. 48, sect. 8.