The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (375 page)
Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Online
Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1884–1946
Guys and dolls.
title of book (1931)
"My boy," he says, "always try to rub up against money, for if you rub up against money long enough, some of it may rub off on you."
in
Cosmopolitan
August 1929, "A Very Honourable Guy"
I long ago come to the conclusion that all life is 6 to 5 against.
in
Collier's
8 September 1934, "A Nice Price"
1947–
One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions.
in
Independent on Sunday
10 September 1995 "Quotes of the Week"
It means everything—it means freedom.
on the news that the fatwa had effectively been lifted
in
Mail on Sunday
27 September 1998
1909–94
We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked.
on the Cuban missile crisis, 24 October 1962
in
Saturday Evening Post
8 December 1962
1819–1900
I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.
on Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold
Fors Clavigera
(1871–84) Letter 79, 18 June 1877.
Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality.
Lectures on Art
(1870) Lecture 3 "The Relation of Art to Morals" sect. 95
All violent feelings…produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the "Pathetic Fallacy".
Modern Painters
(1856) vol. 3, pt. 4, ch. 12
To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion—all in one.
Modern Painters
(1856) vol. 3, pt. 4 "Of Modern Landscape"
Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.
Modern Painters
(1856) vol. 4, pt. 5, ch. 20
All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.
Sesame and Lilies
(1865) "Of Kings' Treasuries"
How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it.
Sesame and Lilies
(1865) "Of Kings' Treasuries"
We call ourselves a rich nation, and we are filthy and foolish enough to thumb each other's books out of circulating libraries!
Sesame and Lilies
(1865) "Of Kings' Treasuries"
When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
Seven Lamps of Architecture
(1849) "The Lamp of Memory" sect. 10
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.
Stones of Venice
vol. 1 (1851) ch. 2, sect. 17
Labour without joy is base. Labour without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy without labour is base.
Time and Tide
(1867) Letter 5
The first duty of a State is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed and educated, till it attain years of discretion.
Time and Tide
(1867) Letter 13
1872–1970
One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important, and that to take a holiday would bring all kinds of disaster.
The Conquest of Happiness
(1930) ch. 5
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization.
The Conquest of Happiness
(1930) ch. 14
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.
In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays
(1986) title essay (1932)
Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.
Mysticism and Logic
(1918) ch. 4
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.
Philosophical Essays
(1910) no. 4
It is obvious that "obscenity" is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means "anything that shocks the magistrate".
Sceptical Essays
(1928) "The Recrudescence of Puritanism"