The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (422 page)
Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Online
Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1805–64
'Unting is all that's worth living for…it's the sport of kings, the image of war without its guilt, and only five-and-twenty per cent of its danger.
Handley Cross
(1843) ch. 7.
It ar'n't that I loves the fox less, but that I loves the 'ound more.
Handley Cross
(1843) ch. 16
Life would be very pleasant if it were not for its enjoyments.
Mr Facey Romford's Hounds
(1865) ch. 32.
Everyone knows that the real business of a ball is either to look out for a wife, to look after a wife, or to look after somebody else's wife.
Mr Facey Romford's Hounds
(1865) ch. 56
He was a gentleman who was generally spoken of as having nothing a-year, paid quarterly.
Mr Sponge's Sporting Tour
(1853) ch. 24
1879–1962
Freedom of the press in Britain means freedom to print such of the proprietor's prejudices as the advertisers don't object to.
Tom Driberg
Swaff
(1974) ch. 2
1667–1745
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.
The Battle of the Books
(1704) preface
Instead of dirt and poison we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax; thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
The Battle of the Books
(1704)
It is the folly of too many, to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.
The Conduct of the Allies
(1711)
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind
(1709).
I have heard of a man who had a mind to sell his house, and therefore carried a piece of brick in his pocket, which he shewed as a pattern to encourage purchasers.
The Drapier's Letters
(1724) no. 2
And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together.
Gulliver's Travels
(1726) "A Voyage to Brobdingnag" ch. 7
He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sun-beams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.
Gulliver's Travels
(1726) "A Voyage to Laputa, etc." ch. 5
Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of a style.
Letter to a Young Gentleman lately entered into Holy Orders
(9 January 1720)
Not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.
letter to Bolingbroke, 21 March 1730
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled, and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.
A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents or Country
(1729)
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
Thoughts on Various Subjects
(1711)
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
Thoughts on Various Subjects
(1711)
The stoical scheme of supplying our wants, by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
Thoughts on Various Subjects
(1711)
Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old.
Thoughts on Various Subjects
(1727 ed.)
How haughtily he lifts his nose,
To tell what every schoolboy knows.
"The Journal" (1727) l. 81
Hail, fellow, well met,
All dirty and wet:
Find out, if you can,
Who's master, who's man.
"My Lady's Lamentation" (written 1728) l. 165
Philosophy! the lumber of the schools.
"Ode to Sir W. Temple" (written 1692)
As learned commentators view
In Homer more than Homer knew.
"On Poetry" (1733) l. 103
So geographers, in Afric-maps,
With savage-pictures fill their gaps;
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.
"On Poetry" (1733) l. 177
Hobbes clearly proves, that every creature
Lives in a state of war by nature.
"On Poetry" (1733) l. 319
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em,
And so proceed
ad infinitum
.
"On Poetry" (1733) l. 337
Good God! what a genius I had when I wrote that book.
of A Tale of a Tub
Sir Walter Scott (ed.)
Works of Swift
(1814) vol. 1
I shall be like that tree, I shall die at the top.
Sir Walter Scott (ed.)
Works of Swift
(1814) vol. 1
A stick and a string, with a fly at one end and a fool at the other.
description of angling; the remark has also been attributed to Samuel Johnson, in the form "a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other"
in
The Indicator
27 October 1819
Ubi saeva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit.Where fierce indignation can no longer tear his heart.
epitaph; Shane Leslie
The Skull of Swift
(1928) ch. 15.
1837–1909
Maiden, and mistress of the months and stars
Now folded in the flowerless fields of heaven.
Atalanta in Calydon
(1865) l. 1
When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.
Atalanta in Calydon
(1865) chorus "When the hounds of spring"
For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
Atalanta in Calydon
(1865) chorus "When the hounds of spring"
Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name.
"Ballad of François Villon" (1878)
We shift and bedeck and bedrape us,
Thou art noble and nude and antique.
"Dolores" (1866) st. 7
Change in a trice
The lilies and languors of virtue
For the raptures and roses of vice.
"Dolores" (1866) st. 9
O splendid and sterile Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain.
"Dolores" (1866) st. 9
As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,
Death lies dead.
"A Forsaken Garden" (1878)
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no man lives forever,
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
"The Garden of Proserpine" (1866)
Even love, the beloved Republic, that feeds upon freedom lives.
"Hertha" (1871).
Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold,
A bitter God to follow, a beautiful God to behold?
"Hymn to Proserpine" (1866)
Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from Thy breath.
"Hymn to Proserpine" (1866).
Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow,
How can thine heart be full of the spring?
A thousand summers are over and dead.
What hast thou found in the spring to follow?
"Itylus" (1864)
O sister, sister, thy first-begotten!
The hands that cling and the feet that follow,
The voice of the child's blood crying yet
Who hath remembered me? Who hath forgotten?
Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,
But the world shall end when I forget.
"Itylus" (1864)
Apples of gold for the king's daughter.
"The King's Daughter"
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather,
Blown fields or flowerful closes,
Green pleasure or grey grief.
"A Match" (1866)