The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (460 page)
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Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1928–
Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
accepting the Nobel Peace Prize
in
New York Times
11 December 1986
God of forgiveness, do not forgive those murderers of Jewish children here.
at Auschwitz
in
The Times
27 January 1995
1805–73
If I were a cassowary
On the plains of Timbuctoo,
I would eat a missionary,
Cassock, band, and hymn-book too.
impromptu verse (attributed)
Was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey?
addressed to T. H. Huxley at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Oxford, June 1860.
1921–
There is a poignancy in all things clear,
In the stare of the deer, in the ring of a hammer in the morning.
"Clearness" (1950)
We milk the cow of the world, and as we do
We whisper in her ear, "You are not true."
"Epistemology" (1950)
The good grey guardians of art
Patrol the halls on spongy shoes.
"Museum Piece" (1950)
1855–1919
Laugh and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
"Solitude"
1854–1900
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
The Canterville Ghost
(1887)
The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.
The Importance of Being Earnest
(1895) act 1
In married life three is company and two none.
The Importance of Being Earnest
(1895) act 1
To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
The Importance of Being Earnest
(1895) act 1
lady bracknell
: A handbag?
The Importance of Being Earnest
(1895) act 1
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
The Importance of Being Earnest
(1895) act 1
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.
The Importance of Being Earnest
(1895) act 2.
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
The Importance of Being Earnest
(1895) act 2
Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.
Intentions
(1891) "The Critic as Artist" pt. 1
I can resist everything except temptation.
Lady Windermere's Fan
(1892) act 1
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Lady Windermere's Fan
(1892) act 3
A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
definition of a cynic
Lady Windermere's Fan
(1892) act 3
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
(1891) preface
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
The Portrait of Mr W. H.
(1901)
mrs allonby
: They say, Lady Hunstanton, that when good Americans die they go to Paris.
lady hunstanton
: Indeed? And when bad Americans die, where do they go to?
lord illingworth
: Oh, they go to America.
A Woman of No Importance
(1893) act 1.
The English country gentleman galloping after a fox—the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.
A Woman of No Importance
(1893) act 1
lord illingworth
: The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden.
mrs allonby
: It ends with Revelations.
A Woman of No Importance
(1893) act 1
Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
A Woman of No Importance
(1893) act 2
You should study the Peerage, Gerald…It is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done.
A Woman of No Importance
(1893) act 3
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
(1898) pt. 1, st. 3
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word.
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
(1898) pt. 1, st. 7
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
(1898) pt. 3, st. 37
And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.
inscribed on Wilde's tomb in Père Lachaise cemetery
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
(1898) pt. 4, st. 23
When I ask for a watercress sandwich, I do not mean a loaf with a field in the middle of it.
to a waiter
Max Beerbohm, letter to Reggie Turner, 15 April 1893
Ah, well, then, I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means.
at the mention of a huge fee for a surgical operation
R. H. Sherard
Life of Oscar Wilde
(1906) ch. 18
Shaw has not an enemy in the world; and none of his friends like him.
letter from Bernard Shaw to Archibald Henderson, 22 February 1911
I have nothing to declare except my genius.
at the New York Custom House
Frank Harris
Oscar Wilde
(1918)
One of us must go.
of the wallpaper in the room where he was dying
attributed, probably apocryphal