The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (472 page)
Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Online
Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1931–
You can make a throne of bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long.
from the top of a tank, during the attempted military coup against Gorbachev
in
Independent
24 August 1991.
Today is the last day of an era past.
at a Berlin ceremony to end the Soviet military presence
in
Guardian
1 September 1994
1933–
Over Babiy Yar
There are no memorials.
The steep hillside like a rough inscription.
"Babiy Yar" (1961) (tr. Robin Milner-Gulland)
Life is a rainbow which also includes black.
in
Guardian
11 August 1987
1915–97
It is a terrible shame for me—I came back, still alive, without having won the war.
on returning to Japan after surviving for 28 years in the jungles of Guam before surrendering to the Americans in 1972
in
Independent
26 September 1997
1932–
Nothing is illegal if one hundred well-placed business men decide to do it.
Morris K. Udall
Too Funny to be President
(1988)
1683–1765
Be wise with speed;
A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
The Love of Fame
(1725–8) Satire 2, l. 282
Hot, envious, noisy, proud, the scribbling fry
Burn, hiss, and bounce, waste paper, stink, and die.
The Love of Fame
(1725–8) Satire 3, l. 65
One to destroy, is murder by the law;
And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe;
To murder thousands, takes a specious name,
"War's glorious art", and gives immortal fame.
The Love of Fame
(1725–8) Satire 7, l. 55
How science dwindles, and how volumes swell,
How commentators each dark passage shun,
And hold their farthing candle to the sun.
The Love of Fame
(1725–8) Satire 7, l. 96
Procrastination is the thief of time.
Night Thoughts
(1742–5) "Night 1" l. 393
At thirty a man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan.
Night Thoughts
(1742–5) "Night 1" l. 417
By night an atheist half believes a God.
Night Thoughts
(1742–5) "Night 5" l. 176
[The senses] Take in at once the landscape of the world,
At a small inlet, which a grain might close,
And half create the wondrous world they see.
Night Thoughts
(1742–5) "Night 6" l. 425
To know the world, not love her, is thy point,
She gives but little, nor that little, long.
Night Thoughts
(1742–5) "Night 8" l. 1276.
Life is the desert, life the solitude;
Death joins us to the great majority.
The Revenge
(1721) act 4.
1846–1919
The lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.
title of poem (
c.
.1870); also attributed, in a different form, to Harriet A. Glazebrook, 1874