The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (78 page)
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Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1605–82
Old mortality, the ruins of forgotten times.
Hydriotaphia
(Urn Burial, 1658) Epistle Dedicatory
What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.
Hydriotaphia
(Urn Burial, 1658) ch. 5
Generations pass while some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks.
Hydriotaphia
(Urn Burial, 1658) ch. 5
Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.
Hydriotaphia
(Urn Burial, 1658) ch. 5
I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magic of numbers.
Religio Medici
(1643) pt. 1, sect. 12
We carry within us the wonders we seek without us: there is all Africa and her prodigies in us.
Religio Medici
(1643) pt. 1, sect. 15
All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.
Religio Medici
(1643) pt. 1, sect. 16
Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plant religion.
Religio Medici
(1643) pt. 1, sect. 25
This trivial and vulgar way of coition; it is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life, nor is there any thing that will more deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath committed.
Religio Medici
(1643) pt. 2, sect. 9
We all labour against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.
Religio Medici
(1643) pt. 2, sect. 9
For the world, I count it not an inn, but an hospital, and a place, not to live, but to die in.
Religio Medici
(1643) pt. 2, sect. 11
That children dream not in the first half year, that men dream not in some countries, are to me sick men's dreams, dreams out of the ivory gate, and visions before midnight.
"On Dreams"
1692–1774
The King to Oxford sent a troop of horse,
For Tories own no argument but force:
With equal skill to Cambridge books he sent,
For Whigs admit no force but argument.
reply to Trapp's epigram on George I, in J. Nichols
Literary Anecdotes
vol. 3 (1812).
1806–61
And lips say, "God be pitiful,"
Who ne'er said, "God be praised."
"The Cry of the Human" (1844) st. 1
What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
"A Musical Instrument" (1862)
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach.
Sonnets from the Portuguese
(1850) no. 43
I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Sonnets from the Portuguese
(1850) no. 43
1896–1965
I think we might be going a bridge too far.
expressing reservations about the Arnhem "Market Garden" operation to Field Marshal Montgomery
on 10 September 1944; R. E. Urquhart
Arnhem
(1958)
1812–89
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?
"Andrea del Sarto" (1855) l. 97
But all the play, the insight and the stretch—
Out of me, out of me!
"Andrea del Sarto" (1855) l. 115
We fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.
Asolando
(1889) "Epilogue"
The grand Perhaps!
"Bishop Blougram's Apology" (1855) l. 190
You, for example, clever to a fault.
"Bishop Blougram's Apology" (1855) l. 420
He said true things, but called them by wrong names.
"Bishop Blougram's Apology" (1855) l. 996
Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!
"Boot and Saddle" (1842)
When earth breaks up and heaven expands,
How will the change strike me and you
In the house not made with hands?
"By the Fireside" (1855) st. 27.
Oh, the little more, and how much it is!
And the little less, and what worlds away!
"By the Fireside" (1855) st. 39
Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!
'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.
"Caliban upon Setebos" (1864) l. 24
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. "
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.
"
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" (1855) st. 34.
How sad and bad and mad it was—
But then, how it was sweet!
"Confessions" (1864) st. 9
Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought.
"A Death in the Desert" (1864) l. 59
…Progress, man's distinctive mark alone,
Not God's, and not the beasts': God is, they are,
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.
"A Death in the Desert" (1864) l. 586
Open my heart and you will see
Graved inside of it, "Italy".
"De Gustibus" (1855) pt. 2, l. 43
'Tis well averred,
A scientific faith's absurd.
"Easter-Day" (1850) l. 123
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
"Evelyn Hope" (1855)
If you get simple beauty and naught else,
You get about the best thing God invents.
"Fra Lippo Lippi" (1855) l. 217
This is our master, famous calm and dead,
Borne on our shoulders.
"A Grammarian's Funeral" (1855) l. 27
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it:
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundred's soon hit:
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
"A Grammarian's Funeral" (1855) l. 113
Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there.
"Home-Thoughts, from Abroad" (1845)
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
"Home-Thoughts, from Abroad" (1845)
Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay.
"Home-Thoughts, from the Sea" (1845)
"Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?"—say,
"Home-Thoughts, from the Sea" (1845)
"With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart," once more!
Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!
"House" (1876).
How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix.
title of poem (1845)
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three.
"How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix" (1845) l. 1
"You're wounded!" "Nay," the soldier's pride
Touched to the quick, he said:
"I'm killed, Sire!" And his chief beside,
Smiling the boy fell dead.
"Incident of the French Camp" (1842) st. 5
Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat.
of Wordsworth
"The Lost Leader" (1845)
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us—they watch from their graves!
"The Lost Leader" (1845)
Never glad confident morning again!
"The Lost Leader" (1845)
God for King Charles! Pym and such carles
To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous parles!
"Marching Along" (1842)
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
"Meeting at Night" (1845)
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain.
"Memorabilia" (1855)
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive.
"My Last Duchess" (1842) l. 1
She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
"My Last Duchess" (1842) l. 21
Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
"Never the Time and the Place" (1883)
It was roses, roses, all the way.
"The Patriot" (1855)
Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles.
"The Pied Piper of Hamelin" (1842) st. 2
The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven—
All's right with the world!
Pippa Passes
(1841) pt. 1, l. 221
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good.
"Porphyria's Lover" (1842) l. 36
All her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
"Porphyria's Lover" (1842) l. 38
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
"Prospice" (1864)
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made.
"Rabbi Ben Ezra" (1864) st. 1
O lyric Love, half-angel and half-bird.
The Ring and the Book
(1868–9) bk. 1, l. 1391
Gr-r-r—there go, my heart's abhorrence!
Water your damned flowerpots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God's blood, would not mine kill you!
"Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister" (1842) st. 1
There's a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails.
"Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister" (1842) st. 7
Any nose
May ravage with impunity a rose.
Sordello
(1840) bk. 6, l. 881
And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost
Is—the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,
Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.
"The Statue and the Bust" (1863 revision) l. 246
Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!
"A Toccata of Galuppi's" (1855) st. 8
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?
"A Toccata of Galuppi's" (1855) st. 14
Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.
"A Toccata of Galuppi's" (1855) st. 15
I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more.
"Two in the Campagna" (1855) st. 8
When it was written, God and Robert Browning knew what it meant; now only God knows.
on Sordello
attributed.