The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (83 page)
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Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1812–91
We are Republicans and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents are rum, Romanism, and rebellion.
speech at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, 29 October 1884
1960–
Now, at last, this sad, glittering century has an image worthy of it: a wandering, wondering girl, a silly Sloane turned secular saint, coming home in her coffin to RAF Northolt like the good soldier she was.
in
Guardian
2 September 1997
1917–93
A clockwork orange.
title of novel (1962)
The US presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.
George Plimpton (ed.)
Writers at Work
(4th Series, 1977)
1866–1951
I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one!
The Burgess Nonsense Book
(1914) "The Purple Cow"
1813–88
A rose-red city—half as old as Time!
Petra
(1845) l. 132
1722–92
You have only, when before your glass, to keep pronouncing to yourself nimini-pimini—the lips cannot fail of taking their plie.
The Heiress
(1786) act 3, sc. 2
1729–97
The king, and his faithful subjects, the lords and commons of this realm,—the triple cord, which no man can break.
A Letter to a Noble Lord
(1796).
Many have been taught to think that moderation, in a case like this, is a sort of treason.
Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol
(1777)
It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact; and great trade will always be attended with considerable abuses.
On American Taxation
(1775)
Falsehood has a perennial spring.
On American Taxation
(1775)
To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
On American Taxation
(1775)
I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people.
On Conciliation with America
(1775)
Instead of a standing revenue, you will have therefore a perpetual quarrel.
On Conciliation with America
(1775)
Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil.
On Conciliation with America
(1775)
Custom reconciles us to everything.
On the Sublime and Beautiful
(1757) pt. 4, sect. 18
Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
Reflections on the Revolution in France
(1790)
I thought ten thousand swords must have leapt from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.
of Marie-Antoinette
Reflections on the Revolution in France
(1790)
The age of chivalry is gone.— That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever.
Reflections on the Revolution in France
(1790)
In the groves of
their
academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows.
Reflections on the Revolution in France
(1790)
Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.
Reflections on the Revolution in France
(1790)
We begin our public affections in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen.
Reflections on the Revolution in France
(1790)
Ambition can creep as well as soar.
Third Letter…on the Proposals for Peace…
(1797)
When…[people] imagine that their food is only a cover for poison, and when they neither love nor trust the hand that serves it, it is not the name of the roast beef of old England that will persuade them to sit down to the table that is spread for them.
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents
(1770)
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents
(1770).
Of this stamp is the cant of
Not men, but measures
; a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honourable engagement.
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents
(1770)
Laws, like houses, lean on one another.
A Tract on the Popery Laws
(planned
c.
1765) ch. 3
Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatsoever: But, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth.
Two Letters on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory
(1796) pt. 1.
Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
speech, 3 November 1774, in
Speeches at his Arrival at Bristol
(1774)
The people are the masters.
speech, House of Commons, 11 February 1780.
Not merely a chip of the old "block", but the old block itself.
on the younger Pitt's maiden speech, February 1781
N. W. Wraxall
Historical Memoirs of My Own Time
(1904 ed.) pt. 2
Old religious factions are volcanoes burnt out.
speech on the Petition of the Unitarians, 11 May 1792.
Dangers by being despised grow great.
speech on the Petition of the Unitarians, 11 May 1792
It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph.
attributed (in a number of forms) to Burke, but not found in his writings.