Sighted sub, sank same.
Radio message, 28 January 1942, in ‘New York Times’ 27 February 1942, on sinking a Japanese submarine in the Atlantic region, the first US naval success in the war
1.93 Philip Massinger 1583-1640
Ambition, in a private man a vice, Is in a prince the virtue.
‘The Bashful Lover’ (licensed 1636, published 1655) act 1, sc. 2
Pray enter
You are learned Europeans and we worse Than ignorant Americans.
‘The City Madam’ (licensed 1632, published 1658) act 3, sc. 3
Greatness, with private men Esteemed a blessing, is to me a curse;
And we, whom, for our high births, they conclude The only freemen, are the only slaves.
Happy the golden mean!
‘The Great Duke of Florence’ (licensed 1627, printed 1635) act 1, sc. 1.
Oh that thou hadst like others been all words, And no performance.
‘The Parliament of Love’ (1624) act 4, sc. 2
Death has a thousand doors to let out life: I shall find one.
‘A Very Woman’ (licensed 1634, published 1655) act 5, sc. 4.
1.94 Sir James Mathew 1830-1908
In England, justice is open to all—like the Ritz Hotel.
In R. E. Megarry ‘Miscellany-at-Law’ (1955) p. 254.
1.95 Henri Matisse 1869-1954
Ce que je rêve, c’est un art d’èquilibre, de puretè, de tranquillitè, sans sujet inquiètant ou prèoccupant, qui soit...un lènifiant, un calmant cèrèbral, quelque chose d’analogue á un bon fauteuil qui le dèlasse de ses fatigues physiques.
What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter...a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which
provides relaxation from physical fatigue.
‘Notes d’un peintre’ (1908) in Dominique Fourcade ‘Ècrits et propos sur l’art’ (1972) p. 30
1.96 W. Somerset Maugham 1874-1965
Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be
practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.
‘Cakes and Ale’ (1930) ch. 1
From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
‘Cakes and Ale’ (1930) ch. 11
Poor Henry [James], he’s spending eternity wandering round and round a stately park and the fence is just too high for him to peep over and they’re having tea just too far away for him to hear what the countess is saying.
‘Cakes and Ale’ (1930) ch. 11
You can’t learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
‘The Circle’ (1921) act 3
A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favourite form of self-indulgence.
‘The Circle’ (1921) act 3
Impropriety is the soul of wit.
‘The Moon and Sixpence’ (1919) ch. 4
It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
‘The Moon and Sixpence’ (1919) ch. 17
‘A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her,’ he said, ‘but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.’
‘The Moon and Sixpence’ (1919) ch. 41
Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind.
‘Of Human Bondage’ (1915) ch. 39
People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.
‘Of Human Bondage’ (1915) ch. 50
Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
‘Of Human Bondage’ (1915) ch. 51
Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.
‘A Writer’s Notebook’ (1949) p. 27 (written in 1896)
1.97 Bill Mauldin 1921—
I feel like a fugitive from th’ law of averages.
Cartoon caption in ‘Up Front’ (1945)
1.98 James Maxton 1885-1946
All I say is, if you cannot ride two horses you have no right in the circus.
Opposing disaffiliation of the Scottish Independent Labour Party from the Labour Party, in ‘Daily Herald’ 12 January 1931 (often quoted as ‘...no right in the bloody circus’)
1.99 Jonathan Mayhew 1720-66
Rulers have no authority from God to do mischief...As soon as the prince sets himself up above the law, he loses the king in the tyrant. He does to all intents and purpose unking himself...and in such cases has no more right to be obeyed than any inferior officer who acts beyond his commission.
‘A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers’ 30 January 1750
1.100 Margaret Mead 1901-78
The knowledge that the personalities of the two sexes are socially produced is congenial to every programme that looks forward towards a planned order of society. It is a two-edged sword.
‘Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies’ (1935)
1.101 Shepherd Mead 1914—
How to succeed in business without really trying.
Title of book (1952)
1.102 Hughes Mearns 1875-1965
As I was walking up the stair I met a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today.
I wish, I wish he’d stay away.
Lines written for ‘The Psycho-ed’, an amateur play, in Philadelphia, 1910. Set to music in 1939 as ‘The Little Man Who Wasn’t There’
1.103 Cosimo De’ Medici 1389-1464
We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.
In Francis Bacon ‘Apophthegms’ (1625) no. 206 (speaking of what Bacon calls ‘perfidious friends’)
1.104 Lorenzo De’ Medici 1449-92
Quanto é bella giovinezza Che si fugge tuttavia! Chi vuol esser lieto sia:
Di doman non ci é certezza.
How beautiful is youth, that is always slipping away! Whoever wants to be happy, let him be so: of tomorrow there’s no knowing.
‘Trionfo di Bacco di Arianna’
1.105 Dame Nellie Melba (Helen Porter Mitchell) 1861-1931
Sing ’em muck! It’s all they can understand!
Advice to Dame Clara Butt, prior to her departure for Australia, in W. H. Ponder ‘Clara Butt’ (1928) ch. 12
1.106 Lord Melbourne 1779-1848
Now, is it to lower the price of corn, or isn’t it? It is not much matter which we say, but mind, we must all say the same.
Attributed, in Walter Bagehot ‘The English Constitution’ (1867) ch. 1, p. 16 n.
What I like about the Order of the Garter is that there is no damned merit about it.
In Lord David Cecil ‘The Young Melbourne’ (1939) ch. 9
The worst of the present day is that men hate one another so damnably. For my part I love them all.
In Lord David Cecil ‘The Young Melbourne’ (1939) ch. 9
God help the Minister that meddles with art!
In Lord David Cecil ‘Lord M’ (1954) ch. 3
What I want is men who will support me when I am in the wrong.
Replying to a politician who said ‘I will support you as long as you are in the right’, in Lord David Cecil ‘Lord M’ (1954) ch. 4
Damn it! Another Bishop dead! I believe they die to vex me.
Attributed, in Lord David Cecil ‘Lord M’ (1954) ch. 4
I do not know why there is all this fuss about education; none of the Paget family can read or write, and they do very well.
Attributed to Melbourne, in conversation with Queen Victoria, in Lord David Cecil ‘Lord M’ (1954) ch. 4
I have always thought complaints of ill-usage contemptible, whether from a seduced disappointed girl or a turned out Prime Minister.
On being dismissed by William IV, in V. Dickinson (ed.) ‘Miss Eden’s Letters’ (1919) letter from Emily Eden to Mrs Lister, 23 November 1834
What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the d—d fools said would happen has come to pass.
Referring to the Catholic Emancipation Act (1829), in H. Dunckley ‘Lord Melbourne’ (1890) ch. 9
Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of private life.
Remark on hearing an evangelical sermon, in G. W. E. Russell ‘Collections and Recollections’ (1898) ch. 6
1.107 Herman Melville 1819-91
That Calvanistic sense of innate depravity and original sin from whose visitations, in some shape or other, no deeply thinking mind is always and wholly free.
‘Hawthorne and His Mosses’ (1850)
Genius all over the world stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round.
‘Hawthorne and His Mosses’ (1850)
Call me Ishmael.
‘Moby Dick’ (1851) opening words
Delight—top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven.
‘Moby Dick’ (1851) ch. 1
But when a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.
‘Moby Dick’ (1851) ch. 17
A whaleship was my Yale College and my Harvard.
‘Moby Dick’ (1851) ch. 24
This it is, that forever keeps God’s true princes of the Empire from the world’s hustings; and leaves the highest honours that this air can give, to those men who become famous more through their infinite inferiority to the choice hidden handful of the Divine Inert, than through their undoubted superiority over the dead level of the mass.
‘Moby Dick’ (1851) ch. 33
From hell’s heart I stab at thee.
‘Moby Dick’ (1851)
Aye, toil as we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust amid greenness; as last year’s scythes flung down, and left in the half-cut swaths.
‘Moby Dick’ (1851) ch. 132
1.108 Gilles Mènage 1613-92
Comme nous nous entretenions de ce qui pouvait rendre heureux, je lui dis; Sanitas sanitatum, et omnia sanitas.
While we were discussing what could make one happy, I said to him: Sanitas sanitatum et
omnia sanitas.
From a conversation with Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1594-1654), in ‘Mènagiana’ (1693) p. 166 (sanitas health).
1.109 Menander c.342-292 B.C.
Whom the gods love dies young.
‘Dis Exapaton’ fragment 4, in F. H. Sandbach (ed.) ‘Menandri Reliquiae Selectae’ (1990)
We live, not as we wish to, but as we can.
‘The Lady of Andros’ in ‘Menander: the Principal Fragments’ translated by F. G. Allinson (1951) p. 316
1.110 H. L. Mencken 1880-1956
He [Calvin Coolidge] slept more than any other President, whether by day or by night. Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored.
‘American Mercury’ April 1933
The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.
‘Baltimore Evening Sun’ 9 December 1929
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
‘Chrestomathy’ (1949) ch. 30.
Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
‘Chrestomathy’ (1949) ch. 30
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
‘A Little Book in C major’ (1916) p. 19
Conscience: the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
‘A Little Book in C major’ (1916) p. 42
It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry.
‘Notebooks’ (1956) ‘Minority Report’
1.111 David Mercer 1928-80
A suitable case for treatment.
Title of television play (1962), later filmed as ‘Morgan-A Suitable Case for Treatment’ (1966)
1.112 Johnny Mercer 1909-76
You’ve got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive Elim-my-nate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-between.
‘Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive’ (1944 song)
Jeepers Creepers—where you get them peepers?
‘Jeepers Creepers’ (1938 song); sung to a horse of the same name, by Louis Armstrong, in the film ‘Going Places’ (1939)
We’re drinking my friend, To the end of a brief episode, Make it one for my baby And one more for the road.
‘One For My Baby’ (1943 song)
That old black magic.
Title of song (1942)
1.113 George Meredith 1828-1909
The lark ascending.
She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer, Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won!
‘Love in the Valley’ st. 2
On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose. Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend...
He reached a middle height, and at the stars, Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank. Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank, The army of unalterable law.
‘Lucifer in Starlight’
‘I play for Seasons; not Eternities!’ Says Nature.
‘Modern Love’ (1862) st. 13
In tragic life, God wot,
No villain need be! Passions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within.
‘Modern Love’ (1862) st. 43
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul When hot for certainties in this our life!
‘Modern Love’ (1862) st. 50
Thoughts of heroes were as good as warming-pans.
‘Beauchamp’s Career’ (1876) ch. 4
A witty woman is a treasure; a witty beauty is a power.
‘Diana of the Crossways’ (1885) ch. 1
’Tis Ireland gives England her soldiers, her generals too.
‘Diana of the Crossways’ (1885) ch. 2
She was a lady of incisive features bound in stale parchment.
‘Diana of the Crossways’ (1885) ch. 14
There is nothing the body suffers the soul may not profit by.
‘Diana of the Crossways’ (1885) ch. 43
A Phoebus Apollo turned fasting friar.
‘The Egoist’ (1879) ch. 2
A dainty rogue in porcelain.
‘The Egoist’ (1879) ch. 5
Cynicism is intellectual dandyism without the coxcomb’s feathers.
‘The Egoist’ (1879) ch. 7
In...the Book of Egoism it is written: Possession without obligation to the object possessed approaches felicity.
‘The Egoist’ (1879) ch. 14
None of your dam punctilio.
‘One of Our Conquerors’ (1891) ch. 1
I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man.
‘The Ordeal of Richard Feverel’ (1859) ch. 1
In action Wisdom goes by majorities.
‘The Ordeal of Richard Feverel’ (1859) ch. 1
Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered.
‘The Ordeal of Richard Feverel’ (1859) ch. 12
The sun is coming down to earth, and walks the fields and the waters. The sun is coming down to earth, and the fields and the waters shout to him golden shouts.
‘The Ordeal of Richard Feverel’ (1859) ch. 19
Kissing don’t last: cookery do!
‘The Ordeal of Richard Feverel’ (1859) ch. 28
Speech is the small change of silence.
‘The Ordeal of Richard Feverel’ (1859) ch. 34
Much benevolence of the passive order may be traced to a disinclination to inflict pain upon oneself.
‘Vittoria’ (1866) ch. 42
1.114 Owen Meredith (Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton, first Earl of Lytton) 1831-91
Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can.
‘Last Words of a Sensitive Second-Rate Poet’
We may live without poetry, music and art;
We may live without conscience, and live without heart; We may live without friends; we may live without books; But civilized man cannot live without cooks.
He may live without books,—what is knowledge but grieving? He may live without hope,—what is hope but deceiving?
He may live without love,—what is passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live without dining?
‘Lucile’ (1860) pt. 1, canto 2, sect. 24
1.115 Dixon Lanier Merritt 1879-1972
Oh, a wondrous bird is the pelican! His beak holds more than his belican. He takes in his beak
Food enough for a week.
But I’ll be darned if I know how the helican.
In ‘Nashville Banner’ 22 April 1913
1.116 Le Curè Meslier c.1664-1733
Il me souvient á ce sujet d’un souhait que faisait autrefois un homme, qui n’avait ni science ni ètude...Il souhaitait, disait-il...que tous les grands de la terre et que tous les nobles fussent pendus et ètranglès avec les boyaux des prêtres. Pour ce qui est de moi...je souhaitais d’avoir les bras et la force d’Hercule pour purger le monde de tout vice et de toute iniquitè, et pour avoir le plaisir d’assommer tous ces monstres d’erreurs et d’iniquitè qui font gèmir si pitoyablement tous les peuples de la terre.
I remember, on this matter, the wish made once by an ignorant, uneducated man...He said he wished...that all the great men in the world and all the nobility could be hanged, and strangled in the guts of priests. For myself...I wish I could have the strength of Hercules to purge the world of all vice and sin, and the pleasure of destroying all those monsters of error and sin [priests] who
make all the peoples of the world groan so pitiably.
‘Testament’ (ed. R. Charles, 1864) vol. 1, ch. 2; often quoted as ‘Je voudrais...que le dernier des rois fût ètranglè avec les boyaux du dernier prêtre [I should like...the last of the kings to be strangled with the guts of the last priest]’ or in Diderot’s version:
Et des boyaux du dernier prêtre Serrons le cou du dernier roi.
And [with] the guts of the last priest Let’s shake the neck of the last king.
1.117 Prince Metternich 1773-1859
I would like to call out to the representatives of social upheaval: ‘Citizen of a world, that exists but in your dreams, nothing is altered. On 14 March, nothing happened save the elimination of a single man.
On his own downfall in 1848, in ‘Aus Metternich’s Nachgelassenen Papieren’ (ed. A. von Klinkowström, 1880) vol. 8, p. 232
The Emperor is everything, Vienna is nothing.
‘Aus Metternich’s Nachgelassenen Papieren’ (ed. A. von Klinkowström, 1880) vol. 8, p. 424
The true merit of a statesman...consists of governing so as to avoid a situation in which concessions become necessary.
‘Aus Metternich’s Nachgelassenen Papieren’ (ed. A. von Klinkowström, 1880) vol. 8, p. 562
The word freedom has for me never had the character of a point of departure but of a goal. The point of departure is order which alone can produce freedom. Without order the appeal to freedom is no more than the quest of some specific party for its special objectives and will in practice always lead to tyranny.
‘Aus Metternich’s Nachgelassenen Papieren’ (ed. A. von Klinkowström, 1880) vol. 8, p. 633
Religion, morality, legislation, economics, politics, administration, all seem to have become a common good and accessible to everyone. Science appears intuitive, experience has no value for the presumptuous; faith means nothing to him, and he substitutes for it the pretence of a personal conviction.
Memorandum to Czar Alexander I (1820)
L’erreur n’a jamais approchè de mon esprit.
Error has never approached my spirit.
Addressed to Guizot in 1848, in Francois Pierre G. Guizot ‘Mèmoires’ (1858-1867) vol. 4, p. 21
Italien ist ein geographischer Begriff.
Italy is a geographical expression.
Discussing the Italian question with Palmerston in 1847. ‘Aus dem Nachlasse des Grafen Prokesch-
Osten’ (1881) vol. 2, p. 343; and Mèmoires, Documents, etc. de ‘Metternich publiès par son fils’ (1883) vol. 7, p. 415
1.118 Charlotte Mew 1869-1928
She sleeps up in the attic there Alone, poor maid. ’Tis but a stair Betwixt us. Oh! my God! the down,
The soft young down of her, the brown,
The brown of her—her eyes, her hair, her hair!
‘The Farmer’s Bride’
1.119 William Julius Mickle 1735-88
For there’s nae luck about the house, There’s nae luck at a’,
There’s little pleasure in the house When our gudeman’s awa.
‘There’s nae Luck about the House’
1.120 Thomas Middleton c.1580-1627
Anything for a quiet life.
Title of play (written c.1620, possibly with John Webster).
I never heard
Of any true affection, but ’twas nipt With care.
‘Blurt, Master-Constable’ (published 1602) act 3, sc. 1
Does the silk-worm expend her yellow labours For thee? for thee does she undo herself?
‘The Revenger’s Tragedy’ (1607) act 3, sc. 5, l. 71 (previously thought to be the work of Cyril Tourneur, c.1575-1626)
There’s no hate lost between us.
‘The Witch’ (written 1609-16, printed 1778) act 4, sc. 3
1.121 Thomas Middleton 1580-1627 and William Rowley c.1585-1626
I could not get the ring without the finger.
‘The Changeling’ (performed c.1622) act 3, sc. 4
Y’are the deed’s creature.
