3.11 Dennis O’Kelly c.1720-87
Eclipse first, the rest nowhere.
Comment at Epsom, 3 May 1769, in ‘Annals of Sporting’ vol. 2 (1822) p. 271. ‘Dictionary of National Biography’ gives the occasion as the Queen’s Plate at Winchester, 1769
3.12 Chauncey Olcott and George Graff Jr.
When Irish eyes are smiling.
Title of song (1912)
3.13 William Oldys 1696-1761
Busy, curious, thirsty fly, Gently drink, and drink as I; Freely welcome to my cup.
‘The Fly’ (1732)
3.14 Frederick Scott Oliver 1864-1934
A wise politician will never grudge a genuflexion or a rapture if it is expected of him by prevalent opinion.
‘The Endless Adventure’ (1930) vol. 1, pt. 1, ch. 20
3.15 Laurence Olivier (Baron Olivier of Brighton) 1907-89
The tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind.
Introduction to his screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ (1948 film)
Shakespeare—the nearest thing in incarnation to the eye of God.
In ‘Kenneth Harris Talking To’ ‘Sir Laurence Olivier’
Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult.
In ‘Time’ 3 July 1978, p. 33
Can a muse of fire exist under a ceiling of commerce?
Appealing on behalf of the Rose Theatre remains; in ‘The Times’ 12 July 1989, p. 24
3.16Frank Ward O’Malley 1875-1932
See Elbert Hubbard (8.146) in Volume I
3.17Eugene O’Neill 1888-1953
For de little stealin’ dey gits you in jail soon or late. For de big stealin’ dey makes you Emperor and puts you in de Hall o’ Fame when you croaks.
‘The Emperor Jones’ (1921) sc. 1
The iceman cometh.
Title of play (1946)
A long day’s journey into night.
Title of play (written 1940-1; published 1956)
Life is perhaps most wisely regarded as a bad dream between two awakenings, and every day is a life in miniature.
‘Marco Millions’ (1928) act 2, sc. 2
The sea hates a coward!
‘Mourning becomes Electra’ (1931) pt. 2, act 4
The only living life is in the past and future...the present is an interlude...strange interlude in which we call on past and future to bear witness we are living.
‘Strange Interlude’ (1928) pt. 2, act 8
3.18Brian O’Nolan 1911-66
See Flann O’Brien (2.43)
3.19Yoko Ono 1933—
Woman is the nigger of the world.
Attributed
3.20 John Opie 1761-1807
I mix them with my brains, sir.
On being asked with what he mixed his colours; in Samuel Smiles ‘Self-Help’ (1859) ch. 4
3.21 J. Robert Oppenheimer 1904-67
In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humour, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.
Lecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 25 November 1947; in ‘Open Mind’ (1955) ch. 5
3.22 Susie Orbach 1946—
Fat is a feminist issue.
Title of book (1978)
3.23 Roy Orbison and Joe Melsom
Only the lonely.
Title of song (1960)
3.24 Baroness Orczy 1865-1947
We seek him here, we seek him there, Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel?
‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’ (1905) ch. 12
3.25David Ormsby Gore 1918-85
See Lord Harlech (8.42) in Volume I
3.26Josè Ortega y Gasset 1883-1955
Yo soy yo y mi circumstancia, y si no la salvo a ella no me salvo yo.
I am I plus my surroundings and if I do not preserve the latter, I do not preserve myself.
‘Meditaciones del Quijote’ (1914) in ‘Obras Completas’ (1946) vol. 1, p. 322
La civilización no es otra cosa que el ensayo de reducir la fuerza a ultima ratio.
Civilization is nothing more than the effort to reduce the use of force to the last resort.
‘La Rebelión de las Masas’ (1930) in ‘Obras Completas’ (1947) vol. 4, p. 191
3.27 Joe Orton 1933-67
I’d the upbringing a nun would envy and that’s the truth. Until I was fifteen I was more familiar with Africa than my own body.
‘Entertaining Mr Sloane’ (1964) act 1
Kath: Can he be present at the birth of his child?...
Ed: It’s all any reasonable child can expect if the dad is present at the conception.
‘Entertaining Mr Sloane’ (1964) act 3
Every luxury was lavished on you—atheism, breast-feeding, circumcision.
‘Loot’ (1967) act 1
Policemen, like red squirrels, must be protected.
‘Loot’ (1967) act 1
Reading isn’t an occupation we encourage among police officers. We try to keep the paper work down to a minimum.
‘Loot’ (1967) act 2
You were born with your legs apart. They’ll send you to the grave in a Y-shaped coffin.
‘What the Butler Saw’ (1969) act 1
3.28 George Orwell (Eric Blair) 1903-50
Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.
‘Animal Farm’ (1945) ch. 1
Four legs good, two legs bad.
‘Animal Farm’ (1945) ch. 3
All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
‘Animal Farm’ (1945) ch. 10
Attlee reminds me of nothing so much as a recently dead fish, before it has had time to stiffen.
Diary, 19 May 1942, in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds.) ‘The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell’ (1968) vol. 2, p. 426
At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.
Last words in his notebook, 17 April 1949, in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds.) ‘The Collected Essays,
Journalism and Letters of George Orwell’ (1968) vol. 4, p. 515
Good prose is like a window-pane.
‘Collected Essays’ (1968) vol. 1 ‘Why I Write’
I’m fat, but I’m thin inside. Has it ever struck you that there’s a thin man inside every fat man, just as they say there’s a statue inside every block of stone?
‘Coming up For Air’ (1939) pt. 1, ch. 3.
He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him), and took a sort of pleasure in thinking that human affairs would never improve.
‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ (1933) ch. 30
The deep, deep sleep of England.
‘Homage to Catalonia’ (1939) ad fin.
Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie...A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.
‘Horizon’ September 1941 ‘The Art of Donald McGill’
Most revolutionaries are potential Tories, because they imagine that everything can be put right by altering the shape of society; once that change is effected, as it sometimes is, they see no need for any other.
‘Inside the Whale’ (1940) ‘Charles Dickens’
Keep the aspidistra flying.
Title of novel (1936)
England...resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kowtowed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income (ie the Empire). It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponisble uncles and bed-ridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control.
‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ (1941) pt. 1 ‘England Your England’
Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.
‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ (1941) pt. 1 ‘England Your England’.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949) pt. 1, ch. 1
Big brother is watching you.
‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949) pt. 1, ch. 1
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949) pt. 1, ch. 1
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949) pt. 1, ch. 3
Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.
‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949) pt. 1, ch. 5
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949) pt. 1, ch. 7
Syme was not only dead, he was abolished, an un-person.
‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949) pt. 2, ch. 5
Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949) pt. 2, ch. 9
Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949) pt. 3, ch. 3
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.
‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949) pt. 3, ch. 3
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
‘Polemic’ May 1946 ‘Second Thoughts on James Burnham’
A person of bourgeois origin goes through life with some expectation of getting what he wants, within reasonable limits. Hence the fact that in times of stress ‘educated’ people tend to come to the front.
‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ (1937) ch. 3
The typical Socialist is...a prim little man with a white-collar job, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting.
‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ (1937) ch. 11
To the ordinary working man, the sort you would meet in any pub on Saturday night, Socialism does not mean much more than better wages and shorter hours and nobody bossing you about.
‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ (1937) ch. 11
The high-water mark, so to speak, of Socialist literature is W. H. Auden, a sort of gutless Kipling.
‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ (1937) ch. 11
We of the sinking middle class...may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose but our aitches.
‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ (1937) ch. 13
Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ (1937)
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.
‘Shooting an Elephant’ (1950) ‘Politics and the English Language’
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.
‘Shooting an Elephant’ (1950) ‘Politics and the English Language’
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, and disregard of all the rules.
‘Shooting an Elephant’ (1950)
Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
‘Shooting an Elephant’ (1950) ‘Politics and the English Language’
Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.
‘Shooting an Elephant’ (1950) ‘Reflections on Gandhi’
Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.
Attributed
3.29 Dorothy Osborne 1627-95
The heat of the day is spent in reading or working, and about six or seven o’clock, I walk out into a common that lies hard by the house, where a great many young wenches keep sheep and cows and sit in the shade singing of ballads...I talk to them, and find they want nothing to make them the happiest people in the world, but the knowledge that they are so.
‘The Letters of Dorothy Osborne to William Temple’ (ed. G. C. Moore Smith, 1928) June 1653
All letters, methinks, should be as free and easy as one’s discourse, not studied as an oration, nor made up of hard words like a charm.
Letter to Sir William Temple, October 1653
I had rather agree to what you say than tell you that Dr Taylor (whose devote you must know I am) says there is a great advantage to be gained in resigning up one’s will to the command of another, because the same action which in itself is wholly indifferent if done upon our own choice, becomes an act of duty and religion if done in obedience to the command of any person whom nature, the laws, or our selves have given a power over us.
‘The Letters of Dorothy Osborne to William Temple’ (ed. G. C. Moore Smith, 1928) March 1654
3.30 John Osborne 1929—
Don’t clap too hard—it’s a very old building.
‘The Entertainer’ (1957) no. 7
Thank God we’re normal, normal, normal, Thank God we’re normal,
Yes, this is our finest shower!
‘The Entertainer’ (1957) no. 7
But I have a go, lady, don’t I? I ’ave a go. I do.
‘The Entertainer’ (1957) no. 7
I’m dead behind these eyes. I’m dead, but just like the whole inert, shoddy lot out there. It doesn’t matter because I don’t feel a thing, and neither do they.
‘The Entertainer’ (1957) no. 8
Oh heavens, how I long for a little ordinary human enthusiasm. Just enthusiaism—that’s all. I want to hear a warm, thrilling voice cry out Hallelujah! Hallelujah! I’m alive!
‘Look Back in Anger’ (1956) act 1
His knowledge of life and ordinary human beings is so hazy, he really deserves some sort of decoration for it—a medal inscribed ‘For Vaguery in the Field’.
‘Look Back in Anger’ (1956) act 1
I don’t think one ‘comes down’ from Jimmy’s university. According to him, it’s not even red brick, but white tile.
‘Look Back in Anger’ (1956) act 2, sc. 1
They spend their time mostly looking forward to the past.
‘Look Back in Anger’ (1956) act 2, sc. 1
There aren’t any good, brave causes left. If the big bang does come, and we all get killed off, it won’t be in aid of the old-fashioned, grand design. It’ll just be for the Brave New-nothing-very- much-thank-you. About as pointless and inglorious as stepping in front of a bus.
‘Look Back in Anger’ (1956) act 3, sc. 1
The old firm is selling out.
‘Look Back in Anger’ (1956)
The eternal flaming racket of the female.
‘Look Back in Anger’ (1956)
She’s like the old line about justice—not only must be done, but must be seen to be done. ‘Time Present’ act 1
This is a letter of hate. It is for you my countrymen, I mean those men of my country who have defiled it. The men with manic fingers leading the sightless, feeble, betrayed body of my country to its death...damn you England. You’re rotting now, and quite soon you’ll disappear.
‘Tribune’ 18 August 1961
Monarchy is the gold filling in the mouth of decay.
In Bernard Levin ‘The Pendulum Years’ (1976)
3.31 Arthur O’Shaughnessy 1844-81
We are the music makers,
We are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams;— World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams: We are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
‘Ode’
For each age is a dream that is dying, Or one that is coming to birth.
‘Ode’
3.32 Sir William Osler 1849-1919
That man can interrogate as well as observe nature, was a lesson slowly learned in his evolution.
In ‘Aphorisms from his Bedside Teachings’ (1961) p. 62
One finger in the throat and one in the rectum makes a good diagnostician.
In ‘Aphorisms from his Bedside Teachings’ (1961) p. 104
The natural man has only two primal passions, to get and beget.
‘Science and Immortality’ (1904) ch. 2
The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
In H. Cushing ‘Life of Sir William Osler’ (1925) vol. 1, ch. 14
3.33 John L. O’Sullivan 1813-95
Understood as a central consolidated power, managing and directing the various general interests of the society, all government is evil, and the parent of evil...The best government is that which governs least.
‘The United States Magazine and Democratic Review’ (1837) introduction
A spirit of hostile interference against us...checking the fulfilment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.
On opposition to the annexation of Texas, in ‘The United States Magazine and Democratic Review’ (1837) vol. 17, July-August 1845, p. 5
A torchlight procession marching down your throat.
Describing some whisky, in G. W. E. Russell ‘Collections and Recollections’ (1898) ch. 19
3.34 James Otis 1725-83
Taxation without representation is tyranny.
Watchword (coined c.1761) of the American Revolution. Samuel Eliot Morison ‘James Otis’ ‘Dictionary of American Biography’ vol. 14, p. 102
3.35 Thomas Otway 1652-85
Oh woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee To temper man: we had been brutes without you; Angels are painted fair, to look like you; There’s in you all that we belive of heaven,
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, Eternal joy, and everlasting love.
‘Venice Preserved’ (1682) act 1, l. 337
No praying, it spoils business.
‘Venice Preserved’ (1682) act 2, l. 87
3.36 Peter Demianovich Ouspensky 1878-1947
Truths that become old become decrepit and unreliable; sometimes they may be kept going artificially for a certain time, but there is no life in them.
‘A New Model of the Universe’ (2nd ed., 1934) preface
3.37 Sir Thomas Overbury 1581-1613
He disdains all things above his reach, and preferreth all countries before his own.
‘Miscellaneous Works’ (1632) ‘An Affected Traveller’.
You cannot name any example in any heathen author but I will better it in Scripture.
In ‘Crumms Fal’n From King James’s Table’ no. 10, in E. F. Rimbault (ed.) ‘The Miscellaneous Works of Sir Thomas Overbury’ (1856) p. 257
3.38 Ovid 43 B.C.-A.D. 17
Procul omen abesto!
Far be that fate from us!
‘Amores’ bk. 1, no. 14, l. 41
Procul hinc, procul este, severae!
Far hence, keep far from me, you grim women!
‘Amores’ bk. 2, no. 1, l. 3
Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsae.
The women come to see the show, they come to make a show themselves.
‘Ars Amatoria’ bk. 1, l. 99
Iuppiter ex alto periuria ridet amantum.
Jupiter from on high laughs at lovers’ perjuries.
‘Ars Amatoria’ bk. 1, l. 633
It is convenient that there be gods, and, as it is convenient, let us believe there are.
‘Ars Amatoria’ bk. 1, l. 637
Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.
Perhaps my name too will be linked with theirs.
‘Ars Amatoria’ bk. 3, l. 339
Adde quod ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros.
Add the fact that to have conscientiously studied the liberal arts refines behaviour and does not
allow it to be savage.
‘Epistulae Ex Ponto’ bk. 2, no. 9, l. 47
Ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas.
Though the strength is lacking, yet the willingness is to be praised.
‘Epistulae Ex Ponto’ bk. 3, no. 4, l. 79
Gutta cavat lapidem, consumitur anulus usu.
Dripping water hollows out a stone, a ring is worn away by use.
‘Epistulae Ex Ponto’ bk. 4, no. 10, l. 5.
Chaos, rudis indigestaque moles.
Chaos, a rough and unordered mass.
‘Metamorphoses’ bk. 1, l. 7
Medio tutissimus ibis.
A middle course is the safest for you to take.
‘Metamorphoses’ bk. 2, l. 137
Inopem me copia fecit.
Plenty has made me poor.
‘Metamorphoses’ bk. 3, l. 466
Ipse docet quid agam; fas est et ab hoste doceri.
He himself teaches what I should do; it is right to be taught by the enemy.
‘Metamorphoses’ bk. 4, l. 428
Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor.
I see the better way, and approve it; I follow the worse.
‘Metamorphoses’ bk. 7, l. 20
Tempus edax rerum.
Time the devourer of everything.
‘Metamorphoses’ bk. 15, l. 234
Iamque opus exegi, quod nec Iovis ira, nec ignis, Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas.
And now I have finished the work, which neither the wrath of Jove, nor fire, nor the sword, nor
devouring age shall be able to destroy.
‘Metamorphoses’ bk. 15, l. 871
Principiis obsta; sero medicina paratur Cum mala per longas convaluere moras.
Stop it at the start, it’s late for medicine to be prepared when disease has grown strong through
long delays.
‘Remedia Amoris’ l. 91
Qui finem quaeris amoris,
