The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

For forms of government let fools contest; Whate’er is best administered is best:

‘An Essay on Man’ Epistle 3 (1733) l.303

Oh Happiness! our being’s end and aim!

Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate’er thy name: That something still which prompts th’ eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die.

‘An Essay on Man’ Epistle 4 (1734) l. 1

A wit’s a feather, and a chief a rod;

An honest man’s the noblest work of God.

‘An Essay on Man’ Epistle 4 (1734) l. 247

If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind: Or ravished with the whistling of a name, See Cromwell, damned to everlasting fame!

‘An Essay on Man’ Epistle 4 (1734) l. 281

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks thro’ Nature, up to Nature’s God.

‘An Essay on Man’ Epistle 4 (1734) l. 331

True self-love and social are the same.

‘An Essay on Man’ Epistle 4 (1734) l. 396

All our knowledge is, ourselves to know.

‘An Essay on Man’ Epistle 4 (1734) l. 398

For I, who hold sage Homer’s rule the best, Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Horace bk. 2, Satire 2 (1734) l. 159 (‘speed the parting guest’ in Pope’s translation of The Odyssey (1725-6) bk. 15, l. 84)

Our Gen’rals now, retired to their estates, Hang their old trophies o’er the garden gates, In life’s cool ev’ning satiate of applause.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Horace bk. 1, Epistle 1 (1738) l. 7

Not to go back, is somewhat to advance,

And men must walk at least before they dance.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Horace bk. 1, Epistle 1 (1738) l. 53

Get place and wealth, if possible, with grace; If not, by any means get wealth and place.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Horace bk. 1, Epistle 1 (1738) l. 103

Not to admire, is all the art I know,

To make men happy, and to keep them so.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Horace bk. 1, Epistle 6 (1738) l. 1

The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Horace bk. 1, Epistle 6 (1738) l. 27

Shakespeare (whom you and ev’ry play-house bill Style the divine, the matchless, what you will) For gain, not glory, winged his roving flight, And grew immortal in his own despite.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Horace bk. 2, Epistle 1 (1737) l. 69

Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet, His moral pleases, not his pointed wit.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Horace bk. 2, Epistle 1 (1737) l. 75

The people’s voice is odd,

It is, and it is not, the voice of God.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Horace bk. 2, Epistle 1 (1737) l. 89.

But those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Horace bk. 2, Epistle 1 (1737) l. 187

Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full-resounding line, The long majestic march, and energy divine.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Horace bk. 2, Epistle 1 (1737) l. 267

Ev’n copious Dryden, wanted, or forgot, The last and greatest art, the art to blot.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Horace bk. 2, Epistle 1 (1737) l. 280

There still remains, to mortify a wit, The many-headed monster of the pit.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Horace bk. 2, Epistle 1 (1737) l. 304

Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Epilogue to the Satires (1738) Dialogue 1, l. 135

Ask you what provocation I have had? The strong antipathy of good to bad.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Epilogue to the Satires (1738) Dialogue 2, l. 197

Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see Men not afraid of God, afraid of me.

‘Imitations of Horace’ Epilogue to the Satires (1738) Dialogue 2, l. 208

Ye gods! annihilate but space and time, And make two lovers happy.

‘Martinus Scriblerus...or The Art of Sinking in Poetry’ ch. 11 (Miscellanies, 1727)

Happy the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air, In his own ground.

‘Ode on Solitude’ (written c.1700, when aged about twelve)

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Thus unlamented let me die;

Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.

‘Ode on Solitude’ (written c.1700)

Where’er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Where’er you tread, the blushing flow’rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

‘Pastorals’ (1709) ‘Summer’ l. 73

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold,

Live o’er each scene, and be what they behold: For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage. Prologue to Addison’s Cato (1713) l. 1

What dire offence from am’rous causes springs,

What mighty contests rise from trivial things.

‘The Rape of the Lock’ (1714) canto 1, l. 1

Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake.

‘The Rape of the Lock’ (1714) canto 1, l. 15

With varying vanities, from ev’ry part, They shift the moving toyshop of their heart.

‘The Rape of the Lock’ (1714) canto 1, l. 99

Here files of pins extend their shining rows, Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.

‘The Rape of the Lock’ (1714) canto 1, l. 137

Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.

‘The Rape of the Lock’ (1714) canto 2, l. 13

If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you’ll forget ’em all.

‘The Rape of the Lock’ (1714) canto 2, l. 17

Fair tresses man’s imperial race insnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair.

‘The Rape of the Lock’ (1714) canto 2, l. 27

‘Windsor Forest’ (1711) l. 11

Party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

Letter to Edward Blount, 27 August 1714, in George Sherburn (ed.) ‘The Correspondence of Alexander Pope’ (1956) vol. 1, p. 247

How often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part.

Letter to Jonathan Swift, 5 December 1732, in George Sherburn (ed.) ‘The Correspondence of Alexander Pope’ (1956) vol. 3, p. 335

To endeavour to work upon the vulgar with fine sense, is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.

‘Miscellanies’ (1727) vol. 2 ‘Thoughts on Various Subjects’

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser to-day than he was yesterday.

‘Miscellanies’ (1727) vol. 2 ‘Thoughts on Various Subjects’

It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.

‘Miscellanies’ (1727) vol. 2 ‘Thoughts on Various Subjects’

When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil’s leavings.

‘Miscellanies’ (1727) vol. 2 ‘Thoughts on Various Subjects’

The most positive men are the most credulous.

‘Miscellanies’ (1727) vol. 2 ‘Thoughts on Various Subjects’

All gardening is landscape-painting.

1734, in Joseph Spence ‘Anecdotes’ (ed. J. Osborn, 1966) no. 606

Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.

To George, Lord Lyttelton, 15 May 1744, in Joseph Spence ‘Anecdotes’ (ed. J. Osborn, 1966) no. 637

4.79 Sir Karl Popper 1902—

Our belief in any particular natural law cannot have a safer basis than our unsuccessful critical attempts to refute it.

‘Conjectures and Refutations’ (1963)

I shall certainly admit a system as empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being tested by experience. These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as a criterion of demarcation...It must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience.

‘The Logic of Scientific Discovery’ (1934) ch. 1, sect. 6

We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.

‘The Open Society and its Enemies’ (1945) introduction

We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure.

‘The Open Society and its Enemies’ (1945) vol. 2, ch. 21

There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world.

‘The Open Society and its Enemies’ (1945) vol. 2, ch. 25

Our civilization...has not yet fully recovered from the shock of its birth—the transition from the tribal or ‘closed society’, with its submission to magical forces, to the ‘open society’ which sets free the critical powers of man.

‘The Open Society and its Enemies’ (1945)

Piecemeal social engineering resembles physical engineering in regarding the ends as beyond the province of technology.

‘The Poverty of Historicism’ (1957) pt. 3, sect. 21

Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.

In C. A. Mace (ed.) ‘British Philosophy in the Mid-Century’ ‘The Philosophy of Science’

4.80 Cole Porter 1891-1964

But I’m always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion, Yes, I’m always true to you, darlin’, in my way.

‘Always True to You in My Fashion’ (1948 song)

In olden days a glimpse of stocking Was looked on as something shocking Now, heaven knows,

Anything goes.

‘Anything Goes’ (1934 song)

When they begin the Beguine

It brings back the sound of music so tender, It brings back a night of tropical splendour, It brings back a memory ever green.

‘Begin the Beguine’ (1935 song)

Don’t fence me in.

Title of song (1934)

How strange the change from major to minor Every time we say goodbye.

‘Every Time We Say Goodbye’ (1944 song)

I get no kick from champagne, Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all, So tell me why should it be true That I get a kick out of you?

‘I Get a Kick Out of You’ (1934 song)

I’ve got you under my skin.

Title of song (1936)

So goodbye dear, and Amen,

Here’s hoping we meet now and then, It was great fun,

But it was just one of those things.

‘Just One of Those Things’ (1935 song)

Birds do it, bees do it, Even educated fleas do it. Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.

‘Let’s Do It’ (1954 song; words added to the 1928 original)

Miss Otis regrets (she’s unable to lunch today).

Title of song (1934)

My heart belongs to Daddy.

Title of song (1938)

Night and day, you are the one,

Only you beneath the moon and under the sun.

‘Night and Day’ (1932 song)

Have you heard it’s in the stars, Next July we collide with Mars? Well, did you evah!

What a swell party this is.

‘Well, Did You Evah?’ (1940 song; revived for the film High Society, 1956)

You’re the top.

Title of song (1934)

4.81 Beilby Porteus 1731-1808

One murder made a villain, Millions a hero.

‘Death’ (1759) l. 154.

War its thousands slays, Peace its ten thousands.

‘Death’ (1759) l. 179

Teach him how to live,

And, oh! still harder lesson! how to die.

‘Death’ (1759) l. 319

4.82 Beatrix Potter 1866-1943

In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets—when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta—there lived a tailor in Gloucester.

‘The Tailor of Gloucester’ (1903) p. 9

I am worn to a ravelling...I am undone and worn to a thread-paper, for I have no more twist.

‘The Tailor of Gloucester’ (1903) p. 22

It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is ‘soporific’.

‘The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies’ (1909) p. 9

Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were—Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.

‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’ (1902) p. 9

You may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr McGregor’s garden.

‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’ (1902) p. 10

Peter sat down to rest; he was out of breath and trembling with fright...After a time he began to wander about, going lippity-lippity—not very fast, and looking all round.

‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’ (1902) p. 58

4.83 Henry Codman Potter 1835-1908

We have exchanged the Washingtonian dignity for the Jeffersonian simplicity, which was, in truth, only another name for the Jacksonian vulgarity.

Address, Washington Centennial, 30 April 1889, in ‘Bishop Potter’s Address’ (1890) p. 12

4.84 Stephen Potter 1900-69

A good general rule is to state that the bouquet is better than the taste, and vice versa.

‘One-Upmanship’ (1952) ch. 14 (on wine-tasting)

How to be one up—how to make the other man feel that something has gone wrong, however slightly.

‘Lifemanship’ (1950) p. 14

Each of us can, by ploy or gambit, most naturally gain the advantage.

‘Lifemanship’ (1950) p. 15

‘Yes, but not in the South’, with slight adjustments, will do for any argument about any place, if not about any person.

‘Lifemanship’ (1950) p. 43

If you have nothing to say, or, rather, something extremely stupid and obvious, say it, but in a ‘plonking’ tone of voice—i.e. roundly, but hollowly and dogmatically.

‘Lifemanship’ (1950) p. 43

In Newstatesmanship...definite pros and cons are barred: and they are difficult, anyway, because pro-ing and conning is never the best way of going one better.

‘Lifemanship’ (1950) p. 73

The theory and practice of gamesmanship or The art of winning games without actually cheating.

Title of book (1947)

4.85 Eugéne Pottier 1816-87

Debout! les damnès de la terre!

Debout! les forçats de la faim!

La raison tonne en son cratére,

C’est l’èruption de la fin.

Du passè faisons table rase,

Foule esclave, debout, debout,

Le monde va changer de base,

Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout!

C’est la lutte finale

Groupons-nous, et, demain,

L’Internationale

Sera le genre humain.

On your feet, you damned souls of the earth! On your feet, inmates of hunger’s prison! Reason is rumbling in its crater, and its final eruption is on its way. Let us wipe clean the slate of the past —on your feet, you enslaved multitude, on your feet—the world is to undergo a fundamental change: we are nothing, let us be everything! This is the final conflict: let us form up and,

tomorrow, the International will encompass the human race.

‘L’Internationale’, in H. E. Piggot ‘Songs that made History’ (1937) ch. 6

4.86 Ezra Pound 1885-1972

Winter is icummen in, Lhude sing Goddamm,

Raineth drop and staineth slop, And how the wind doth ramm! Sing: Goddamm.

‘Ancient Music’ (1917).

With Usura

With usura hath no man a house of good stone each block cut smooth and well fitting.

‘Cantos’ (1954) no. 45

Usura slayeth the child in the womb It stayeth the young man’s courting It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth

between the young bride and her bridegroom contra naturam

They have brought whores for Eleusis Corpses are set to banquet

at behest of usura.

‘Cantos’ (1954) no. 45

Tching prayed on the mountain and

wrote make it new on his bath tub.

Day by day make it new cut underbrush,

pile the logs keep it growing.

‘Cantos’ (1954) no. 53

Bah! I have sung women in three cities, But it is all the same;

And I will sing of the sun.

‘Cino’ (1908)

Hang it all, Robert Browning, There can be but the one ‘Sordello’.

‘Draft of XXX Cantos’ (1930) no. 2

In the gloom, the gold gathers the light against it.

‘Draft of XXX Cantos’ (1930) no. 11

And even I can remember

A day when the historians left blanks in their writings, I mean for things they didn’t know.

‘Draft of XXX Cantos’ (1930) no. 13

And she is dying piece-meal of a sort of emotional anaemia.

And round about there is a rabble

of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.

‘The Garden’ (1916)

For three years, out of key with his time, He strove to resuscitate the dead art

Of poetry; to maintain ‘the sublime’

In the old sense. Wrong from the start—

No, hardly, but seeing he had been born In a half-savage country, out of date;

Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorns;

Capaneus; trout for factitious bait.

‘Hugh Selwyn Mauberley’ (1920) ‘E. P. Ode pour l’èlection de son sèpulcre’ pt. 1

His true Penelope was Flaubert, He fished by obstinate isles;

Observed the elegance of Circe’s hair Rather than the mottoes on sundials.

‘Hugh Selwyn Mauberley’ (1920) ‘E. P. Ode pour l’èlection de son sèpulcre’ pt. 1