The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

Make a woman believe?

‘The Duchess of Malfi’ (1623) act 1, sc. 2, l. 43. References are to C. B. Wheeler’s edition, 1915

Unequal nature, to place women’s hearts So far upon the left side.

‘The Duchess of Malfi’ (1623) act 2, sc. 5, l. 33

Why should only I...

Be cased up, like a holy relic? I have youth And a little beauty.

‘The Duchess of Malfi’ (1623) act 3, sc. 2, l. 135

Raised by that curious engine, your white hand.

‘The Duchess of Malfi’ (1623) act 3, sc. 2, l. 297

O, that it were possible,

We might but hold some two days’ conference With the dead!

‘The Duchess of Malfi’ (1623) act 4, sc. 2, l. 18

I have made a soap-boiler costive.

‘The Duchess of Malfi’ (1623) act 4, sc. 2, l. 117

I am Duchess of Malfi still.

‘The Duchess of Malfi’ (1623) act 4, sc. 2, l. 146

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright, But looked to near, have neither heat nor light.

‘The Duchess of Malfi’ (1623) act 4, sc. 2, l. 148

I know death hath ten thousand several doors For men to take their exits.

‘The Duchess of Malfi’ (1623) act 4, sc. 2, l. 222.

Ferdinand: Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle: she died young. Bosola: I think not so; her infelicity

Seemed to have years too many.

‘The Duchess of Malfi’ (1623) act 4, sc. 2, l. 267

Physicians are like kings,—they brook no contradiction.

‘The Duchess of Malfi’ (1623) act 5, sc. 2, l. 72

We are merely the stars’ tennis-balls, struck and bandied Which way please them.

‘The Duchess of Malfi’ (1623) act 5, sc. 4, l. 53

Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burn brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweethearts, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.

‘Westward Hoe’ (1607) act 2, sc. 2

Fortune’s a right whore:

If she give aught, she deals it in small parcels, That she may take away all at one swoop.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 1, sc. 1, l. 4

’Tis just like a summer birdcage in a garden; the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair, and are in a consumption, for fear they shall never get out.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 1, sc. 2, l. 47

A mere tale of a tub, my words are idle.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 2, sc. 1, l. 92

Only the deep sense of some deathless shame.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 2, sc. 2, l. 67

Cowardly dogs bark loudest.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 3, sc. 1, l. 163

A rape! a rape!...

Yes, you have ravished justice; Forced her to do your pleasure.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 3, sc. 1, l. 271

There’s nothing sooner dry than women’s tears.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 5, sc. 3, l. 192

Call for the robin-red-breast and the wren, Since o’er shady groves they hover,

And with leaves and flowers do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 5, sc. 4, l. 100

But keep the wolf far thence that’s foe to men, For with his nails he’ll dig them up again.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 5, sc. 4, l. 108

We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 5, sc. 4, l. 128

And of all axioms this shall win the prize,— ’Tis better to be fortunate than wise.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 5, sc. 6, l. 183

There’s nothing of so infinite vexation As man’s own thoughts.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 5, sc. 6, l. 206

My soul, like to a ship in a black storm, Is driven, I know not whither.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 5, sc. 6, l. 248

Prosperity doth bewitch men, seeming clear;

But seas do laugh, show white, when rocks are near.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 5, sc. 6, l. 250

I have caught

An everlasting cold; I have lost my voice

Most irrecoverably.

‘The White Devil’ (1612) act 5, sc. 6, l. 270

11.38 Josiah Wedgwood 1730-95

Am I not a man and a brother.

Legend on Wedgwood cameo depicting a kneeling negro slave in chains, reproduced in facsimile in E. Darwin ‘The Botanic Garden’ pt. 1 (1791) facing p. 87

11.39Anthony Wedgewood Benn

See Tony Benn (2.84) in Volume I

11.40Simone Weil 1909-43

La culture est un instrument maniè par des professeurs pour fabriquer des professeurs qui á leur tour fabriqueront des professeurs.

Culture is an instrument wielded by professors, to manufacture professors, who when their turn

comes will manufacture professors.

‘L’Enracinement’ (The Need for Roots, 1949) ‘Dèracinement ouvrier’

Tous les Pèchès sont des tentatives pour combler des vides.

All sins are attempts to fill voids.

‘La Pesanteur et la grâce’ (Gravity and Grace, 1948) p. 27

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Gasoline is much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict.

In W. H. Auden ‘A Certain World’ (1971) p. 384

11.41 Johnny Weissmuller 1904-84

I didn’t have to act in ‘Tarzan, the Ape Man’—just said, ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane.’

‘Photoplay Magazine’ June 1932 (the words ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane’ do not occur in the 1932 film)

11.42 Thomas Earle Welby 1881-1933

‘Turbot, Sir,’ said the waiter, placing before me two fishbones, two eyeballs, and a bit of black mackintosh.

‘The Dinner Knell’ (1932) ‘Birmingham or Crewe?’

11.43 Fay Weldon 1931—

Natalie had left the wives and joined the women.

‘The Heart of the Country’ (1987) p. 51

The life and loves of a she-devil.

Title of novel (1984)

11.44 Colin Welland 1934—

The British are coming.

Speech accepting an Oscar for his ‘Chariots of Fire’ screenplay, 30 March 1982, in ‘Sight & Sound’ Summer 1982

11.45 Orson Welles 1915-85

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed—they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce...? The cuckoo clock.

‘The Third Man’ (1949 film; words added by Welles to the script, in Graham Greene and Carol Reed ‘The Third Man’ (1969) p. 114)

To his associate, Richard Wilson...Orson [Welles] then declared, ‘This [the RKO studio] is the biggest electric train set any boy ever had!’

Peter Noble ‘The Fabulous Orson Welles’ (1956) ch. 7

11.46 Duke Of Wellington 1769-1852

Beginning reform is beginning revolution.

Mrs Arbuthnot’s Journal, 7 November 1830

Up Guards and at them again!

Letter from Captain Batty 22 June 1815, in Booth ‘Battle of Waterloo’, also Croker ‘Correspondence and Diaries’ (1884) 3, 280

Not upon a man from the colonel to the private in a regiment—both inclusive. We may pick up a marshal or two perhaps; but not worth a damn.

On being asked whether he calculated upon any desertion in Buonaparte’s army, in ‘Creevey Papers’ ch. 10, p. 228

It has been a damned serious business—Blücher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing—the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life...By God! I don’t think it would have done if I had not been there.

Referring to the battle of Waterloo, in ‘Creevey Papers’ ch. 10, p. 236

All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know by what you do; that’s what I called ‘guessing what was at the other side of the hill’.

‘The Croker Papers’ (1885) vol. 3, p. 276

When I reflect upon the characters and attainments of some of the general officers of this army, and consider that these are the persons on whom I am to rely to lead columns against the French, I tremble; and as Lord Chesterfield said of the generals of his day, ‘I only hope that when the enemy reads the list of their names, he trembles as I do.’

Dispatch to Torrens, 29 August 1810 (usually quoted as ‘I don’t know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me’, and also attributed to George III)

I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life.

On seeing the first Reformed Parliament, in Sir William Fraser ‘Words on Wellington’ (1889) p. 12

You must build your House of Parliament upon the river: so...that the populace cannot exact

their demands by sitting down round you.

In Sir William Fraser ‘Words on Wellington’ (1889) p. 163

I believe I forgot to tell you I was made a Duke.

Postscript to a letter to his nephew Henry Wellesley, 22 May 1814

The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.

Montalembert ‘De l’Avenir Politique de l’Angleterre’ (1856). The attribution was refuted by the 7th Duke.

I hate the whole race...There is no believing a word they say—your professional poets, I mean —there never existed a more worthless set than Byron and his friends for example.

Noted in Lady Salisbury’s diary, 26 October 1833, in C. Oman ‘The Gascoyne Heiress’ (1968) 3

Publish and be damned.

Attributed. According to legend, Wellington wrote these words across a blackmailing letter from Stockdale, publisher of Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs, and posted it back to him. Elizabeth Pakenham ‘Wellington: The Years of the Sword’ (1969) ch. 10

The next greatest misfortune to losing a battle is to gain such a victory as this.

In S. Rogers ‘Recollections’ (1859) p. 215

‘What a glorious thing must be a victory, Sir.’ ‘The greatest tragedy in the world, Madam, except a defeat.’

In S. Rogers ‘Recollections’ (1859) p. 215, footnote

So he is a fool, and a d—d fool; but he can take Rangoon.

On its being objected that he had always spoken of Lord Combermere as a fool, and yet had proposed him as commander of an expedition to take Rangoon, in G. W. E. Russell ‘Collections and Recollections’ (1898) ch. 2 (the story is probably apocryphal: Wellington thought highly of Combermere, who, moreover, was never involved in the Rangoon campaign)

In my situation as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, I have been much exposed to authors.

In G. W. E. Russell ‘Collections and Recollections’ (1898) ch. 2

Not half so surprised as I am now, Mum!

On being asked by Mrs Arbuthnot if he had not been surprised at Waterloo, in G. W. E. Russell ‘Collections and Recollections’ (1898) ch. 2

I have no small talk and Peel has no manners.

In G. W. E. Russell ‘Collections and Recollections’ (1898) ch. 14

Hard pounding this, gentlemen; let’s see who will pound longest.

At Waterloo, in Sir W. Scott ‘Paul’s Letters’ (1815)

I always say that, next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.

In Frances, Lady Shelley ‘Diary’ p. 102

I used to say of him [Napoleon] that his presence on the field made the difference of forty thousand men.

Stanhope ‘Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington’ 2 November 1831

Ours [our army] is composed of the scum of the earth—the mere scum of the earth.

Stanhope ‘Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington’ 4 November 1831

My rule always was to do the business of the day in the day.

Stanhope ‘Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington’ 2 November 1835

What is the best to be done for the country? How can the Government be carried on?

Stanhope ‘Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington’ 18 May 1839

There is no mistake; there has been no mistake; and there shall be no mistake.

‘Wellingtoniana’ (1852) p. 78

If you believe that you will believe anything.

Attributed reply to a gentleman who accosted him in the street saying, ‘Mr. Jones, I believe?’

11.47 H. G. Wells 1866-1946

The thing his [Henry James’s] novel is about is always there. It is like a church lit but without a congregation to distract you, with every light and line focussed on the high altar. And on the altar, very reverently placed, intensely there, is a dead kitten, an egg-shell, a bit of string.

‘Boon’ (1915) ch. 4

It is leviathan retrieving pebbles. It is a magnificent but painful hippopotamus resolved at any cost, even at the cost of its dignity, upon picking up a pea which has got into a corner of its den. Most things, it insists, are beyond it, but it can, at any rate modestly, and with an artistic singleness of mind, pick up that pea.

‘Boon’ (1915) ch. 4 (on Henry James)

In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King.

‘The Country of the Blind’ (1904; revised 1939) p. 52.

‘Sesquippledan,’ he would say. ‘Sesquippledan verboojuice.’

‘The History of Mr Polly’ (1909) ch. 1, pt. 5

‘I’m a Norfan, both sides,’ he would explain, with the air of one who had seen trouble.

‘Kipps’ (1905) bk. 1, ch. 6, pt. 1

‘I expect,’ he said, ‘I was thinking jest what a Rum Go everything is. I expect it was something like that.’

‘Kipps’ (1905) bk. 3, ch. 3, pt. 8

He [James Holroyd] was a practical electrician but fond of whisky, a heavy, red-haired brute with irregular teeth. He doubted the existence of the Deity but accepted Carnot’s cycle, and he had read Shakespeare and found him weak in chemistry.

‘Lord of the Dynamos’ in ‘Complete Short Stories’ (1927)

The Social Contract is nothing more or less than a vast conspiracy of human beings to lie to and humbug themselves and one another for the general Good. Lies are the mortar that bind the savage individual man into the social masonry.

‘Love and Mr Lewisham’ (1900) ch. 23

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

‘The Outline of History’ (1920) vol. 2, ch. 41, pt. 4

The shape of things to come.

Title of book (1933)

The war that will end war.

‘Rule of Conduct’ in ‘Letters’ (1915)

Let it be observed, that slovenliness is no part of religion; that neither this, nor any text of Scripture, condemns neatness of apparel. Certainly this is a duty, not a sin. ‘Cleanliness is, indeed, next to godliness.’

‘Sermons’ no. 93 ‘On Dress’

Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.

In R. Southey ‘Life of Wesley’ (1820) ch. 16

We should constantly use the most common, little, easy words (so they are pure and proper) which our language affords.

Of preaching to ‘plain people’, in R. Southey ‘Life of Wesley’ (1820) ch. 16

11.51 Revd Samuel Wesley 1662-1735

Style is the dress of thought; a modest dress, Neat, but not gaudy, will true critics please.

‘An Epistle to a Friend concerning Poetry’

11.52 Mae West 1892-1980

It’s better to be looked over than overlooked.

‘Belle of the Nineties’ (1934 film)

A man in the house is worth two in the street.

‘Belle of the Nineties’ (1934 film)

I always say, keep a diary and some day it’ll keep you.

‘Every Day’s a Holiday’ (1937 film)

Beulah, peel me a grape.

‘I’m No Angel’ (1933 film)

I’ve been things and seen places.

‘I’m No Angel’ (1933 film)

When I’m good, I’m very, very good, but when I’m bad, I’m better.

‘I’m No Angel’ (1933 film)

It’s not the men in my life that counts—it’s the life in my men.

‘I’m No Angel’ (1933 film)

Give a man a free hand and he’ll try to put it all over you.

‘Klondike Annie’ (1936 film)

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.

‘Klondike Annie’ (1936 film)

I’ve been in Who’s Who, and I know what’s what, but it’ll be the first time I ever made the dictionary.

Letter to the RAF, early 1940s, on having an inflatable life jacket named after her, in Fergus Cashin ‘Mae West’ (1981) ch. 9

‘Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!’ ‘Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.’

‘Night After Night’ (1932 film)

Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?

In Joseph Weintraub ‘Peel Me a Grape’ (1975) p. 47

I used to be Snow White...but I drifted.

In Joseph Weintraub ‘Peel Me a Grape’ (1975) p. 47

Why don’t you come up sometime, and see me? I’m home every evening.

‘She Done Him Wrong’ (1933 film; often misquoted as ‘Come up and see me sometime’, which became Mae West’s catch-phrase)

11.53 Dame Rebecca West (Cicily Isabel Fairfield) 1892-1983

God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.

‘The Strange Necessity’ (1928) ‘The Tosh Horse’.

Journalism—an ability to meet the challenge of filling the space.

‘New York Herald Tribune’ 22 April 1956 sect. 6, p. 2

Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the truth about his or her love affairs.

‘Vogue’ 1 November 1952

He [Michael Arlen] is every other inch a gentleman.

In Victoria Glendinning ‘Rebecca West’ (1987) pt. 3, ch. 5

11.54 Richard Bethell, Lord Westbury 1800-73

Then, sir, you will turn it over once more in what you are pleased to call your mind.

Related by Jowett and denied, not very convincingly, by Westbury. T. A. Nash ‘Life of Lord Westbury’ (1888) bk. 2, ch. 12

11.55 Edward Noyes Westcott 1846-98

They say a reasonable amount o’ fleas is good fer a dog—keeps him from broodin’ over bein’ a dog, mebbe.

‘David Harum’ ch. 32

11.56 John Fane, Lord Westmorland 1759-1841

Merit, indeed!...We are come to a pretty pass if they talk of merit for a bishopric.

Noted in Lady Salisbury’s diary, 9 December 1835, in C. Oman ‘The Gascoyne Heiress’ (1968) 5

11.57 Sir Charles Wetherell 1770-1846

Then there is my noble and biographical friend who has added a new terror to death.

Referring to Lord Campbell, in Lord St Leonards ‘Misrepresentations in Campbell’s Lives of Lyndhurst and Brougham’ (1869) p. 3.

11.58 Robert Wever fl.1550

In a harbour grene aslepe whereas I lay,

The byrdes sang swete in the middes of the day, I dreaméd fast of mirth and play:

In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure.

‘Lusty Juventus’

11.59 Edith Wharton 1862-1937

She sang, of course, ‘M’ama!’ and not ‘he loves me’, since an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.

‘The Age of Innocence’ (1920) bk. 1, ch. 1

She keeps on being Queenly in her own room with the door shut.

‘The House of Mirth’ (1905) bk. 2, ch. 1

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

‘The Writing of Fiction’ (1925) ch. 1

Mrs Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone.

‘Xingu’ in ‘Xingu and Other Stories’ (1916)

11.60 Thomas, 1st Marquis Of Wharton 1648-1715

Ho, Brother Teague, dost hear de Decree? Lilli Burlero Bullena-la.

Dat we shall have a new Debity, Lilli Burlero Bullena-la.

‘A New Song’ written 1687; published on a single sheet 1688; first collected, in the above form, as ‘Song’ in ‘Poems on Affairs of State’ (1704) vol. 3, p. 231 (debity deputy)

11.61 Richard Whately, Archbishop Of Dublin 1787-1863

Preach not because you have to say something, but because you have something to say.

‘Apophthegms’

Happiness is no laughing matter.

‘Apophthegms’ p. 218

It is a folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.

‘Apophthegms’ p. 219

Honesty is the best policy; but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.

‘Apophthegms’ p. 219

‘Never forget, gentlemen,’ he said, to his astonished hearers, as he held up a copy of the ‘Authorized Version’ of the Bible, ‘never forget that this is not the Bible,’ then, after a moment’s pause, he continued, ‘This, gentlemen, is only a translation of the Bible.’

To a meeting of his diocesan clergy, in H. Solly ‘These Eighty Years’ (1893) vol. 2. ch. 2, p. 81