The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

The right is more precious than peace.

Speech to Congress, 2 April 1917, in ‘Selected Addresses’ (1918) p. 197

The programme of the world’s peace...is this:

1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

Speech to Congress, 8 January 1918, in ‘Selected Addresses’ (1918) p. 247

Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America, my fellow citizens—I do not say it in disaparagement of any other great people— America is the only idealistic Nation in the world.

Speech at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 8 September 1919, in ‘Messages and Papers’ (1924) vol. 2, p. 822

Once lead this people into war and they will forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance.

In John Dos Passos ‘Mr Wilson’s War’ (1917) pt. 3, ch. 12

11.109 Robb Wilton 1881-1957

The day war broke out.

Catch-phrase, from c.1940

11.110 Arthur Wimperis 1874-1953

I’ve gotter motter Always merry and bright!

Look around and you will find Every cloud is silver-lined; The sun will shine

Altho’ the sky’s a grey one;

I’ve often said to meself, I’ve said, ‘Cheer up, curly you’ll soon be dead! A short life and a gay one!’

‘My Motter’ (1909 song)

11.111 Anne Finch, Lady Winchilsea 1661-1720

For see! where on the bier before ye lies The pale, the fall’n, th’ untimely sacrifice

To your mistaken shrine, to your false idol Honour.

‘All is Vanity’ 3

Nor will in fading silks compose Faintly the inimitable rose.

‘The Spleen’

Now the Jonquille o’ercomes the feeble brain; We faint beneath the aromatic pain.

‘The Spleen’.

11.112 William Windham 1750-1810

Those entrusted with arms...should be persons of some substance and stake in the country.

House of Commons, 22 July 1807

11.113 Catherine Winkworth 1827-78

Peccavi—I have Sindh.

Of Sir Charles Napier’s conquest of Sind (1843). Pun sent to Punch, 13 May 1844, and printed as ‘the most laconic despatch ever issued’, supposedly sent by Napier to Lord Ellenborough, in ‘Punch’ vol. 6, p.209, 18 May 1844. N. M. Billimoria ‘Proceedings of the Sind Historical Society’ 2 (1938) and ‘Notes &

Queries’ (1954) p. 219.

11.114 Robert Charles Winthrop 1809-94

A Star for every State, and a State for every Star.

Speech on Boston Common, 27 August 1862

11.115 Cardinal Wiseman 1802-65

Dr Wiseman was particularly pleased by the conversion of a Mr Morris, who, as he said, was ‘the author of the essay...on the best method of proving Christianity to the Hindoos.’

In Lytton Strachey ‘Eminent Victorians’ (1918) ‘Cardinal Manning’ pt. 3

11.116 Owen Wister 1860-1938

Therefore Trampas spoke. ‘You bet, you son-of-a—’ The Virginian’s pistol came out, and...he issued his orders to the man Trampas:—’When you call me that, smile!’

‘The Virginian’ (1902) ch. 2

11.117 George Wither 1588-1667

I loved a lass, a fair one, As fair as e’er was seen; She was indeed a rare one, Another Sheba queen.

‘I loved a lass, a fair one’

Shall I, wasting in despair, Die because a woman’s fair?

Or make pale my cheeks with care, ’Cause another’s rosy are?

Be she fairer than the day, Or the flow’ry meads in May; If she think not well of me, What care I how fair she be?

‘Sonnet’

11.118 Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889-1951

Gäbe es ein Verbum mit der Bedeutung ‘fälschlich glauben’, so hätte das keine sinnvolle erste Person im Indikatir des Präsens.

If there were a verb meaning ‘to behave falsely’, it would not have any significant first person,

present indicative.

‘Philosophical Investigations’ (1953) pt. 2, sect. 10

Was sich überhaupt sagen lässt, lässt sich klar sagen; und wovon man nicht reden kann, darüber muss man schweigen.

What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be

silent.

‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ (1922) preface

Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.

The world is everything that is the case.

‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ (1922) p. 30

Die Logik muss für sich selber sorgen.

Logic must take care of itself.

‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ (1922) p. 126

Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt.

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ (1922) p. 148

Die Welt des Glücklichen ist eine andere als die des Unglücklichen.

The world of the happy is quite different from that of the unhappy.

‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ (1922) p. 184

11.119 P. G. Wodehouse 1881-1975

Chumps always make the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump. Tap his forehead first, and if it rings solid, don’t hesitate. All the unhappy marriages come from the husbands having brains. What good are brains to a man? They only unsettle him.

‘The Adventures of Sally’ (1920) ch. 10

It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.

‘Blandings Castle and Elsewhere’ (1935) ‘The Custody of the Pumpkin’

At this point in the proceedings there was another ring at the front door. Jeeves shimmered out and came back with a telegram.

‘Carry On, Jeeves!’ (1925) ‘Jeeves Takes Charge’

He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled, so I tactfully changed the subject.

‘The Code of the Woosters’ (1938) ch. 1

Slice him where you like, a hellhound is always a hellhound.

‘The Code of the Woosters’ (1938) ch. 1

It is no use telling me that there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof.

‘The Code of the Woosters’ (1938) ch. 2

Roderick Spode? Big chap with a small moustache and the sort of eye that can open an oyster at sixty paces?

‘The Code of the Woosters’ (1938) ch. 2

To my daughter Leonora without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time.

‘The Heart of a Goof’ (1926) dedication

The lunches of fifty-seven years had caused his chest to slip down into the mezzanine floor.

‘The Heart of a Goof’ (1926) ‘Chester Forgets Himself’

I turned to Aunt Agatha, whose demeanour was now rather like that of one who, picking daisies on the railway, has just caught the down express in the small of the back.

‘The Inimitable Jeeves’ (1923) ch. 4

Sir Roderick Glossop, Honoria’s father, is always called a nerve specialist, because it sounds better, but everybody knows that he’s really a sort of janitor to the looney-bin.

‘The Inimitable Jeeves’ (1923) ch. 7

As a rule, you see, I’m not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling to Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps and Uncle James’s letter about Cousin Mabel’s peculiar behaviour is being shot round the family circle (‘Please read this carefully and send it on to Jane’), the clan has a tendency to ignore me. It’s one of the advantages I get from being a bachelor—and, according to my nearest and dearest, practically a half-witted bachelor at that.

‘The Inimitable Jeeves’ (1923) ch. 16

It was my Uncle George who discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of medical thought.

‘The Inimitable Jeeves’ (1923) ch. 16

It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.

‘The Man Upstairs’ (1914) title story

She fitted into my biggest armchair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing armchairs tight about the hips that season.

‘My Man Jeeves’ (1919) ‘Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest’

What with excellent browsing and sluicing and cheery conversation and what-not, the afternoon passed quite happily.

‘My Man Jeeves’ (1919) ‘Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest’

‘What ho!’ I said. ‘What ho!’ said Motty. ‘What ho! What ho!’ ‘What ho! What ho! What ho!’ After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.

‘My Man Jeeves’ (1919) ‘Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest’

I spent the afternoon musing on Life. If you come to think of it, what a queer thing Life is! So unlike anything else, don’t you know, if you see what I mean.

‘My Man Jeeves’ (1919) ‘Rallying Round Old George’

Ice formed on the butler’s upper slopes.

‘Pigs Have Wings’ (1952) ch. 5

The Right Hon. was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say ‘When!’.

‘Very Good, Jeeves’ (1930) ‘Jeeves and the Impending Doom’

11.120 Charles Wolfe 1791-1823

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried.

‘The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna’

We buried him darkly at dead of night, The sods with our bayonets turning.

‘The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna’

But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.

‘The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna’

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone— But we left him alone with his glory.

‘The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna’

11.121 Humbert Wolfe 1886-1940

You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God! the British journalist.

But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there’s

no occasion to.

‘Over the Fire’

11.122 James Wolfe 1727-59

The General...repeated nearly the whole of Gray’s Elegy...adding, as he concluded, that he would prefer being the author of that poem to the glory of beating the French to-morrow.

In J. Playfair ‘Biogr. Acc. of J. Robinson’ in ‘Transactions R. Soc. Edinb.’ (1814) 7, 499

Now God be praised, I will die in peace.

Dying words, in J. Knox ‘Historical Journal of Campaigns, 1757-60’ (1769) (vol. 2, p. 114 1914 ed.)

11.123 Thomas Wolfe 1900-38

Most of the time we think we’re sick, it’s all in the mind.

‘Look Homeward, Angel’ (1929) pt. 1, ch. 1

‘Where they got you stationed now, Luke?’ said Harry Tugman peering up snoutily from a mug of coffee. ‘At the p-p-p-present time in Norfolk at the Navy base,’ Luke answered, ‘m-m- making the world safe for hypocrisy.’

‘Look Homeward, Angel’ (1929) pt. 3, ch. 36.

You can’t go home again.

Title of novel (1940)

11.124 Tom Wolfe 1931—

The bonfire of the vanities.

Title of novel (1987)

11.125 Mary Wollstonecraft 1759-97

The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.

‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ (1792) ch. 3

A king is always a king—and a woman always a woman: his authority and her sex ever stand between them and rational converse.

‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ (1792) ch. 4

I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.

‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ (1792) ch. 4

When a man seduces a woman, it should, I think, be termed a left-handed marriage.

‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ (1792) ch. 4

11.126 Cardinal Wolsey c.1475-1530

Father Abbot, I am come to lay my bones amongst you.

Cavendish ‘Negotiations of Thomas Woolsey’ (1641) p. 108

Had I but served God as diligently as I have served the King, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs.

Cavendish ‘Negotiations of Thomas Woolsey’ (1641) p. 113

11.127 Mrs Henry Wood 1814-87

Dead! and...never called me mother.

‘East Lynne’ (dramatized version by T. A. Palmer, 1874). These words do not occur in the novel

11.128 Woodbine Willie

See G. A. Studdert Kennedy (7.180)

11.129 Lt.-Commander Thomas Woodroofe 1899-1978

At the present moment, the whole Fleet’s lit up. When I say ‘lit up’, I mean lit up by fairy lamps.

Radio broadcast, 20 May 1937

11.130 Harry Woods

Oh we ain’t got a barrel of money, Maybe we’re ragged and funny, But we’ll travel along

Singin’ a song, Side by side.

‘Side by Side’ (1927 song)

When the red, red, robin comes bob, bob, bobbin’ along.

Title of song (1926)

11.131 Virginia Woolf 1882-1941

Righteous indignation...is misplaced if we agree with the lady’s maid that high birth is a form of congenital insanity, that the sufferer merely inherits diseases of his ancestors, and endures them, for the most part very stoically, in one of those comfortably padded lunatic asylums which are known, euphemistically, as the stately homes of England.

‘Lady Dorothy Nevill’ in ‘The Common Reader’ (1925).

We are nauseated by the sight of trivial personalities decomposing in the eternity of print.

‘The Modern Essay’ in ‘The Common Reader’ (1925)

Each had his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart; and his friends could only read the title.

‘Jacob’s Room’ (1922) ch. 5

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

‘A Room of One’s Own’ (1929) ch. 1

Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size.

‘A Room of One’s Own’ (1929) ch. 2

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

‘A Room of One’s Own’ (1929) ch. 3

So that is marriage, Lily thought, a man and a woman looking at a girl throwing a ball.

‘To the Lighthouse’ (1927) pt. 1, ch. 13

Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by death—Percival—others through sheer inability to cross the street.

‘The Waves’ (1931) p. 202

Never did I read such tosh [as James Joyce’s Ulysses]. As for the first two chapters we will let

The very shadows of the clouds Have power to shake me as they pass.

‘The Affliction of Margaret—’ (1807)

And three times to the child I said, ‘Why, Edward, tell me why?’

‘Anecdote for Fathers’ (1798)

Another year!—another deadly blow! Another mighty Empire overthrown! And we are left, or shall be left, alone.

‘Another year!’ (1807)

Action is transitory,—a step, a blow,

The motion of a muscle, this way or that— ’Tis done, and in the after-vacancy

We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed: Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, And shares the nature of infinity.

‘The Borderers’ (1842) act 3, l. 1539

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be? It is the generous spirit, who, when brought Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought

Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought: Whose high endeavours are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright: Who, with a natural instinct to discern

What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn.

‘Character of the Happy Warrior’ (1807)

Earth has not anything to show more fair; Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’ (1807)

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’ (1807)

Ah! then, if mine had been the Painter’s hand,

To express what then I saw; and add the gleam, The light that never was, on sea or land,

The consecration, and the Poet’s dream.

‘Elegiac Stanzas’ (on a picture of Peele Castle in a storm, 1807)

Not in the lucid intervals of life

That come but as a curse to party strife...

Is Nature felt, or can be.

‘Evening Voluntaries’ (1835) 4

By grace divine,

Not otherwise, O Nature, we are thine.

‘Evening Voluntaries’ (1835) 4

On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, Musing in solitude.

‘The Excursion’ (1814) preface, l. 1

The Mind of Man—

My haunt, and the main region of my song.

‘The Excursion’ (1814) preface, l. 40

Oh! many are the Poets that are sown

By Nature; men endowed with highest gifts, The vision and the faculty divine;

Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse.

‘The Excursion’ (1814) bk. 1, l. 77

What soul was his, when from the naked top Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun Rise up, and bathe the world in light!

‘The Excursion’ (1814) bk. 1, l. 198

The good die first,

And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket.

‘The Excursion’ (1814) bk. 1, l. 500

This dull product of a scoffer’s pen.

‘The Excursion’ (1814) bk. 2, l. 484 (referring to Voltaire’s Candide)

The intellectual power, through words and things, Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!

‘The Excursion’ (1814) bk. 3, l. 700

Society became my glittering bride, And airy hopes my children.

‘The Excursion’ (1814) bk. 3, l. 735

’Tis a thing impossible, to frame Conceptions equal to the soul’s desires;