The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
.pdfGreat things are done when men and mountains meet This is not done by jostling in the street.
‘MS Note-Book’ p. 43
He who binds to himself a joy Doth the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.
‘MS Note-Book’ p. 99 ‘Several Questions Answered’—“He who binds to himself a joy”
What is it men in women do require The lineaments of gratified desire What is it women do in men require The lineaments of gratified desire.
‘MS Note-Book’ p. 99 ‘Several Questions Answered’—“What is it men in women do require”
The sword sung on the barren heath The sickle in the fruitful field
The sword he sung a song of death, But could not make the sickle yield.
‘MS Note-Book’ p. 105
Abstinence sows sand all over The ruddy limbs and flaming hair But Desire gratified
Plants fruits of life and beauty there.
‘MS Note-Book’ p. 105
Never pain to tell thy love Love that never told can be For the gentle wind does move Silently, invisibly.
‘MS Note-Book’ p. 115
Soon as she was gone from me A traveller came by
Silently, invisibly O was no deny.
‘MS Note-Book’ p. 115
Piping down the valleys wild Piping songs of pleasant glee On a cloud I saw a child.
And he laughing said to me.
Pipe a song about a Lamb;
So I piped with merry cheer,
Piper pipe that song again—
So I piped, he wept to hear.
‘Songs of Innocence’ (1789) introduction
When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep. So your chimneys I sweep and in soot I sleep.
‘Songs of Innocence’ (1789) ‘The Chimney Sweeper’
To Mercy Pity Peace and Love, All pray in their distress.
‘Songs of Innocence’ (1789) ‘The Divine Image’
For Mercy has a human heart Pity a human face:
And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress.
‘Songs of Innocence’ (1789) ‘The Divine Image’
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.
‘Songs of Innocence’ (1789) ‘Holy Thursday’
Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Gave thee life and bid thee feed. By the stream and o’er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing woolly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice!
‘Songs of Innocence’ (1789) ‘The Lamb’
My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white; White as an angel is the English child:
But I am black as if bereaved of light.
‘Songs of Innocence’ (1789) ‘The Little Black Boy’
When the voices of children are heard on the green And laughing is heard on the hill.
‘Songs of Innocence’ (1789) ‘Nurse’s Song’
Can I see another’s woe, And not be in sorrow too. Can I see another’s grief, And not seek for kind relief.
‘Songs of Innocence’ (1789) ‘On Another’s Sorrow’
Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who present, past, and future, sees.
‘Songs of Experience’ (1794) introduction
Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time, Who countest the steps of the Sun; Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller’s journey is done:
Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: Arise from their graves and aspire,
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.
‘Songs of Experience’ (1794) ‘Ah, Sun-flower!’
Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.
‘Songs of Experience’ (1794) ‘The Clod and the Pebble’
Love seeketh only Self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another’s loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite.
‘Songs of Experience’ (1794) ‘The Clod and the Pebble’
My mother groaned! my father wept. Into the dangerous world I leapt: Helpless, naked, piping loud;
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.
‘Songs of Experience’ (1794) ‘Infant Sorrow’
Children of the future age, Reading this indignant page: Know that in a former time,
Love! sweet love! was thought a crime.
‘Songs of Experience’ (1794) ‘A Little Girl Lost’
Then the Parson might preach, and drink, and sing. And we’d be as happy as birds in the spring:
And modest dame Lurch, who is always at church, Would not have bandy children nor fasting nor birch.
‘Songs of Experience’ (1794) ‘The Little Vagabond’
I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
‘Songs of Experience’ (1794) ‘A Poison Tree’
O Rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm That flies in the night, In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
‘Songs of Experience’ (1794) ‘The Sick Rose’
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
‘Songs of Experience’ (1794) ‘The Tiger’
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?
‘Songs of Experience’ (1794) ‘The Tiger’
When the stars threw down their spears And watered heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
‘Songs of Experience’ (1794) ‘The Tiger’
Cruelty has a human heart, And Jealousy a human face; Terror the human form divine, And Secrecy the human dress.
‘A Divine Image’; etched but not included in ‘Songs of Experience’ (1794)
Vision or Imagination is a Representation of what Eternally Exists, Really and Unchangeably.
‘A Vision of the Last Judgement’ (1810) in ‘MS Note-Book’ p. 68
What it will be questioned when the sun rises do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea O no no I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.
‘A Vision of the Last Judgement’ (1810) in ‘MS Note-Book’ p. 95
2.133 Susan Blamire 1747-94
I’ve gotten a rock, I’ve gotten a reel,
I’ve gotten a wee bit spinning-wheel; An’ by the whirling rim I’ve found How the weary, weary warl goes round.
‘I’ve Gotten a Rock, I’ve Gotten a Reel’ l. 1
Should we miss but a tree where we used to be playing, Or find the wood cut where we sauntered a-Maying,— If the yew-seat’s away, or the ivy’s a-wanting,
We hate the fine lawn and the new-fashioned planting.
Each thing called improvement seems blackened with crimes, If it tears up one record of blissful old times.
‘When Home We Return’ l. 7
2.134 Lesley Blanch 1907—
She was an Amazon. Her whole life was spent riding at breakneck speed towards the wilder shores of love.
‘The Wilder Shores of Love’ (1954) pt. 2, ch. 1
2.135 Karen Blixen
See Isak Dinesen (4.61)
2.136 Philip Paul Bliss 1838-76
Hold the fort, for I am coming.
‘Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs’ (1875) no. 14; suggested by a flag message from General W. T. Sherman near Atalanta, October 1864: ‘Hold the Fort, I am coming’
2.137 Gebhard Lebrecht Blücher 1742-1819
Was für plunder!
What rubbish!
Said of London seen from the Monument, June 1814, often misquoted as ‘Was für plündern!’ (What a place to plunder!); in Evelyn Princess Blücher ‘Memoirs of Prince Blücher’ (1932) p.33
Blücher and I [Wellington] met near La Belle Alliance; we were both on horseback; but he embraced and kissed me exclaiming Mein lieber Kamerad, and then quelle affaire! which was pretty much all he knew of French.
In Philip Henry Stanhope ‘Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington 1831-51’ (1888) p. 245, 4 November 1840 (in a letter to W. Mudford, 8 June 1816, Wellington had said the meeting took place at Genappe; see E. Walford (compiler) ‘The Words of Wellington’ (1869) p. 116)
2.138 Edmund Blunden 1896-1974
All things they have in common being so poor, And their one fear, Death’s shadow at the door.
‘Almswomen’
I am for the woods against the world, But are the woods for me?
‘The Kiss’ (1931)
Dance on this ball-floor thin and wan, Use him as though you love him; Court him, elude him, reel and pass, And let him hate you through the glass.
‘Midnight Skaters’ (1925)
I have been young, and now am not too old; And I have seen the righteous forsaken, His health, his honour and his quality taken. This is not what we were formerly told.
‘Report on Experience’ (1929)
This was my country and it may be yet,
But something flew between me and the sun.
‘The Resignation’ (1928)
2.139 Wilfrid Scawen Blunt 1840-1922
To the Grafton Gallery to look at...the Post-Impressionist pictures sent over from Paris...The drawing is on the level of that of an untaught child of seven or eight years old, the sense of colour that of a tea-tray painter, the method that of a schoolboy who wipes his fingers on a slate after spitting on them...These are not works of art at all, unless throwing a handful of mud against a wall may be called one. They are the works of idleness and impotent stupidity, a pornographic show.
‘My Diaries’ (1920) 15 November 1910
2.140 Ronald Blythe 1922—
As for the British churchman, he goes to church as he goes to the bathroom, with the minimum of fuss and with no explanation if he can help it.
‘The Age of Illusion’ (1963) ch. 12
An industrial worker would sooner have a £5 note but a countryman must have praise.
‘Akenfield’ (1969) ch. 5
2.141 Boethius (Anicius Manlius Severinus) c.476-524
Nam in omni adversitate fortunae infelicissimum genus est infortunii, fuisse felicem.
For in every ill-turn of fortune the most unhappy sort of misfortune is to have been happy.
‘De Consolatione Philosophiae’ bk. 2, prose 4
2.142 Louise Bogan 1897-1970
Women have no wilderness in them,
They are provident instead,
Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts To eat dusty bread.
‘Women’ (1923)
2.143 John B. Bogart 1848-1921
When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.
In F. M. O’Brien ‘The Story of the [New York] Sun’ (1918) ch. 10 (often attributed to Charles A. Dana)
2.144 Niels Bohr 1885-1962
One of the favourite maxims of my father was the distinction between the two sorts of truths, profound truths recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth, in contrast to trivialities where opposites are obviously absurd.
In S. Rozental ‘Niels Bohr’ (1967) p. 328
2.145 Nicolas Boileau 1636-1711
Enfin Malherbe vint, et, le premier en France, Fit sentir dans les vers une juste cadence.
At last came Malherbe, and, first ever in France,
Made a proper flow felt in verse.
‘L’Art poètique’ canto 1, l. 131
Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l’admire.
A fool can always find a greater fool to admire him.
‘L’Art poètique’ canto 1, l. 232
Qu’en un lieu, qu’en un jour, un seul fait accompli Tienne jusqu’á la fin le thèâtre rempli.
Let a single completed action, all in one place, all in one day, keep the theatre packed to the
end of your play.
‘L’Art poètique’ canto 3, l. 45
Si j’ècris quatre mots, j’en effacerai trois.
Of every four words I write, I strike out three.
‘Satire (2). A M. Moliére’
2.146 Alan Bold 1943—
Scotland, land of the omnipotent No.
‘A Memory of Death’ (1969)
2.147 Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke 1678-1751
They make truth serve as a stalking-horse to error.
‘Letters on the Study and Use of History’ (1752) No. 4, pt. 1
They [Thucydides and Xenophon] maintained the dignity of history.
‘Letters on the Study and Use of History’ (1752) No. 5, pt. 2
Nations, like men, have their infancy.
‘On the Study of History’ Letter 5 in ‘Works’ (1809) vol. 3, p. 414
Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.
‘Reflections upon Exile’ (1716)
What a world is this, and how does fortune banter us!
Letter to Jonathan Swift, 3 August 1714, in Harold Williams (ed.) ‘Correspondence of Jonathan Swift’ (1963) vol. 2, p. 101
The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws.
Comment (c.1728), in Joseph Spence ‘Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters’ (1820, ed. J. M. Osborn, 1966) Anecdote 882
The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue.
Comment (c.1728), in Joseph Spence ‘Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters’ (1820, ed. J. M. Osborn, 1966) Anecdote 882
2.148 Robert Bolt 1924—
Morality’s not practical. Morality’s a gesture. A complicated gesture learned from books.
‘A Man for All Seasons’ (1960) act 2.
[It] profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world...But for Wales—!
‘A Man for All Seasons’ (1960) act 2
2.149 Andrew Bonar Law 1858-1923
If, therefore, war should ever come between these two countries [Great Britain and Germany], which Heaven forbid! it will not, I think, be due to irresistible natural laws; it will be due to the want of human wisdom.
‘Hansard’ 27 Nov. 1911, col. 167
If I am a great man, then all great men are frauds.
In Lord Beaverbrook ‘Politicians and the War’ (1932) vol. 2, ch. 4
2.150 Carrie Jacobs Bond 1862-1946
When you come to the end of a perfect day, And you sit alone with your thought, While the chimes ring out with a carol gay For the joy that the day has brought,
Do you think what the end of a perfect day Can mean to a tired heart,
When the sun goes down with a flaming ray,
And the dear friends have to part?
‘A Perfect Day’ (1910 song)
2.151 Sir David Bone 1874-1959
It’s ‘Damn you, Jack—I’m all right!’ with you chaps.
‘Brassbounder’ (1910) ch. 3
2.152 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-45
Es ist der Vorzug und das Wesen der Starken, dass sie die grossen Entscheidungsfragen stellen und zu ihnen klar Stellung nehmen können. Die Schwachen müssen sich immer zwischen Alternativen entscheiden, die nicht die ihren sind.
It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that
are not their own.
‘Ein paar Gedanken über Verschiedenes’ in ‘Widerstand und Ergebung’ (Resistance and Submission, 1951)
Jesus nur ‘für andere da ist.’...Gott in Menschengestalt! ...nicht die griechische GottMenschgestalt des ‘Menschen an sich’, sondern ‘der Mensch für andere’, darum der Gekreuzigte.
Jesus is there only for others.... God in human form! not...in the Greek divine-human form of
‘man in himself’, but ‘the man for others’, and therefore the crucified.
‘Entwurf einer Arbeit’ in ‘Widerstand und Ergebung’ (Resistance and Submission, 1951)
2.153 General William Booth 1829-1912
The Submerged Tenth.
‘In Darkest England’ (1890) pt. 1, title of ch. 2, in which Booth defines them as ‘three million men, women, and children, a vast despairing multitude in a condition nominally free, but really enslaved’
2.154 Frances Boothby fl. 1670
I’m hither come, but what d’ye think to say? A woman’s pen presents you with a play: Who smiling told me I’d be sure to see
That once confirm’d, the house would empty be.
‘Marcelia’ (1670) Prologue
2.155 James H. Boren 1925—
Guidelines for bureaucrats: (1) When in charge, ponder. (2) When in trouble, delegate. (3) When in doubt, mumble.
In ‘New York Times’ 8 November 1970, p. 45
2.156 Jorge Luis Borges 1899-1986
El original es infiel a la traducción.
The original is unfaithful to the translation.
On Henley’s translation, in ‘Sobre el ‘Vathek’de William Beckford’; ‘Obras Completas’ (1974) p. 730
Para uno de esos gnósticos, el visible universo era una ilusión ó (mas precisamente) un sofisma. Los espejos y la paternidad son abominables porque lo multiplican y lo divulgan.
For one of those gnostics, the visible universe was an illusion or, more precisely, a sophism.
Mirrors and fatherhood are abominable because they multiply it and extend it.
‘Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis, Tertius’ (1941) in ‘Obras Completas’ (1974) p. 431
The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.
In ‘Time’ 14 February 1983
2.157 Cesare Borgia 1476-1507
Aut Caesar, aut nihil.
Caesar or nothing.
Motto inscribed on his sword. John Leslie Garner ‘Caesar Borgia’ (1912) p. 309
2.158 George Borrow 1803-81
There are no countries in the world less known by the British than these selfsame British Islands.
‘Lavengro’ (1851) preface
There’s night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things: there’s likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?
‘Lavengro’ (1851) ch. 25
Let no one sneer at the bruisers of England—what were the gladiators of Rome, or the bullfighters of Spain, in its palmiest days, compared to England’s bruisers?
‘Lavengro’ (1851) ch. 26
A losing trade, I assure you, sir: literature is a drug.
‘Lavengro’ (1851) ch. 30.
Youth will be served, every dog has his day, and mine has been a fine one.
‘Lavengro’ (1851) ch. 92
Fear God, and take your own part.
‘The Romany Rye’ (1857) ch. 16
2.159 Marèchal Pierre Bosquet 1810-61
C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre.
It is magnificent, but it is not war.
On the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, 25 October 1854
2.160 John Collins Bossidy 1860-1928
And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,