The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
.pdf‘Tales of the Hall’ (1819) ‘The Maid’s Story’ l. 84
Yes, thus the Muses sing of happy swains, Because the Muses never knew their pains:
They boast their peasants’ pipes, but peasants now Resign their pipes and plod behind the plough.
‘The Village’ (1783) bk. 1, l. 21
I grant indeed that fields and flocks have charms, For him that gazes or for him that farms.
‘The Village’ (1783) bk. 1, l. 39
I paint the cot,
As truth will paint it, and as bards will not.
‘The Village’ (1783) bk. 1, l. 53
Where Plenty smiles—alas! she smiles for few, And those who taste not, yet behold her store, Are as the slaves that dig the golden ore,
The wealth around them makes them doubly poor.
‘The Village’ (1783) bk. 1, l. 136
The cold charities of man to man.
‘The Village’ (1783) bk. 1, l. 245
A potent quack, long versed in human ills, Who first insults the victim whom he kills; Whose murd’rous hand a drowsy bench protect, And whose most tender mercy is neglect.
‘The Village’ (1783) bk. 1, l. 282
3.192 Hart Crane 1899-1932
Cowslip and shad-blow, flaked like tethered foam Around bared teeth of stallions, bloomed that spring When first I read thy lines, rife as the loam
Of prairies, yet like breakers cliffward leaping!
...My hand in yours,
Walt Whitman— so—
‘The Bridge’ (1930) pt. 4
O Sleepless as the river under thee, Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod, Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend And of the curveship lend a myth to God.
‘To Brooklyn Bridge’ (1927)
You who desired so much—in vain to ask—
Yet fed your hunger like an endless task,
Dared dignify the labor, bless the quest—
Achieved that stillness ultimately best,
Being, of all, least sought for: Emily, hear!
‘To Emily Dickinson’ (1927)
3.193 Stephen Crane 1871-1900
The red badge of courage.
Title of novel (1895)
3.194 Thomas Cranmer 1489-1556
This was the hand that wrote it, therefore it shall suffer first punishment.
At the stake, 21 March 1556, in John Richard Green ‘A Short History of the English People’ (1874) ch. 7, sect. 2
3.195 Richard Crashaw c.1612-49
Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit.
The conscious water saw its God, and blushed.
‘Epigrammata Sacra’ (1634) ‘Aquae in Vinum Versae’ (Crashaw’s translation)
Love’s passives are his activ’st part. The wounded is the wounding heart.
‘The Flaming Heart upon the Book of Saint Teresa’ (1652) l. 73
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove.
‘The Flaming Heart upon the Book of Saint Teresa’ (1652) l. 95
Love, thou art absolute sole Lord Of life and death.
‘Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa’ (1652) l. 1
Gloomy night embraced the place Where the noble Infant lay.
The Babe looked up and showed his face; In spite of darkness, it was day.
It was Thy day, sweet! and did rise Not from the East, but from thine eyes.
‘Hymn of the Nativity’ (1652)
Poor World (said I) what wilt thou do To entertain this starry stranger?
Is this the best thou canst bestow? A cold, and not too cleanly, manger?
Contend, ye powers of heav’n and earth
To fit a bed for this huge birth.
‘Hymn of the Nativity’ (1652)
Welcome, all wonders in one sight! Eternity shut in a span.
‘Hymn of the Nativity’ (1652)
I would be married, but I’d have no wife, I would be married to a single life.
‘On Marriage’ (1646)
Lo here a little volume, but large book.
‘Prayer...prefixed to a little Prayer-book’
It is love’s great artillery
Which here contracts itself and comes to lie Close couched in your white bosom.
‘Prayer...prefixed to a little Prayer-book’
Two walking baths; two weeping motions; Portable, and compendious oceans.
‘Saint Mary Magdalene, or The Weeper’ (1652) st. 19
All is Caesar’s; and what odds So long as Caesar’s self is God’s?
‘Steps to the Temple’ (1646) ‘Mark 12’
And when life’s sweet fable ends, Soul and body part like friends; No quarrels, murmurs, no delay; A kiss, a sigh, and so away.
‘Temperance’ (1652)
Whoe’er she be,
That not impossible she
That shall command my heart and me;
Where’er she lie,
Locked up from mortal eye,
In shady leaves of destiny.
‘Wishes to His Supposed Mistress’ (1648)
3.196 Julia Crawford fl. 1835
Kathleen Mavourneen! the grey dawn is breaking, The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill;
The lark from her light wing the bright dew is shaking; Kathleen Mavourneen! what, slumbering still?
Oh! hast thou forgotten how soon we must sever? Oh! hast thou forgotten this day we must part?
It may be for years, and it may be for ever,
Oh! why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart?
‘Kathleen Mavourneen’ in ‘Metropolitan Magazine’, London (1835)
3.197 James Creelman 1901-41 and Ruth Rose
Oh no, it wasn’t the aeroplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast.
‘King Kong’ (1933 film) final words
3.198 Mandell Creighton 1843-1901
No people do so much harm as those who go about doing good.
In Louise Creighton ‘Life’ (1904) vol. 2, p. 503
3.199 Sir Ranulphe Crewe 1558-1646
And yet time hath his revolution; there must be a period and an end to all temporal things, finis rerum, an end of names and dignities and whatsoever is terrene; and why not of De Vere? Where is Bohun, where’s Mowbray, where’s Mortimer? Nay, which is more and most of all, where is Plantagenet? They are entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality. And yet let the name and dignity of De Vere stand so long as it pleaseth God.
‘Oxford Peerage Case’, 1625. ‘Dictionary of National Biography’
3.200 Quentin Crisp 1908—
Some roughs are queer, and some queers are rough.
‘The Naked Civil Servant’ (1968)
There was no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.
‘The Naked Civil Servant’ (1968) ch. 15
I became one of the stately homos of England.
‘The Naked Civil Servant’ (1968) ch. 24
An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last instalment missing.
‘The Naked Civil Servant’ (1968) ch. 29
3.201 Sir Julian Critchley 1930—
The only safe pleasure for a parliamentarian is a bag of boiled sweets.
‘Listener’ 10 June 1982
3.202 Richmal Crompton (Richmal Crompton Lamburn) 1890-1969
I’ll thcream and thcream and thcream till I’m thick.
‘Still—William’ (1925) ch. 8
3.203 Oliver Cromwell 1599-1658
A few honest men are better than numbers.
Letter to Sir William Spring, September 1643, in Thomas Carlyle ‘Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches’ (2nd ed., 1846)
I would rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that which you call ‘a gentleman’ and is nothing else.
Letter to Sir William Spring, September 1643, in Thomas Carlyle ‘Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches’ (2nd ed., 1846)
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.
Letter to the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, 3 August 1650, in Thomas Carlyle ‘Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches’ (1845)
The dimensions of this mercy are above my thoughts. It is, for aught I know, a crowning mercy.
Letter to William Lenthall, Speaker of the Parliament of England, 4 September 1651, in Thomas Carlyle ‘Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches’ (1845)
Take away that fool’s bauble, the mace.
At the dismissal of the Rump Parliament, 20 April 1653, in Bulstrode Whitelock ‘Memorials of the English Affairs’ (1732 ed.) p. 529 (often quoted as ‘Take away these baubles’)
You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!
Addressing the Rump Parliament, 20 April 1653, in Bulstrode Whitelock ‘Memorials’ (1682) p. 554 (quoted by Leo Amery (q.v.), ‘Hansard’ 7 May 1940, col. 1150)
It’s a maxim not to be despised, ‘Though peace be made, yet it’s interest that keeps peace.’
Speech to Parliament, 4 September 1654, in Thomas Carlyle ‘Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches’ (1845)
Necessity hath no law. Feigned necessities, imaginary necessities...are the greatest cozenage that men can put upon the Providence of God, and make pretences to break known rules by.
Speech to Parliament, 12 September 1654, in Thomas Carlyle ‘Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches’ (1845)
Your poor army, those poor contemptible men, came up hither.
Speech to Parliament, 21 April 1657, in Thomas Carlyle ‘Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches’ (1845).
You have accounted yourselves happy on being environed with a great ditch from all the world besides.
Speech to Parliament, 25 January 1658, in Thomas Carlyle ‘Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches’ (1845)
Mr Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me; otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.
In Horace Walpole ‘Anecdotes of Painting in England’ vol. 3 (1763) ch. 1 (commonly quoted as ‘warts and all’)
My design is to make what haste I can to be gone.
Last words, in John Morley ‘Oliver Cromwell’ (1900) bk. 5, ch. 10
3.204 Bing Crosby (Harry Lillis Crosby) 1903-77
An average guy who could carry a tune.
Suggestion for his own epitaph, in ‘Newsweek’ 24 October 1977 p. 102
3.205 Bing Crosby 1903-77, Roy Turk 1892-1934, and Fred Ahlert 1892-1933
Where the blue of the night Meets the gold of the day, Someone waits for me.
‘Where the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day’ (1931 song)
3.206 Richard Assheton, Viscount Cross 1823-1914
I hear a smile.
When the House of Lords laughed at his speech in favour of Spiritual Peers, in G. W. E. Russell ‘Collections and Recollections’ (1898) ch. 29
3.207 Richard Crossman 1907-74
The Civil Service is profoundly deferential—’Yes, Minister! No, Minister! If you wish it, Minister!’
‘Diaries of a Cabinet Minister’ vol. 1 (1975) 22 October 1964
3.208 Samuel Crossman 1624-83
My song is love unknown, My saviour’s love for me, Love to the loveless shown, That they might lovely be. O, who am I,
That for my sake My Lord should take Frail flesh and die?
‘My song is love unknown’ (1664; set to music as a hymn, from 1868, and by John Ireland in 1919)
3.209 Aleister Crowley 1875-1947
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
‘Book of the Law’ (1909) l. 40.
3.210 Robert Crumb 1943—
Keep on truckin’.
Cartoon catch-phrase, from c.1972
3.211 Richard Cumberland 1631-1718
It is better to wear out than to rust out.
In George Horne ‘The Duty of Contending for the Faith’ (1786) p. 21n.
3.212 Bruce Frederick Cummings
See W. N. P. Barbellion (2.25)
3.213 e. e. cummings (Edward Estlin Cummings) 1894-1962
anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down) spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.
‘50 Poems’ (1949) no. 29
‘next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn’s early my country ’tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut— iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voices of liberty be mute?
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water.
‘is 5’ (1926) p. 62
Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink.
‘La Guerre’ no. 2 (1925)
a politician is an arse upon
which everyone has sat except a man.
‘1 x 1’ (1944) no. 10
plato told
him: he couldn’t believe it (jesus
told him; he wouldn’t believe it) lao
tsze certainly told
him, and general (yes
mam)
sherman.
‘1 x 1’ (1944) no. 13
pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Progress is a comfortable disease.
‘1 x 1’ (1944) no. 14
We doctors know
a hopeless case if—listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door; let’s go.
‘1 x 1’ (1944) no. 14
when god decided to invent everything he took one breath bigger than a circustent and everything began
when man determined to destroy himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why smashed it into because.
‘1 x 1’ (1944) no. 26
Buffalo Bill’s defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeons— justlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy Mister Death.
‘Portraits’ no. 8 (1923)
(i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all noses) nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.
‘somewhere I have never travelled’ (1931)
i like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does, i like its hows.
‘Sonnets-Actualities’ no. 8 (1925)
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds.
‘Sonnets-Realities’ no. 1 (1923)
3.214 William Thomas Cummings 1903-45
There are no atheists in the foxholes.
In Carlos P. Romulo ‘I Saw the Fall of the Philippines’ (1943) ch. 15
3.215 Allan Cunningham 1784-1842
A wet sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast
And fills the white and rustling sail And bends the gallant mast.
‘A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea’
It’s hame and it’s hame, hame fain wad I be, O, hame, hame, hame to my ain countree!
‘It’s hame and It’s hame’, in James Hogg ‘Jacobite Relics of Scotland’ (1819) vol. 1, p. 134. In his notes, vol. 1, p. 294, he says he took it from R. H. Cromek’s Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song (1810) and supposes that it owed much to Cunningham
3.216 John Philpot Curran 1750-1817
The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.
Speech on the Right of Election of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, 10 July 1790
3.217 Michael Curtiz 1888-1962
Bring on the empty horses!
Said while directing the 1936 film ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, in David Niven ‘Bring on the Empty Horses’ (1975) ch. 6
3.218 Lord Curzon (George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquess Curzon of Kedleston) 1859-1925
Gentlemen do not take soup at luncheon.
In E. L. Woodward ‘Short Journey’ (1942) ch. 7
3.219 St Cyprian (Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus) c.AD 200-58
Habere non potest Deum patrem qui ecclesiam non habet matrem.
He cannot have God for his father who has not the church for his mother.
‘De Cath. Eccl. Unitate’ 6.
4.0D
4.1Samuel Daniel 1563-1619
Princes in this case
Do hate the traitor, though they love the treason.
‘The Tragedy of Cleopatra’ (1594) act 4, sc. 1.
Custom that is before all law, Nature that is above all art.
‘A Defence of Rhyme’
And who, in time, knows whither we may vent The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores This gain of our best glory shall be sent, T’enrich unknowing nations with our stores? What worlds in th’yet unformed Occident
May come refined with th’ accents that are ours?
‘Musophilus’ (1599) l. 957
But years hath done this wrong,
To make me write too much, and live too long.
‘Philotas’ (1605) ‘To the Prince’ (dedication) l. 108
Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born: Relieve my languish, and restore the light, With dark forgetting of my care return, And let the day be time enough to mourn The shipwreck of my ill adventured youth: Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn, Without the torment of the night’s untruth.
‘Sonnets to Delia’ (1592) no. 54
Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!
‘To the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland’ st. 12
4.2 Dante Alighieri 1265-1321
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita.
In the middle of the road of our life.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Inferno’ canto 1, l. 1
Per me si va nella citt dolente, Per me si va nell’ etorno dolore, Per me si va tra la perduta gente...