The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
.pdfLasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate!
This way for the sorrowful city. This way for eternal suffering. This way to join the lost
people...Abandon all hope, you who enter!
Inscription at the entrance to Hell, ‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Inferno’ canto 3, l. 1
Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda, e passa.
Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass on.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Inferno’ canto 3, l. 51
Il gran rifiuto.
The great refusal.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Inferno’ canto 3, l. 60
Onorate l’altissimo poeta.
Honour to the greatest poet.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Inferno’ canto 4, l. 80
Il maestro di color che sanno.
The master of them that know.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Inferno’ canto 4, l. 131 (of Aristotle)
Nessun maggior dolore, Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria.
There is no greater sorrow than to recall a time of happiness in misery.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Inferno’ canto 5, l. 121.
Noi leggiavamo un giorno per diletto Di Lancialotto, come amor lo strinse: Soli eravamo, e sanza alcun sospetto.
We were reading one day for recreation of Lancelot, how love constrained him: we were alone
and completely unsuspecting.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Inferno’ canto 5, l. 127
Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse:
Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante.
A Galeotto [a pander] was the book and writer too: that day therein we read no more.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Inferno’ canto 5, l. 137
Siete voi qui, ser Brunetto?
Are you here, Advocate Brunetto?
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Inferno’ canto 15, l. 30 (referring to Brunetto Latini, old and respected friend of Dante, encountered in hell with other ‘Sodomites’)
La cara e buona imagine paterna.
The dear and kindly paternal image.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Inferno’ canto 15, l. 83
Considerate la vostra semenza:
Fatti non foste a viver come bruti,
Ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza.
Consider your origins: you were not made that you might live as brutes, but so as to follow
virtue and knowledge.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Inferno’ canto 26, l. 118
E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.
Thence we came forth to see the stars again.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Inferno’ canto 34, l. 139
Puro e disposto a salire alle stelle.
Pure and ready to mount to the stars.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Purgatorio’ canto 33, l. 145
E ’n la sua volontade è nostra pace.
In His will is our peace.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Paradiso’ canto 3, l. 85
Tu proverai sí come sa di sale Lo pane altrui, e com’è duro calle
Lo scendere e’l salir per l’altrui scale.
You shall find out how salt is the taste of another man’s bread, and how hard is the way up and
down another man’s stairs.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Paradiso’ canto 17, l. 58
L’amor che muove il sole e l’altre stelle.
The love that moves the sun and the other stars.
‘Divina Commedia’ ‘Paradiso’ canto 33, l. 145
4.3 Georges Jaques Danton 1759-94
De l’audace, et encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace!
Boldness, and again boldness, and always boldness!
Speech to the Legislative Committee of General Defence, 2 September 1792, in ‘Le Moniteur’ 4 September 1792.
Thou wilt show my head to the people: it is worth showing.
Last words to the executioner, 5 April 1794, in Thomas Carlyle ‘History of the French Revolution’(1837) vol. 3, bk. 6, ch. 2
4.4 Joe Darion 1917—
To dream the impossible dream, To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow, To run where the brave dare not go.
‘The Impossible Dream’ or ‘The Quest’ (1965 song from ‘Man of La Mancha’)
4.5 George Darley 1795-1846
O blest unfabled Incense Tree, That burns in glorious Araby.
‘Nepenthe’ l. 147
4.6 Clarence Darrow 1857-1938
I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure—that is all that agnosticism means.
Speech at the trial of John Thomas Scopes, 15 July 1925, in ‘The World’s Most Famous Court Trial’ (1925) ch. 4
4.7 Charles Darwin 1809-82
The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
‘The Descent of Man’ (1871) ch. 4
A hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits.
‘The Descent of Man’ (1871) ch. 21 (on man’s probable ancestors)
Man with all his noble qualities...still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
‘The Descent of Man’ (1871) closing words
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.
‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859) ch. 3
We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence.
‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859) ch. 3
The expression often used by Mr Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.
‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859) ch. 3.
From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.
‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859) ch. 3
What a book a devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel works of nature!
Letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 July 1856
4.8 Erasmus Darwin 1731-1802
A fool...is a man who never tried an experiment in his life.
In a letter from Maria Edgeworth to Sophy Ruxton, 9 March 1792: F. V. Barry (ed.) ‘Maria Edgeworth: Chosen Letters’ (1931)
No, Sir, because I have time to think before I speak, and don’t ask impertinent questions.
When asked if he found his stammering very inconvenient, in ‘Reminiscences of My Father’s Everyday Life’, an appendix by Francis Darwin to his edition of Charles Darwin ‘Autobiography’ (1877)
4.9 Sir Francis Darwin 1848-1925
In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.
‘Eugenics Review’ April 1914, ‘Francis Galton’
4.10 Jules Dassin 1911—
Never on Sunday.
Title of film (1959)
4.11 Charles D’Avenant 1656-1714
Custom, that unwritten law,
By which the people keep even kings in awe.
‘Circe’ (1677) act 2, sc. 3
4.12 Sir William D’Avenant 1606-68
Had laws not been, we never had been blamed; For not to know we sinned is innocence.
‘Dryden Miscellany’ vi, l. 226
In every grave make room, make room!
The world’s at an end, and we come, we come.
‘The Law against Lovers’ (1673) act 3, sc. 1
For I must go where lazy Peace Will hide her drowsy head;
And, for the sport of kings, increase The number of the dead.
‘The Soldier Going to the Field’
The lark now leaves his wat’ry nest And, climbing, shakes his dewy wings.
‘Song’ (1638)
4.13 John Davidson 1857-1909
A runnable stag, a kingly crop.
‘A Runnable Stag’
In anguish we uplift
A new unhallowed song: The race is to the swift, The battle to the strong.
‘War Song’ st. 1
And blood in torrents pour In vain—always in vain, For war breeds war again.
‘War Song’ st. 7
4.14 Sir John Davies 1569-1626
Wedlock, indeed, hath oft compared been To public feasts where meet a public rout, Where they that are without would fain go in And they that are within would fain go out.
‘A Contention Betwixt a Wife, a Widow, and a Maid for Precedence’ l. 193
Skill comes so slow, and life so fast doth fly, We learn so little and forget so much.
‘Nosce Teipsum’ st. 19
For this, the wisest of all moral men
Said he knew nought, but that he nought did know; And the great mocking master mocked not then, When he said, Truth was buried deep below.
‘Nosce Teipsum’ st. 20.
I know my life’s a pain and but a span,
I know my sense is mocked in every thing; And to conclude, I know myself a man, Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.
‘Nosce Teipsum’ st. 45
4.15 Scrope Davies c.1783-1852
Babylon in all its desolation is a sight not so awful as that of the human mind in ruins.
Letter to Thomas Raikes, May 1835, in ‘A Portion of the Journal kept by Thomas Raikes’ (1856) vol. 2, p. 113. Addison, in ‘The Spectator’ no. 421 (3 July 1712) also remarked of ‘a distracted person’ that ‘Babylon in ruins is not so melancholy a spectacle’
4.16 W. H. Davies (William Henry Davis) 1871-1940
And hear the pleasant cuckoo, loud and long— The simple bird that thinks two notes a song.
‘April’s Charms’ (1916)
A rainbow and a cuckoo’s song May never come together again; May never come
This side the tomb.
‘A Great Time’ (1914)
It was the Rainbow gave thee birth, And left thee all her lovely hues.
‘Kingfisher’ (1910)
What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.
‘Leisure’ (1911)
Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Well-content, Thou knowest of no strange continent: Thou hast not felt thy bosom keep
A gentle motion with the deep; Thou hast not sailed in Indian seas,
Where scent comes forth in every breeze.
‘Sweet Stay-At-Home’ (1913)
4.17 Elmer Davis 1890-1958
The first and great commandment is, Don’t let them scare you.
‘But We Were Born Free’ (1954) ch. 1
4.18 Sammy Davis Jnr. 1925—
Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted.
In Sammy Davis Jnr., J., and B. Boyar ‘Yes I Can’ (1965) pt. 3, ch. 23
4.19 Thomas Davis 1814-45
Come in the evening, or come in the morning,
Come when you’re looked for, or come without warning.
‘The Welcome’
4.20 Lord Dawson of Penn (Bertrand Edward Dawson, Viscount Dawson of Penn) 1864-1945
The King’s life is moving peacefully towards its close.
Bulletin, drafted on a menu card at Buckingham Palace, on the eve of the king’s death, 20 January 1936, in Kenneth Rose ‘King George V’ (1983) ch. 10
4.21 C. Day-Lewis 1904-72
Hurry! We burn
For Rome so near us, for the phoenix moment When we have thrown off this traveller’s trance, And mother-naked and ageless-ancient
Wake in her warm nest of renaissance.
‘Flight to Italy’ (1953)
Do not expect again a phoenix hour,
The triple-towered sky, the dove complaining, Sudden the rain of gold and heart’s first ease Traced under trees by the eldritch light of sundown.
‘From Feathers to Iron’ (1935)
Tempt me no more; for I
Have known the lightning’s hour, The poet’s inward pride,
The certainty of power.
‘The Magnetic Mountain’ (1933) pt. 3, no. 24
You that love England, who have an ear for her music, The slow movement of clouds in benediction,
Clear arias of light thrilling over her uplands, Over the chords of summer sustained peacefully.
‘The Magnetic Mountain’ (1933) pt. 4, no. 32
It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse— That we who lived by honest dreams Defend the bad against the worse.
‘Where are the War Poets?’ (1943)
4.22 Simone de Beauvoir 1908-86
On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.
One is not born a woman: one becomes one.
‘Le deuxiéme sexe’ (1949) vol. 2, pt. 1, ch. 1
It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills.
‘Le deuxiéme sexe’ (1949) pt. 2, ch. 4
4.23 Edward de Bono 1933—
Some people are aware of another sort of thinking which...leads to those simple ideas that are obvious only after they have been thought of...the term ‘lateral thinking’ has been coined to describe this other sort of thinking; ‘vertical thinking’ is used to denote the conventional logical process.
‘The Use of Lateral Thinking’ (1967) preface
4.24 Eugene Victor Debs 1855-1926
When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right.
Speech at his trial for sedition in Cleveland, Ohio, 11 September 1918, in ‘Speeches’ (1928) p. 66
While there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there
is a soul in prison, I am not free.
Speech at his trial for sedition in Cleveland, Ohio, 14 September 1918: ‘Liberator’ November 1918, p. 12
4.25 Stephen Decatur 1779-1820
Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.
Decatur’s toast at Norfolk, Virginia, April 1816, in A. S. Mackenzie ‘Life of Stephen Decatur’ (1846) ch. 14
4.26 Daniel Defoe 1660-1731
We must distinguish between a man of polite learning and a mere scholar: the first is a gentleman and what a gentleman should be; the last is a mere book-case, a bundle of letters, a head stuffed with the jargon of languages, a man that understands every body but is understood by no body.
‘The Complete English Gentleman’ (written 1728-9)
Pleasure is a thief to business.
‘The Complete English Tradesman’ (1725) vol. 1
The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear.
‘An Essay Upon Projects’ (1697)
Why then should women be denied the benefits of instruction? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God almighty would never have given them capacities.
‘An Essay Upon Projects’ (1697) ‘Proposal for an Academy for Women’
Vice came in always at the door of necessity, not at the door of inclination.
‘Moll Flanders’ (1721)
As covetousness is the root of all evil, so poverty is the worst of all snares.
‘Moll Flanders’ (1721)
Give me not poverty lest I steal.
‘Moll Flanders’ (1721)
He told me...that mine was the middle state, or what might be called the upper station of low life, which he had found by long experience was the best state in the world, the most suited to human happiness.
‘Robinson Crusoe’ (1719)
I never saw them afterwards, or any sign of them, except three of their hats, one cap, and two shoes that were not fellows.
‘Robinson Crusoe’ (1719) on his shipmates
I smiled to myself at the sight of this money. ‘O drug!’ said I aloud, ‘what art thou good for? Thou art not worth to me, no, not the taking off of the ground; one of those knives is worth all this heap; I have no manner of use for thee, e’en remain where thou art, and go to the bottom as a creature whose life is not worth saving.’ However, upon second thoughts I took it away.
‘Robinson Crusoe’ (1719)
My island was now peopled, and I thought my self very rich in subjects; and it was a merry reflection which I frequently made, how like a king I looked.
‘Robinson Crusoe’ (1719)
It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man’s naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand. I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition.
‘Robinson Crusoe’ (1719)
My man Friday.
‘Robinson Crusoe’ (1719)
In trouble to be troubled
Is to have your trouble doubled.
‘The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe’ (1719)
Necessity makes an honest man a knave.
‘The Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe’ (1720) ch. 2
The best of men cannot suspend their fate: The good die early, and the bad die late.
‘Character of the late Dr S. Annesley’ (1715)
We loved the doctrine for the teacher’s sake.
‘Character of the late Dr S. Annesley’ (1715)
Actions receive their tincture from the times, And as they change are virtues made or crimes.
‘A Hymn to the Pillory’ (1703) l. 29
Nature has left this tincture in the blood, That all men would be tyrants if they could.
‘The Kentish Petition’ (1712-13) addenda l. 11
Fools out of favour grudge at knaves in place.
‘The True-Born Englishman’ (1701) introduction, l. 7
Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The Devil always builds a chapel there; And ’twill be found, upon examination, The latter has the largest congregation.
‘The True-Born Englishman’ (1701) pt. 1, l. 1.
In their religion they are so uneven,
That each one goes his own by-way to heaven.
‘The True-Born Englishman’ (1701) pt. 1, l. 104
From this amphibious ill-born mob began That vain, ill-natured thing, an Englishman.
‘The True-Born Englishman’ (1701) pt. 1, l. 132
Your Roman-Saxon-Danish-Norman English.
‘The True-Born Englishman’ (1701) pt. 1, l. 139
His lazy, long, lascivious reign.
‘The True-Born Englishman’ (1701) pt. 1, l. 236 (of Charles II)
Great families of yesterday we show,
And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who.
‘The True-Born Englishman’ (1701) pt. 1, l. 374
And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny’s the worst.
‘The True-Born Englishman’ (1701) pt. 2, l. 299
When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown. Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things,
The good of subjects is the end of kings.
‘The True-Born Englishman’ (1701) pt. 2, l. 313
4.27 Edgar Degas 1834-1917
L’art, c’est le vice. On ne l’èpouse pas lègitimement, on le viole.
Art is vice. You don’t marry it legitimately, you rape it.
In Paul Lafond ‘Degas’ (1918) p. 140
4.28 Charles De Gaulle 1890-1970
La France a perdu une bataille! Mais la France n’a pas perdu la guerre!
France has lost a battle. But France has not lost the war!
Proclamation, 18 June 1940, in ‘Discours, messages et dèclarations du Gènèral de Gaulle’ (1941) p. 15
Les traitès, voyez-vous, sont comme les jeunes filles et comme les roses: ça dure ce que ça dure.
Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.
Speech at Elysèe Palace, 2 July 1963, in Andrè Passeron ‘De Gaulle parle 1962-6’ (1966) p. 340
Vive Le Quèbec Libre.
Long Live Free Quebec.
Speech in Montreal, 24 July 1967, in ‘Discours et messages’ (1970) p. 192
Politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
Replying to Clement Attlee’s remark that ‘De Gaulle is a very good soldier and a very bad politician’, in Attlee ‘A Prime Minister Remembers’ (1961) ch. 4
Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays qui a deux cent quarante-six variètès de fromage?
How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?
In Ernest Mignon ‘Les Mots du Gènèral’ (1962) p. 57
Comme un homme politique ne croit jamais ce qu’il dit, il est tout ètonnè quand il est cru sur parole.