The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

A ship, an isle, a sickle moon— With few but with how splendid stars The mirrors of the sea are strewn Between their silver bars!

‘The Golden Journey to Samarkand’ (1913) ‘A Ship, an Isle, and a Sickle Moon’

Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town,

Beauty she was statue cold—there’s blood upon her gown.

‘The Golden Journey to Samarkand’ (1913) ‘The Dying Patriot’

West of these out to seas colder than the Hebrides I must go

Where the fleet of stars is anchored and the young Star captains glow.

‘The Golden Journey to Samarkand’ (1913) ‘The Dying Patriot’

I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep Beyond the village which men still call Tyre, With leaden age o’ercargoed, dipping deep For Famagusta and the hidden sun

That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire.

‘Old Ships’ (1915)

It was so old a ship—who knows, who knows? —And yet so beautiful, I watched in vain

To see the mast burst open with a rose, And the whole deck put on its leaves again.

‘Old Ships’ (1915)

O friend unseen, unborn, unknown, Student of our sweet English tongue, Read out my words at night, alone: I was a poet, I was young.

‘To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence’ (1910)

6.40 Richard Flecknoe d. c.1678

Still-born Silence! thou that art Floodgate of the deeper heart.

‘Miscellania’ (1653)

6.41 Ian Fleming 1908-64

A medium Vodka dry Martini—with a slice of lemon peel. Shaken and not stirred.

‘Dr No’ (1958) ch. 14

6.42 Marjory Fleming 1803-11

A direful death indeed they had That would put any parent mad But she was more than usual calm She did not give a singel dam.

‘Journal’ p. 29

The most devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7 it is what nature itselfe cant endure.

‘Journal’ p. 47

To-day I pronounced a word which should never come out of a lady’s lips it was that I called John a Impudent Bitch.

‘Journal’ p. 51

I am going to turn over a new life and am going to be a very good girl and be obedient to Isa Keith, here there is plenty of gooseberries which makes my teeth watter.

‘Journal’ p. 76

I hope I will be religious again but as for regaining my character I despare.

‘Journal’ p. 80

An annibabtist is a thing I am not a member of.

‘Journal’ p. 99

Sentiment is what I am not acquainted with.

‘Journal’ p. 99

My dear Isa, I now sit down on my botom to answer all your kind and beloved letters which you was so good as to write to me.

‘Letters’ no. 1 ‘To Isabella’

O lovely O most charming pug

Thy graceful air and heavenly mug...

His noses cast is of the roman He is a very pretty weoman

I could not get a rhyme for roman And was oblidged to call it weoman.

‘Poems’

6.43 Robert, Marquis de Flers 1872-1927 and Arman de Caillavet 1869-1915

Dèmocratie est le nom que nous donnons au peuple toutes les fois que nous avons besoin de lui.

Democracy is the name we give the people whenever we need them.

‘L’habit vert’ act 1, sc. 12, in ‘La petite illustration sèrie thèâtre’ 31 May 1913

6.44 Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun 1655-1716

I knew a very wise man so much of Sir Chr—’s sentiment, that he believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.

‘An Account of a Conversation concerning a Right Regulation of Government for the Good of Mankind. In a Letter to the Marquis of Montrose’ (1704) in ‘Political Works’ (1732) pt. 7

6.45 John Fletcher 1579-1625

Best while you have it use your breath, There is no drinking after death.

‘The Bloody Brother’, or ‘Rollo Duke of Normandy’ (with Ben Jonson and others, performed c.1616) act 2, sc. 2 ‘Song’

And he that will go to bed sober, Falls with the leaf still in October.

‘The Bloody Brother’ act 2, sc. 2 ‘Song’

Three merry boys, and three merry boys, And three merry boys are we,

As ever did sing in a hempen string Under the Gallows-Tree.

‘The Bloody Brother’ act 3, sc. 2

Come, we are stark naught all, bad’s the best of us.

‘The Bloody Brother’ act 4, sc. 2

Death hath so many doors to let out life.

‘The Custom of the Country’ (with Massinger) act 2, sc. 2.

Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain tops that freeze, Bow themselves when he did sing.

‘Henry VIII’ (with Shakespeare, performed 1613) act 3, sc. 1 ‘Song’

In sweet music is such art Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing die.

‘Henry VIII’ (with Shakespeare, performed 1613) act 3, sc. 1 ‘Song’

Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.

‘The Honest Man’s Fortune’ epilogue

Nothing’s so dainty sweet, as lovely melancholy.

‘The Nice Valour’ (with Middleton) act 3, sc. 3, song

Are you at ease now? Is your heart at rest? Now you have got a shadow, an umbrella To keep the scorching world’s opinion From your fair credit.

‘Rule a Wife and Have a Wife’ (performed 1624) act 3, sc. 1

Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint, And sweet thyme true,

Primrose first born child of Ver, Merry Springtime’s Harbinger.

‘Two Noble Kinsmen’ (with Shakespeare) act 1, sc. 1

Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, Brother to Death.

‘Valentinian’ (performed c.1610-14) act 5, sc. 7 ‘Song’

Come sing now, sing; for I know ye sing well, I see ye have a singing face.

‘The Wild-Goose Chase’ (performed 1621) act 2, sc. 2

Whistle and she’ll come to you.

‘Wit Without Money’ act 4, sc. 4.

Charity and beating begins at home.

‘Wit Without Money’ act 5, sc. 2

See also Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (2.58)

6.46 Phineas Fletcher 1582-1650

Drop, drop, slow tears,

And bathe those beauteous feet, Which brought from Heaven The news and Prince of Peace.

‘Poetical Miscellanies’ (1633) ‘An Hymn’

In your deep floods

Drown all my faults and fears; Not let His eye

See sin, but through my tears.

‘Poetical Miscellanies’ (1633) ‘An Hymn’

Love’s tongue is in the eyes.

‘Piscatory Eclogues’ (1633) no. 5, st. 13

Poorly (poor man) he lived; poorly (poor man) he died.

‘The Purple Island’ (1633) canto 1, st. 19

His little son into his bosom creeps, The lively picture of his father’s face.

‘The Purple Island’ (1633) canto 12, st. 6

Love is like linen often changed, the sweeter.

‘Sicelides’ (performed 1614) act 3, sc. 5

The coward’s weapon, poison.

‘Sicelides’ (performed 1614) act 5, sc. 3

6.47 Jean-Pierre Claris De Florian 1755-94

Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment, Chagrin d’amour dure toute la vie.

Love’s pleasure lasts but a moment; love’s sorrow lasts all through life.

‘Celestine.’

6.48 John Florio c.1553-1625

England is the paradise of women, the purgatory of men, and the hell of horses.

‘Second Frutes’ (1591) ch. 12

6.49 Marshal Ferdinand Foch 1851-1929

Mon centre céde, ma droite recule, situation excellente, j’attaque.

My centre is giving way, my right is retreating, situation excellent, I am attacking.

Message sent during the first Battle of the Marne, September 1914, in R. Recouly ‘Foch’ (1919) ch. 6

Ce n’est pas un traitè de paix, c’est un armistice de vingt ans.

This is not a peace treaty, it is an armistice for twenty years.

At the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, 1919, in Paul Reynaud ‘Mèmoires’ (1963) vol. 2, p. 457

6.50 J. Foley

Old soldiers never die, They simply fade away.

‘Old Soldiers Never Die’ (1920 song); copyrighted by Foley but possibly a World War I ‘folk-song’

6.51 Josè Da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino fl. 1855

The walls have hearsay.

‘O Novo Guia da Conversaçáo em Portuguez e Inglez’ (1855) ‘Idiotisms and Proverbs’; selections from this book were first published in England by James Millington as English as she is spoke: or a Jest in sober earnest (1883)

Por dinheiro baila o perro.

Nothing some money nothing of Swiss.

‘O Novo Guia da Conversaçáo em Portuguez e Inglez’ (1855) ‘Idiotisms and Proverbs’. A literal translation of the Portuguese proverb would be The dog dances for money: it is suspected that the ‘Novo Guia’ was prepared with the help of a French-English dictionary.

6.52 Michael Foot 1913—

A speech from Ernest Bevin on a major occasion had all the horrific fascination of a public execution. If the mind was left immune, eyes and ears and emotions were riveted.

‘Aneurin Bevan’ (1962) vol. 1, ch. 13

Think of it! A second Chamber selected by the Whips. A seraglio of eunuchs.

‘Hansard’ 3 February 1969, col. 88

It is not necessary that every time he rises he should give his famous imitation of a semi-house- trained polecat.

On Norman Tebbit, ‘Hansard’ 2 March 1978, col. 668

6.53 Samuel Foote 1720-77

Born in a cellar...and living in a garret.

‘The Author’ (1757) act 2

So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf, to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. ‘What! no soap?’ So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyalies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gun powder ran out at the heels of their boots.

Nonsense composed by Foote to test the vaunted memory of the actor Charles Macklin, in ‘Quarterly Review’ (1854) vol. 95, p. 516

Between the muse and the magistrate there is a natural confederacy; what the last cannot punish the first often corrects.

Letter to the Lord Chamberlain, 1775

He is not only dull in himself, but the cause of dullness in others.

On a dull law lord, in James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1934 ed.) vol. 4, p. 178.

God’s revenge against vanity.

To David Garrick, who had asked him what he thought of a heavy shower of rain falling on the day of the Shakespeare Jubilee, organised by and chiefly starring Garrick; in W. Cooke ‘Memoirs of Samuel Foote’ vol. 1, p. ??

6.54 Miss C. F. Forbes 1817-1911

The sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion is powerless to bestow.

In R. W. Emerson ‘Letters and Social Aims’ (1876)

6.55 Gerald Ford 1909—

I am a Ford, not a Lincoln.

Speech on taking the vice-presidential oath, 6 December 1973, in ‘Washington Post’ 7 December 1973

Our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a Government of laws and not of men.

On being sworn in as President, 9 August 1974: G. J. Lankevich ‘Gerald R. Ford’ (1977)

If the Government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have.

In John F. Parker ‘If Elected’ (1960) p. 193

6.56 Henry Ford 1863-1947

History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.

Interview with Charles N. Wheeler in ‘Chicago Tribune’ 25 May 1916

Any colour—so long as it’s black.

On the colour choice for the Model T Ford, in Allan Nevins ‘Ford’ (1957) vol. 2, ch. 15

What we call evil is simply ignorance bumping its head in the dark.

There’s a silver lining

Through the dark cloud shining; Turn the dark cloud inside out, Till the boys come Home.

‘‘Till the Boys Come Home!’ (1914 song; music by Ivor Novello)

6.59 Thomas Ford d. 1648

I did but see her passing by, And yet I love her till I die.

‘Music of Sundry Kinds’ (1607) ‘There is a Lady sweet and kind’

6.60 Howell Forgy 1908-83

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

Said at Pearl Harbour, 7 December 1941, as Forgy, a naval chaplain, moved along a line of sailors passing ammunition by hand to the deck, in ‘New York Times’ 1 November 1942. The words became the title of a song (1942) by Frank Loesser

6.61 E. M. Forster 1879-1970

Everything must be like something, so what is this like?

‘Abinger Harvest’ (1936) ‘Doll Souse’

American women shoot the hippopotamus with eyebrows made of platinum.

‘Abinger Harvest’ (1936) ‘Mickey and Minnie’.

[Public schoolboys] go forth into a world that is not entirely composed of public-school men or even of Anglo-Saxons, but of men who are as various as the sands of the sea; into a world of whose richness and subtlety they have no conception. They go forth into it with well-developed bodies, fairly developed minds, and undeveloped hearts.

‘Abinger Harvest’ (1936) ‘Notes on English Character’

It is not that the Englishman can’t feel—it is that he is afraid to feel. He has been taught at his public school that feeling is bad form. He must not express great joy or sorrow, or even open his mouth too wide when he talks—his pipe might fall out if he did.

‘Abinger Harvest’ (1936) ‘Notes on English Character’

Yes—oh dear yes—the novel tells a story.

‘Aspects of the Novel’ (1927) ch. 2

A dogged attempt to cover the universe with mud, an inverted Victorianism, an attempt to make crossness and dirt succeed where sweetness and light failed.

‘Aspects of the Novel’ (1927) ch. 6 (on James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’)

Railway termini. They are our gates to the glorious and the unknown.

Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return.

‘Howards End’ (1910) ch. 2

To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge; the poor cannot afford it.

‘Howards End’ (1910) ch. 5

She felt that those who prepared for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.

‘Howards End’ (1910) ch. 7

The poor cannot always reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly even escape from those whom they no longer love.

‘Howards End’ (1910) ch. 7

Certainly London fascinates...It lies beyond everything: Nature, with all her cruelty, comes nearer to us than do those crowds of men.

‘Howards End’ (1910) ch. 13

Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.

‘Howards End’ (1910) ch. 19

Only connect!...Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.

‘Howards End’ (1910) ch. 22

Death destroys a man: the idea of death saves him.

‘Howards End’ (1910) ch. 27

Of all means to regeneration Remorse is surely the most wasteful. It cuts away healthy tissue with the poisoned. It is a knife that probes far deeper than the evil.

‘Howards End’ (1910) ch. 41

It’s the worse thing that can ever happen to you in all your life, and you’ve got to mind it...

They’ll come saying, ‘Bear up—trust to time.’ No, no; they’re wrong. Mind it.

‘The Longest Journey’ (1907) ch. 5

There is much good luck in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us safe. We are children, playing or quarrelling on the line.

‘The Longest Journey’ (1907) ch. 12

Very notable was his distinction between coarseness and vulgarity (coarseness, revealing something; vulgarity, concealing something).

‘The Longest Journey’ (1907) ch. 26

The so-called white races are really pinko-grey.

‘A Passage to India’ (1924) ch. 7

Nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge in something else.

‘A Passage to India’ (1924) ch. 8

Hope, politeness, the blowing of a nose, the squeak of a boot, all produce ‘boum’.

‘A Passage to India’ (1924) ch. 14

Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence.

‘A Passage to India’ (1924) ch. 14

Pathos, piety, courage—they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing

has value.

‘A Passage to India’ (1924) ch. 14

Where there is officialism every human relationship suffers.

‘A Passage to India’ (1924) ch. 24

Like all gossip—it’s merely one of those half-alive things that try to crowd out real life.

‘A Passage to India’ (1924) ch. 31

God si Love. Is this the final message of India?

‘A Passage to India’ (1924) ch. 33

Think before you speak is criticism’s motto; speak before you think creation’s.

‘Two Cheers for Democracy’ (1951) ‘Raison d’être of Criticism’

If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.

‘Two Cheers for Democracy’ (1951) ‘What I Believe’

So Two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite enough: there is no occasion to give three. Only Love the Beloved Republic deserves that.

‘Two Cheers for Democracy’ (1951) ‘What I Believe’; ‘Love, the beloved republic’ is borrowed from Swinburne’s poem ‘Hertha’

6.62 Harry Emerson Fosdick 1878-1969

I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatred it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in the place of democracy, for the starvation that stalks after it.

Sermon in New York on Armistice Day 1933, in ‘The Secret of Victorious Living’ (1934) p. 97

6.63 Charles Foster 1828-1904

Isn’t this a billion dollar country?

At the 51st Congress, responding to a Democratic gibe about a ‘million dollar Congress’; also attributed to Thomas B. Reed, who reported the exchange in ‘The North American Review’ March 1892, vol. 154, p. 319

6.64 Sir George Foster 1847-1931

In these somewhat troublesome days when the great Mother Empire stands splendidly isolated in Europe.

In the Canadian House of Commons, 16 January 1896, in ‘Official Report of the Debates of the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada’ (1896) vol. 41, col. 176. On 22 January 1896, ‘The Times’ referred to this speech under the heading ‘Splendid Isolation’

6.65 John Foster 1770-1843

But the two classes [the educated and the uneducated] so beheld in contrast, might they not seem to belong to two different nations?

‘Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance’ (1820) p. 277.