Stick close to your desks and never go to sea, And you all may be Rulers of the Queen’s Navee!
‘H. M. S. Pinafore’ (1878) act 1
Things are seldom what they seem, Skim milk masquerades as cream.
‘H. M. S. Pinafore’ (1878) act 2
He is an Englishman! For he himself has said it,
And it’s greatly to his credit, That he is an Englishman!
‘H. M. S. Pinafore’ (1878) act 2
For he might have been a Roosian, A French, or Turk, or Proosian, Or perhaps Ital-ian!
But in spite of all temptations To belong to other nations, He remains an Englishman!
‘H. M. S. Pinafore’ (1878) act 2
The other, upper crust, A regular patrician.
‘H. M. S. Pinafore’ (1878) act 2
It is, it is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King.
‘The Pirates of Penzance’ (1879) act 1
The question is, had he not been A thing of beauty,
Would she be swayed by quite as keen A sense of duty?
‘The Pirates of Penzance’ (1879) act 1
I’m very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
‘The Pirates of Penzance’ (1879) act 1
About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot of news, With many cheerful facts about the square on the hypotenuse.
‘The Pirates of Penzance’ (1879) act 1
When constabulary duty’s to be done, A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.
‘The Pirates of Penzance’ (1879) act 2
They are no members of the common throng; They are all noblemen who have gone wrong!
‘The Pirates of Penzance’ (1879) act 2
No Englishman unmoved that statement hears, Because, with all our faults, we love our House of Peers.
‘The Pirates of Penzance’ (1879) act 2
To everybody’s prejudice I know a thing or two;
I can tell a woman’s age in half a minute—and I do!
‘Princess Ida’ (1884) act 1
Man is Nature’s sole mistake!
‘Princess Ida’ (1884) act 2
You must stir it and stump it, And blow your own trumpet,
Or trust me, you haven’t a chance.
‘Ruddigore’ (1887) act 1
He combines the manners of a Marquis with the morals of a Methodist.
‘Ruddigore’ (1887) act 1
If a man can’t forge his own will, whose will can he forge?
‘Ruddigore’ (1887) act 2
Some word that teems with hidden meaning—like Basingstoke.
‘Ruddigore’ (1887) act 2
This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn’t generally heard, and if it is it doesn’t matter.
‘Ruddigore’ (1887) act 2
I was a pale young curate then.
‘The Sorcerer’ (1877) act 1
So I fell in love with a rich attorney’s Elderly ugly daughter.
‘Trial by Jury’ (1875)
She may very well pass for forty-three In the dusk with a light behind her!
‘Trial by Jury’ (1875)
It’s a song of a merryman, moping mum,
Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum, Who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb, As he sighed for the love of a ladye.
‘The Yeoman of the Guard’ (1888) act 1
’Tis ever thus with simple folk—an accepted wit has but to say ‘Pass the mustard’, and they roar their ribs out!
‘The Yeoman of the Guard’ (1888) act 2
7.45 Eric Gill 1882-1940
That state is a state of slavery in which a man does what he likes to do in his spare time and in his working time that which is required of him.
‘Art-nonsense and Other Essays’ (1929) ‘Slavery and Freedom’.
7.46 Terry Gilliam 1940—
See Graham Chapman et al. (3.74)
7.47 Allen Ginsberg 1926—
What if someone gave a war & Nobody came?
Life would ring the bells of Ecstasy and Forever be Itself again.
‘Graffiti’ (1972).
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.
‘Howl’ (1956) p. 9
7.48 George Gipp d. 1920
Win just one for the Gipper.
Catch-phrase associated with Ronald Reagan, who uttered the immortal words in the 1940 film ‘Knute Rockne, All American’. Knut Rockne ‘Gipp the Great’ in ‘Collier’s’ 22 November 1930
7.49 Jean Giraudoux 1882-1944
As soon as war is declared it will be impossible to hold the poets back. Rhyme is still the most effective drum.
‘La Guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu’ (1935; translated as ‘Tiger at the Gates’ by Christopher Fry, 1955) act 1
Nous savons tous ici que le droit est la plus puissante des ècoles de l’imagination. Jamais poéte n’a interprètè la nature aussi librement qu’un juriste la rèalitè.
We all know here that the law is the most powerful of schools for the imagination. No poet
ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets the truth.
‘La Guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu’ (1935; translated as ‘Tiger at the Gates’ by Christopher Fry, 1955) act 2, sc. 5
7.50 W. E. Gladstone 1809-98
You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side.
Speech on the Reform Bill, 1866
[The Turks] one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned.
House of Commons, 7 May 1877
The resources of civilization are not yet exhausted.
Speech on the state of Ireland, at Leeds, 7 October 1881, in Henry W. Lucy (ed.) ‘Speeches of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone’ (1885) p. 57
It is perfectly true that these gentlemen wish to march through rapine to disintegration and dismemberment of the Empire, and, I am sorry to say, even to the placing of different parts of the Empire in direct hostility one with the other.
Referring to the Irish Land League in a speech at Knowsley, 27 October 1881, in ‘The Times’, 28 October 1881
I would tell them of my own intention to keep my own counsel...and I will venture to recommend them, as an old Parliamentary hand, to do the same.
House of Commons, 21 January 1886
All the world over, I will back the masses against the classes.
Speech at Liverpool, 28 June 1886, in ‘The Times’ 29 June, 1886
This is the negation of God erected into a system of Government.
‘A Letter to the Earl of Aberdeen on the State Prosecutions of the Neapolitan Government’ (1851) p. 9n.
We are bound to lose Ireland in consequence of years of cruelty, stupidity and misgovernment and I would rather lose her as a friend than as a foe.
In Margot Asquith ‘More Memories’ (1933) ch. 8
It is not a life at all. It is a Reticence, in three volumes.
On J. W. Cross’s ‘Life of George Eliot’ in E. F. Benson ‘As We Were’ (1930) ch. 6
I absorb the vapour and return it as a flood.
In Lord Riddell ‘Some Things That Matter’ (1927 ed.) p. 69 (on public speaking)
7.51 Hannah Glasse fl. 1747
Take your hare when it is cased...
‘The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy’ (1747) ch. 1 (Cased skinned), the proverbial ‘First catch your hare’, recorded since c.1300, has frequently been misattributed to Hannah Glasse
In Henry Best ‘Personal and Literary Memorials’ (1829) p. 68; also attributed to the Duke of Cumberland and King George III; see D. M. Low ‘Edward Gibbon’ (1937) p. 315
7.53 Jean-Luc Godard 1930—
La photographie, c’est la vèritè. Le cinèma: la vèritè vingt-quatre fois par seconde.
Photography is truth. The cinema is truth 24 times per second.
‘Le Petit Soldat’ (1960 film)
‘Movies should have a beginning, a middle and an end,’ harrumphed French film maker Georges Franju...’Certainly,’ replied Jean-Luc Godard. ‘But not necessarily in that order.’
‘Time’ 14 September 1981
7.54 A. D. Godley 1856-1925
Great and good is the typical Don, and of evil and wrong the foe, Good, and great, I’m a Don myself, and therefore I ought to know.
‘The Megalopsychiad’
What is this that roareth thus? Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum Indicat Motorem Bum!...
How shall wretches live like us Cincti Bis Motoribus? Domine, defende nos
Contra hos Motores Bos!
Letter to C. R. L. Fletcher, 10 January 1914, in ‘Reliquiae’ (1926) vol. 1, p. 292
7.55 Sidney Godolphin 1610-43
Or love me less, or love me more And play not with my liberty; Either take all, or all restore, Bind me at least, or set me free.
‘Song’
7.56 William Godwin 1756-1836
Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
‘An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Political Justice’ (1793) bk. 1, ch. 2
The illustrious bishop of Cambrai was of more worth than his chambermaid, and there are few of us that would hesitate to pronounce, if his palace were in flames, and the life of only one of them could be preserved, which of the two ought to be preferred.
‘An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Political Justice’ (1793) bk. 2, ch. 2
Love of our country is another of those specious illusions, which have been invented by impostors in order to render the multitude the blind instruments of their crooked designs.
‘An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Political Justice’ (1793) bk. 5, ch. 16
It is a most mistaken way of teaching men to feel they are brothers, by imbuing their mind with perpetual hatred.
‘An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Political Justice’ (1793) bk. 5, ch. 18 (on the subject of war)
What...can be more shameless than for society to make an example of those whom she has goaded to the breach of order, instead of amending her own institutions which, by straining order into tyranny, produced the mischief?
‘An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Political Justice’ (1793) bk. 7, ch. 3 (on the penal laws)
7.57 Joseph Goebbels 1897-1945
Ohne Butter werden wir fertig, aber nicht beispielsweise ohne Kanonen. Wenn wir einmal überfallen werden, dann können wir uns nicht mit Butter, sondern nur mit Kanonen verteidigen.
We can manage without butter but not, for example, without guns. If we are attacked we can
only defend ourselves with arms not with butter.
Speech in Berlin, 17 January 1936, in ‘Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung’ 18 January 1936.
7.58 Hermann Goering 1893-1946
We have no butter...but I ask you—would you rather have butter or guns?...preparedness makes us powerful. Butter merely makes us fat.
Speech at Hamburg, 1936, in W. Frischauer ‘Goering’ (1951) ch. 10.
I herewith commission you to carry out all preparations with regard to...a total solution of the Jewish question in those territories of Europe which are under German influence.
Instructions to Heydrich, 31 July 1941, in W. L. Shirer ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’ bk. 5, ch. 27
Shoot first and inquire afterwards, and if you make mistakes, I will protect you.
xxx
7.59 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749-1832
Es irrt der Mensch, so lang er strebt.
Man is in error throughout his strife.
‘Faust’ pt. 1 (1808) ‘Prolog im Himmel’
Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust.
Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast.
‘Faust’ pt. 1 (1808) ‘Vor dem Thor’
Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint.
I am the spirit that always denies.
‘Faust’ pt. 1 (1808) ‘Studierzimmer’
Entbehren sollst Du! sollst entbehren! Das ist der ewige Gesang.
Deny yourself! You must deny yourself!
That is the song that never ends.
‘Faust’ pt. 1 (1808) ‘Studierzimmer’
Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie Und grün des Lebens goldner Baum.
All theory, dear friend, is grey, but the golden tree of actual life springs ever green.
‘Faust’ pt. 1 (1808) ‘Studierzimmer’
Meine Ruh’ ist hin, Mein Herz ist schwer.
My peace is gone,
My heart is heavy.
‘Faust’ pt. 1 (1808) ‘Gretchen am Spinnrad’
Die Tat ist alles, nichts der Ruhm.
The deed is all, and not the glory.
‘Faust’ pt. 2 (1832) ‘Hochgebirg’
Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan.
Eternal Woman draws us upward.
‘Faust’ pt. 2 (1832) ‘Hochgebirg’ last line
Du musst herrschen und gewinnen, Oder dienen und verlieren,
Leiden oder triumphieren Amboss oder Hammer sein.
You must be master and win, or serve and lose, grieve or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer.
‘Der Gross-Cophta’ (1791) act 2
Wenn es eine Freude ist das Gute zu geniessen, so ist es eine grössere das Bessere zu empfinden, und in der Kunst ist das Beste gut genug.
Since it is a joy to have the benefit of what is good, it is a greater one to experience what is
better, and in art the best is good enough.
‘Italienische Reise’ (1816-17) 3 March 1787
Der Aberglaube ist die Poesie des Lebens.
Superstition is the poetry of life.
‘Sprüche in Prosa’ (1819) 3
Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
‘Torquato Tasso’ (1790) act 1, sc. 2
Die Wahlverwandtschaften.
Elective affinities.
Title of novel (1809)
Über allen Gipfeln Ist Ruh’.
Over all the mountain tops is peace.
‘Wanderers Nachtlied’ (1821)
Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen ass, Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte Auf seinem Bette weinend sass,
Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn? Im dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn, Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht, Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht— Kennst du es wohl?
Dahin! Dahin!
Möcht ich mit dir, o mein Geliebter, ziehn!
Know you the land where the lemon-trees bloom? In the dark foliage the gold oranges glow; a soft wind hovers from the sky, the myrtle is still and the laurel stands tall—do you know it well?
There, there, I would go, O my beloved, with thee!
Im übrigen aber ist es zulezt die grösste Kunst, sich zu beschränken und zu isoliren.
For the rest of it, the last and greatest art is to limit and isolate oneself.
Johann Peter Eckermann ‘Gespräche mit Goethe’ (Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann, 1836-48), 20 April 1825
Ich kenne mich auch nicht und Gott soll mich auch davor behüten.
I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.
Johann Peter Eckermann ‘Gespräche mit Goethe’ (Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann, 1836-48), 10 April 1829.
Mehr Licht!
More light!
Attributed dying words. (Actually: ‘Macht doch den zweiten Fensterladen auch auf, damit mehr Licht hereinkomme’: ‘Open the second shutter, so that more light can come in.’)
Ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast.
Without haste, but without rest.
Motto
7.60 Isaac Goldberg 1887-1938
Diplomacy is to do and say
The nastiest thing in the nicest way.
‘The Reflex’ October 1927, p. 77
7.61 Emma Goldman 1869-1940
Anarchism, then, really, stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraints of government.
‘Anarchism and Other Essays’ (1910) p. 68
7.62 Oliver Goldsmith 1730-74
Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 1
Ill fares the land, to hast’ning ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied. A time there was, ere England’s griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintained its man; For him light labour spread her wholesome store, Just gave what life required, but gave no more; His best companions, innocence and health; And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 51
How happy he who crowns in shades like these, A youth of labour with an age of ease.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 99
The watchdog’s voice that bayed the whisp’ring wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 121.
A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year; Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e’er had changed nor wished to change his place.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 141
He chid their wand’rings, but relieved their pain.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 150
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 179
A man severe he was, and stern to view; I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day’s disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee, At all his jokes, for many a joke had he.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 197
The village all declared how much he knew; ’Twas certain he could write and cypher too.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 207
In arguing too, the parson owned his skill,
For e’en though vanquished, he could argue still; While words of learned length, and thund’ring sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around,
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, That one small head could carry all he knew.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 211
The white-washed wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnished clock that clicked behind the door; The chest contrived a double debt to pay,
A bed at night, a chest of drawers by day.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 227
How wide the limits stand Between a splendid and a happy land.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 267
In all the silent manliness of grief.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 384
I see the rural virtues leave the land.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 398
Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe, That found’st me poor at first, and keep’st me so.
‘The Deserted Village’ (1770) l. 413 (on poetry)
Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long.
‘Edwin and Angelina, or the Hermit’ (1766).
The doctor found, when she was dead,— Her last disorder mortal.
‘Elegy on Mrs Mary Blaize’
The naked every day he clad, When he put on his clothes.
‘Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog’
The dog, to gain some private ends, Went mad and bit the man.
‘Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog’
The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that died.
