The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

I want you to see Peel, Stanley, Graham, Shiel, Russell, Macaulay, Old Joe, and so on. These men are all upper crust here.

‘The Attachè or Sam Slick in England’ (1843-4) ch. 24

8.13 George Savile, Marquis of Halifax 1633-95

Love is a passion that hath friends in the garrison.

‘Advice to a Daughter’ (1688) ‘Behaviour and Conversation’

The best way to suppose what may come, is to remember what is past.

‘Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections’ (1750) ‘Miscellaneous: Experience’

Anger is never without an argument, but seldom with a good one.

‘Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections’ (1750) ‘Of Anger’

Most men make little other use of their speech than to give evidence against their own understanding.

‘Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections’ (1750) ‘Of Folly and Fools’

There is...no fundamental, but that every supreme power must be arbitrary.

‘Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections’ (1750) ‘Of Fundamentals’

Malice is of a low stature, but it hath very long arms.

‘Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections’ (1750) ‘Of Malice and Envy’

When the people contend for their liberty, they seldom get anything by their victory but new masters.

‘Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections’ (1750) ‘Of Prerogative, Power and Liberty’

Power is so apt to be insolent and Liberty to be saucy, that they are very seldom upon good terms.

‘Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections’ (1750) ‘Of Prerogative, Power and Liberty’

Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.

‘Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections’ (1750) ‘Of Punishment’

To the question, What shall we do to be saved in this World? there is no other answer but this, Look to your Moat.

‘A Rough Draft of a New Model at Sea’ (1694) p. 4

Lord Rochester was made Lord president: which being a post superior in rank, but much inferior both in advantage and credit to that he held formerly, drew a jest from Lord Halifax...he said, that he had heard of many kicked down stairs, but never of any that was kicked up stairs before.

Gilbert Burnet ‘History of His Own Time’ (written 1683-6) vol. 1 (1724) p. 592

8.14 Joseph Hall 1574-1656

I first adventure, follow me who list And be the second English satirist.

‘Virgidemiae’ (1597) prologue

Perfection is the child of Time.

‘Works’ (1625) p. 670

8.15 Fitz-Greene Halleck 1790-1867

They love their land because it is their own, And scorn to give aught other reason why; Would shake hands with a king upon his throne, And think it kindness to his Majesty.

‘Connecticut’

Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days!

None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise.

‘On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake’

8.16 Friedrich Halm (Eligius Francis Joseph, Baron von Münch-Bellinghausen) 1806-71

Mein Herz ich will dich fragen: Was ist denn Liebe? Sag’!— ‘Zwei Seelen und ein Gedanke, Zwei Herzen und ein Schlag!’

What love is, if thou wouldst be taught, Thy heart must teach alone—

Two souls with but a single thought,

Two hearts that beat as one.

‘Der Sohn der Wildniss’ (1842) act 2 ad fin. (translated by Maria Lovell in Ingomar the Barbarian)

8.17 Margaret Halsey 1910—

The English never smash in a face. They merely refrain from asking it to dinner.

‘With Malice Toward Some’ (1938) pt. 3, p. 208

8.18 Admiral W. F. (‘Bull’) Halsey 1882-1959

The Third Fleet’s sunken and damaged ships have been salvaged and are retiring at high speed toward the enemy.

Report, 14 October 1944, on hearing claims that the Japanese had virtually annihilated the US fleet, in E. B. Potter ‘Bull Halsey’ (1985) ch. 17

8.19 Alex Hamilton 1936—

Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.

‘Born Old’ (radio broadcast), in ‘Listener’ 9 November 1978

8.20 Alexander Hamilton c.1755-1804

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.

Letter to Robert Morris, 30 April 1781, in John C. Hamilton (ed.) ‘The Works of Alexander Hamilton’ vol. 1 (1850) p. 257

8.21 Gail Hamilton (Mary A. Dodge) 1833-96

The total depravity of inanimate things.

Epigram

8.22 Sir William Hamilton 1788-1856

Truth, like a torch, the more it’s shook it shines.

‘Discussions on Philosophy’ (1852) title page, epigram

On earth there is nothing great but man; in man there is nothing great but mind.

‘Lectures on Metaphysics’ (1859-60)

8.23 Oscar Hammerstein II 1895-1960

The last time I saw Paris Her heart was warm and gay,

I heard the laughter of her heart in ev’ry street cafè.

‘The Last Time I saw Paris’ (from ‘Lady, be Good’, 1941); music by Jerome Kern

The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye,

An’ it looks like it’s climbin’ clear up to the sky.

‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’’ (from ‘Oklahoma’, 1943); music by Richard Rodgers

Ol’ man river, dat ol’ man river,

He must know sumpin’, but don’t say nothin’, He just keeps rollin’,

He keeps on rollin’ along.

‘Ol’ Man River’ (from ‘Show Boat’, 1927); music by Jerome Kern

Some enchanted evening, You may see a stranger...

Across a crowded room.

‘Some Enchanted Evening’ (from ‘South Pacific’, 1949); music by Richard Rodgers

You’ll never walk alone.

Title of song from ‘Carousel’ (1945); music by Richard Rodgers

8.24 Christopher Hampton 1946—

A definition of capitalism...the process whereby American girls turn into American women.

‘Savages’ (1974) sc. 16

8.25 John Hancock 1737-93

There, I guess King George will be able to read that.

On signing the Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776

8.26 Learned Hand 1872-1961

A self-made man may prefer a self-made name.

On Samuel Goldfish changing his name to Samuel Goldwyn, in Bosley Crowther ‘Lion’s Share’ (1957) ch. 7

8.27 Minnie Hanff 1880-1942

High o’er the fence leaps Sunny Jim ‘Force’ is the food that raises him.

Advertising slogan for breakfast cereal (1903)

8.28 Brian Hanrahan 1949—

I counted them all out and I counted them all back.

On the number of British aeroplanes (which he was not permitted to disclose) joining the raid on Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands: BBC broadcast report, 1 May 1982, in ‘Battle for the Falklands’ (1982) p. 21

8.29 Edmond Haraucourt 1856-1941

Partir c’est mourir un peu, C’est mourir á ce qu’on aime: On laisse un peu de soi-même En toute heure et dans tout lieu.

To go away is to die a little, it is to die to that which one loves: everywhere and always, one

leaves behind a part of oneself.

‘Seul’ (1891) ‘Rondel de l’Adieu’

8.30 Otto Harbach 1873-1963

When a lovely flame dies, Smoke gets in your eyes.

‘Smoke Gets in your Eyes’ (1933 song; music by Jerome Kern)

8.31 E. Y. (‘Yip’) Harburg 1898-1981

Brother can you spare a dime.

Title of song (1932)

Say, it’s only a paper moon, Sailing over a cardboard sea.

‘It’s Only a Paper Moon’ (1933 song; music by Harold Arlen)

Somewhere over the rainbow Way up high,

There’s a land that I heard of Once in a lullaby.

‘Over the Rainbow’ (1939 song; music by Harold Arlen)

8.32 Keir Hardie 1856-1915

From his childhood onward this boy [the future Edward VIII] will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers by the score—[Cries of ‘Oh, oh!’]—and will be taught to believe himself as of a superior creation. [Cries of ‘Oh, oh!’] A line will be drawn between him and the people whom he is to be called upon some day to reign over. In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour round the world, and probably rumours of a morganatic alliance will follow—[Loud cries of ‘Oh, oh!’ and ‘Order!’]—and the end of it all will be that the country will be called upon to pay the bill. [Cries of Divide!]

Speech, ‘Hansard’ 28 June 1894, col. 463

8.33 Sir William Harcourt 1827-1904

We are all socialists now.

During the passage of the 1894 budget, which equalized death duties on real and personal property: attributed. G. B. Shaw (ed.) ‘Essays in Socialism’ (1889) p. 209

8.34 Warren G. Harding 1865-1923

America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration.

Speech at Boston, 14 May 1920, in Frederick E. Schortemeier ‘Rededicating America’ (1920) ch. 17

8.35 Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke 1690-1764

His doubts are better than most people’s certainties.

On ‘Dirleton’s Doubts’, in James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1934 ed.) vol. 3, p. 205

8.36 Godfrey Harold Hardy 1877-1947

Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.

‘A Mathematician’s Apology’ (1940) p. 25

8.37 Thomas Hardy 1840-1928

A local thing called Christianity.

‘The Dynasts’ (1904) pt. 1, act 1, sc. 6

War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.

‘The Dynasts’ (1904) pt. 1, act 2, sc. 5

It is hard for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.

‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ (1874) ch. 81

A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all.

‘The Hand of Ethelberta’ (1876) ch. 20

Done because we are too menny.

‘Jude the Obscure’ (1896) pt. 6, ch. 2

One grievous failing of Elizabeth’s was her occasional pretty and picturesque use of dialect

words—those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel.

‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ (1886) ch. 20

She whose youth had seemed to teach that happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.

‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ (1886) ch. 45, closing words

It was at present a place perfectly accordant with man’s nature—neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly: neither commonplace, unmeaning, nor tame; but, like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularity colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony. As with some persons who have long lived a past, solitude seemed to look out of its countenance. It had a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities.

‘The Return of the Native’ (1878) bk. 1, ch. 1 (Egdon Heath)

Human beings, in their generous endeavour to construct a hypothesis that shall not degrade a First Cause, have always hesitated to conceive a dominant power of a lower moral quality than their own.

‘The Return of the Native’ (1878) bk. 6, ch. 1

A novel is an impression, not an argument.

‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ (5th ed., 189?) preface

She had been made to break an accepted social law, but no law known to the environment in which she fancied herself such an anomaly.

‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ (1891) ch. 14

The two forces were at work here as everywhere, the inherent will to enjoy, and the circumstantial will against enjoyment.

‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ (1891) ch. 43

‘Justice’ was done, and the President of the Immortals (in Aeschylean phrase) had ended his sport with Tess.

‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ (1891) ch. 59

Good, but not religious-good.

‘Under the Greenwood Tree’ (1872) ch. 2

It was one of those sequestered spots outside the gates of the world...where, from time to time, dramas of a grandeur and unity truly Sophoclean are enacted in the real, by virtue of the concentrated passions and closely knit interdependence of the lives therein.

‘The Woodlanders’ (1887) ch. 1

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,

‘He was a man who used to notice such things’?

‘Afterwards’ (1917)

The bower we shrined to Tennyson, Gentlemen,

Is roof-wrecked; damps there drip upon

Sagged seats, the creeper-nails are rust, The spider is sole denizen;

Even she who voiced those rhymes is dust, Gentlemen!

‘An Ancient to Ancients’ (1922)

‘Peace upon earth!’ was said. We sing it, And pay a million priests to bring it. After two thousand years of mass We’ve got as far as poison-gas.

‘Christmas: 1924’ (1928)

In a solitude of the sea Deep from human vanity,

And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

Steel chambers, late the pyres Of her salamandrine fires,

Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

Over the mirrors meant To glass the opulent

The sea-worm crawls—grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

‘Convergence of the Twain’ (1914)

The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything.

‘Convergence of the Twain’ (1914)

At once a voice outburst among The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carollings

Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

And I was unaware.

‘The Darkling Thrush’ (1902)

‘In Time of “The Breaking of Nations”’ (1917)

Let me enjoy the earth no less Because the all-enacting Might That fashioned forth its loveliness Had other aims than my delight.

‘Let me Enjoy’ (1909)

Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down

You’d treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown.

‘The Man he Killed’ (1909)

What of the faith and fire within us Men who march away

Ere the barn-cocks say Night is growing grey,

To hazards whence no tears can win us; What of the faith and fire within us Men who march away?

‘Men Who March Away’ (1914)

In the third-class seat sat the journeying boy And the roof-lamp’s oily flame

Played down on his listless form and face, Bewrapt past knowing to what he was going, Or whence he came.

‘Midnight on the Great Western’ (1917)

When I set out for Lyonnesse, A hundred miles away,

The rime was on the spray,

And starlight lit my lonesomeness When I set out for Lyonnesse

A hundred miles away.

‘When I set out for Lyonnesse’ (1870)

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me, Saying that now you are not as you were

When you had changed from the one who was all to me, But as at first, when our day was fair.

‘The Voice’

This is the weather the cuckoo likes, And so do I;

When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,

And nestlings fly:

And the little brown nightingale bills his best, And they sit outside at ‘The Travellers’ Rest’, And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest, And citizens dream of the south and west, And so do I.

‘Weathers’ (1922)

And meadow rivulets overflow,

And drops on gate-bars hang in a row, And rooks in families homeward go, And so do I.

‘Weathers’ (1922)

8.38 Julius Hare 1795-1855 and Augustus Hare 1792-1834

The ancients dreaded death: the Christian can only fear dying.

‘Guesses at Truth’ (1827) series 1, p. 8

Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one’s horse as he is leaping.

‘Guesses at Truth’ (1827) series 1, p. 137

Truth, when witty, is the wittiest of all things.

‘Guesses at Truth’ (3rd ed., 1847) series 1, p. 339

8.39 Maurice Evan Hare 1886-1967

There once was an old man who said, ‘Damn! It is borne in upon me I am

An engine that moves In determinate grooves,

I’m not even a bus, I’m a tram.’

‘Limerick’ (1905)

8.40 W. F. Hargreaves 1846-1919

I’m Burlington Bertie

I rise at ten thirty and saunter along like a toff,

I walk down the Strand with my gloves on my hand, Then I walk down again with them off.

‘Burlington Bertie from Bow’ (1915 song)

I acted so tragic the house rose like magic, The audience yelled ‘You’re sublime.’

They made me a present of Mornington Crescent They threw it a brick at a time.

‘The Night I Appeared as Macbeth’ (1922 song)