I would my guests should praise it, not the cooks.
‘Epigrams’ (1618) bk. 1, no. 5 ‘Against Writers that Carp at Other Men’s Books’
Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
‘Epigrams’ (1618) bk. 4, no. 5 ‘Of Treason’
8.42 Lord Harlech (David Ormsby Gore) 1918-85
Britain will be honoured by historians more for the way she disposed of an empire than for the way in which she acquired it.
In ‘New York Times’ 28 October 1962 sect. 4, p. 11
8.43 Harold of England 1022-66
He will give him seven feet of English ground, or as much more as he may be taller than other men.
His offer to Harald Sigurdson, invading England: ‘King Harald’s Saga’ sect. 91, in Snorri Sturluson ‘Heimskringla’ (c.1260, first translated by Samuel Laing as ‘History of the Norse Kings’, 1844)
8.44 Jimmy Harper, Will E. Haines, and Tommie Connor
The biggest aspidistra in the world.
Title of song (1938; popularized by Gracie Fields)
8.45 Joel Chandler Harris 1848-1908
W’en folks git ole en strucken wid de palsy, dey mus speck ter be laff’d at.
‘Nights with Uncle Remus’ (1883) ch. 23
Hit look lak sparrer-grass, hit feel like sparrer-grass, hit tas’e lak sparrer-grass, en I bless ef ’taint sparrer-grass.
‘Nights with Uncle Remus’ (1883) ch. 27
All by my own-alone self.
‘Nights with Uncle Remus’ (1883) ch. 36
We er sorter po’ly, Sis Tempy, I’m ’blige ter you. You know w’at de jay-bird say ter der squinch-owl! ‘I’m sickly but sassy.’
‘Nights with Uncle Remus’ (1883) ch. 50
Lounjun ’roun’ en suffer’n’.
‘Uncle Remus and His Legends of the Old Plantation’ (1881) ‘Mr Wolf tackles Old Man Tarrypin’’
Tar-baby ain’t sayin’ nuthin’, en Brer Fox, he lay low.
‘Uncle Remus and His Legends of the Old Plantation’ (1881) ‘The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story’
Bred en bawn in a brier-patch!
‘Uncle Remus and His Legends of the Old Plantation’ (1881) ‘The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story’
Licker talks mighty loud w’en it git loose fum de jug.
‘Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings’ (1880) ‘Plantation Proverbs’
Hongry rooster don’t cackle w’en he fine a wum.
‘Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings’ (1880) ‘Plantation Proverbs’
Oh, whar shill we go w’en de great day comes,
Wid de blowin’ er de trumpits en de bangin’ er de drums? How many po’ sinners’ll be kotched out late
En fine no latch ter de golden gate?
‘Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings’ (1880) ‘Revival Hymn’
8.46 Lorenz Hart 1895-1943
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered.
Title of song (1941; music by Richard Rodgers)
When love congeals It soon reveals
The faint aroma of performing seals, The double crossing of a pair of heels. I wish I were in love again!
‘I Wish I Were in Love Again’ (1937 song; music by Richard Rodgers)
I get too hungry for dinner at eight.
I like the theatre, but never come late. I never bother with people I hate. That’s why the lady is a tramp.
‘The Lady is a Tramp’ (1937 song; music by Richard Rodgers)
In a mountain greenery
Where God paints the scenery— Just two crazy people together; While you love your lover, let Blue skies be your coverlet—
When it rains we’ll laugh at the weather.
‘Mountain Greenery’ (1926 song; music by Richard Rodgers)
8.47 Bret Harte 1836-1902
And on that grave where English oak and holly And laurel wreaths entwine
Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,— This spray of Western pine!
‘Dickens in Camp’
Thar ain’t no sense In gittin’ riled!
‘Jim’
If, of all words of tongue and pen, The saddest are, ‘It might have been,’ More sad are these we daily see:
‘It is, but hadn’t ought to be!’
‘Mrs Judge Jenkins.’
Which I wish to remark, And my language is plain, That for ways that are dark And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.
‘The Heathen Chinee: Plain Language from Truthful James’ (1870)
I reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James; I am not up to small deceit, or any sinful games.
‘The Society upon the Stanislaus’ st. 1
And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor, And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.
‘The Society upon the Stanislaus’ st. 7
8.48 L. P. Hartley 1895-1972
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.
‘The Go-Between’ (1953) prologue.
8.49 F. W. Harvey b. 1888
From troubles of the world I turn to ducks
Beautiful comical things.
‘Ducks’ (1919)
8.50 Minnie Louise Haskins 1875-1957
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’
‘Desert’ (1908) ‘God Knows’; quoted by King George VI in his Christmas broadcast, 25 December 1939
8.51 Stephen Hawes d. c.1523
When the lytle byrdes swetely dyd syng Laudes to their maker early in the mornyng.
‘The Passetyme of Pleasure’ (1509) ch. 33, st. 33
For though the day be never so longe,
At last the belles ryngeth to evensonge.
‘The Passetyme of Pleasure’ (1509) ch. 42, st. 10
8.52 Lord Haw-Haw
See William Joyce (10.52)
8.53 R. S. Hawker 1803-75
And have they fixed the where and when? And shall Trelawny die?
Here’s twenty thousand Cornish men Will know the reason why!
‘The Song of the Western Men’; the last three lines have existed since the imprisonment by James II, in 1688, of the seven Bishops, including Trelawny, Bishop of Bristol
8.54 Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804-64
Dr Johnson’s morality was as English an article as a beefsteak.
‘Our Old Home’ (1863) ‘Lichfield and Uttoxeter’
8.55 Ian Hay (John Hay Beith) 1876-1952
What do you mean, funny? Funny-peculiar or funny ha-ha?
‘The Housemaster’ (1938) act 3
8.56 J. Milton Hayes 1884-1940
There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu, There’s a little marble cross below the town,
There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew, And the Yellow God forever gazes down.
‘The Green Eye of the Yellow God’ (1911)
8.57 Eliza Haywood c.1693-1756
One has no sooner left off one’s bib and apron, than people cry—’Miss will soon be married!’—and this man, and that man, is presently picked out for a husband. Mighty ridiculous! they want to deprive us of all the pleasures of life, just when one begins to have a relish for them.
‘The History of Miss Betty Thoughtless’ (1751) p. 452 in the Pandora ed., 1986
8.58 William Hazlitt 1778-1830
His sayings are generally like women’s letters; all the pith is in the postscript.
Referring to Charles Lamb in ‘Conversations of Northcote.’ (Boswell Redivivus, 1826-27)
He talked on for ever; and you wished him to talk on for ever.
‘Lectures on the English Poets’ (1818) ‘On the Living Poets’ (on Coleridge)
So have I loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing,
thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy, but wanting that have wanted everything.
‘Literary Remains’ (1836) ‘My First Acquaintance with Poets’
No young man believes he shall ever die.
‘Literary Remains’ (1836) ‘On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth’
The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.
‘The Plain Speaker’ (1826) ‘On the Pleasure of Hating’
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
‘Political Essays’ (1819) ‘“The Times” Newspaper’
There is nothing good to be had in the country, or if there is, they will not let you have it.
But of all footmen the lowest class is literary footmen.
‘Sketches and Essays’ (1839) ‘Footmen’
A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man.
‘Sketches and Essays’ (1839) ‘Nicknames’
The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it.
‘Sketches and Essays’ (1839) ‘On Cant and Hypocrisy’
There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.
‘Sketches and Essays’ (1839) ‘On Disagreeable People’
Rules and models destroy genius and art.
‘Sketches and Essays’ (1839) ‘On Taste’
Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization.
‘The Spirit of the Age’ (1825) ‘Lord Byron’
The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and doat in past achievement.
‘The Spirit of the Age’ (1825) ‘Mr Coleridge’
He writes as fast as they can read, and he does not write himself down...His worst is better than any other person’s best...His works (taken together) are almost like a new edition of human nature. This is indeed to be an author!
‘The Spirit of the Age’ (1825) ‘Sir Walter Scott’
Mr Wordsworth’s genius is a pure emanation of the Spirit of the Age. Had he lived in any other period of the world, he would never have been heard of.
‘The Spirit of the Age’ (1825) ‘Mr Wordsworth’
You will hear more good things on the outside of a stagecoach from London to Oxford than if you were to pass a twelvemonth with the undergraduates, or heads of colleges, of that famous
university.
‘Table Talk’ vol. 1 (1821) ‘The Ignorance of the Learned’
We can scarcely hate any one that we know.
‘Table Talk’ vol. 2 (1822) ‘On Criticism’
Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours’ march to dinner—and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths.
‘Table Talk’ vol. 2 (1822) ‘On Going a Journey’
Well, I’ve had a happy life.
Last words, in W. C. Hazlitt ‘Memoirs of William Hazlitt’ (1867)
8.59 Denis Healey 1917—
Like being savaged by a dead sheep.
On being criticized by Sir Geoffrey Howe in the House of Commons, ‘Hansard’ 14 June 1978, col. 1027
8.60 Seamus Heaney 1939—
All agog at the plasterer on his ladder Skimming our gable and writing our name there With his trowel point, letter by strange letter.
‘Alphabets’ (1987)
Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
‘Digging’ (1966)
Don’t be surprised
If I demur, for, be advised My passport’s green.
No glass of ours was ever raised To toast The Queen.
‘Open Letter’ (Field Day pamphlet no. 2, 1983) p. 9, rebuking the editors of ‘The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry’ for including him among its authors
Who would connive in civilised outrage
yet understand the exact and tribal, intimate revenge.
‘Punishment’ (1975)
The famous
Northern reticence, the tight gag of place And times: yes, yes. Of the ‘wee six’ I sing Where to be saved you only must save face
And whatever you say, you say nothing.
‘Whatever You Say Say Nothing’ (1975)
Is there a life before death? That’s chalked up In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain, Coherent miseries, a bite and sup,
We hug our little destiny again.
‘Whatever You Say Say Nothing’ (1975)
8.61 Edward Heath 1916—
The unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism.
‘Hansard’ 15 May 1973, col. 1243 (on the Lonrho affair)
8.62 Reginald Heber 1783-1826
From Greenland’s icy mountains, From India’s coral strand, Where Afric’s sunny fountains Roll down their golden sand.
‘From Greenland’s icy mountains’ (1821 hymn)
What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle; Though every prospect pleases, And only man is vile:
In vain with lavish kindness The gifts of God are strown; The heathen in his blindness Bows down to wood and stone.
‘From Greenland’s icy mountains’ (1821 hymn). Heber later altered ‘Ceylon’s isle’ to ‘Java’s isle’.
They climbed the steep ascent of Heav’n Through peril, toil and pain;
O God, to us may grace be given To follow in their train.
‘The Son of God Goes Forth’ (1827 hymn)
8.63 G. W. F. Hegel 1770-1831
What experience and history teach is this—that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
‘Philosophy of History’ (1832) introduction
8.64 Heinrich Heine 1797-1856
Dort, wo man Bücher
Verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.
Wherever books are burned, men also, in the end, are burned.
‘Almansor’ (1823) l. 245
Auf Flügeln des Gesanges.
On the wings of song.
Title of song (1823)
Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Dass ich so traurig bin;
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.
I know not why I am so sad; I cannot get out of my head a fairy-tale of olden times.
‘Die Lorelei’ (1826-31)
Sie hatten sich beide so herzlich lieb, Spitzbübin war sie, er war ein Dieb.
They loved each other beyond belief—
She was a strumpet, he was a thief.
‘Neue Gedichte’ (1852) ‘Ein Weib’ (translated by Louis Untermeyer, 1938)
Hört ihr das Glöckchen klingeln? Kniet nieder—Man bringt die Sakramente einem sterbenden Gotte.
Do you hear the little bell tinkle? Kneel down. They are bringing the sacraments to a dying god.
‘Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland’ (1834) bk. 2, last line
Dieses merkt Euch, Ihr stolzen Männer der Tat. Ihr seid nichts als unbewusste Handlanger der Gedankenmänner...Maximilian Robespierre war nichts als die Hand von Jean Jacques Rousseau, die blutige Hand, die aus dem Schosse der Zeit den Leib hervorzog, dessen Seele Rousseau geschaffen.
Note this, you proud men of action. You are nothing but the unconscious hodmen of the men of ideas...Maximilien Robespierre was nothing but the hand of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the
bloody hand that drew from the womb of time the body whose soul Rousseau had created.
‘Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland’ (1834) bk. 3, para. 3
Dieu me pardonnera. C’est son mètier.
God will pardon me. It is His trade.
On his deathbed, in Edmond and Jules de Goncourt ‘The Goncourt Journals’ 23 February 1863 (attributed)
8.65 Werner Heisenberg 1901-76
Ein Fachmann ist ein Mann, der einige der gröbsten Fehler kennt, die man in dem betreffenden Fach machen kann und der sie deshalb zu vermeiden versteht.
An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them.
‘Der Teil und das Ganze’ (1969) ch. 17 (translated by A. J. Pomerans as ‘Physics and Beyond’, 1971)
8.66 Joseph Heller 1923—
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind...Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them.
If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.
‘Catch-22’ (1961) ch. 5
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three.
‘Catch-22’ (1961) ch. 9.
8.67 Lillian Hellman 1905-84
I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.
Letter to John S. Wood, 19 May 1952, in ‘US Congress Committee Hearing on Un-American Activities’ (1952) pt. 8, p. 3546
8.68 Helvètius (Claude Arien Helvètius) 1715-71
L’èducation nous faisait ce que nous sommes. Education made us what we are.
‘De l’esprit’ (1758) ‘Discours 3’ ch. 30
8.69 Felicia Hemans 1793-1835
The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck Shone round him o’er the dead.
‘Casabianca’
The stately homes of England, How beautiful they stand! Amidst their tall ancestral trees, O’er all the pleasant land.
‘The Homes of England’
8.70 John Heming 1556-1630 and Henry Condell d. 1627
Well! it is now public, and you will stand for your privileges we know: to read, and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a book, the stationer says.
First Folio Shakespeare (1623) preface
Who, as he was a happy imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together: And what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot.
First Folio Shakespeare (1623) preface
8.71 Ernest Hemingway 1899-1961
Where do the noses go? I always wondered where the noses would go.
‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ (1940) ch. 7
But did thee feel the earth move?
‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ (1940) ch. 13
Paris is a movable feast.
‘A Movable Feast’ (1964) epigraph
The sun also rises.
Title of novel (1926)
Grace under pressure.
When asked what he meant by ‘guts’ in an interview with Dorothy Parker: ‘New Yorker’ 30 November 1929
Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.
‘Toronto Star Weekly’ 4 March 1922
See also F. Scott Fitzgerald (6.34)
8.72 Arthur W. D. Henley
Nobody loves a fairy when she’s forty.
Title of song (1934)
8.73 W. E. Henley 1849-1903
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud: Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
‘Invictus. In Memoriam R.T.H.B.’ (1888)
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
‘Invictus. In Memoriam R.T.H.B.’ (1888)
So be my passing!
My task accomplished and the long day done, My wages taken, and in my heart
Some late lark singing,
Let me be gathered to the quiet west, The sundown splendid and serene,
