‘Outspoken Essays: First Series’ (1919) ‘Patriotism’
The nations which have put mankind and posterity most in their debt have been small states— Israel, Athens, Florence, Elizabethan England.
‘Outspoken Essays: Second Series’ (1922) ‘State, visible and invisible’
A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on it.
‘Philosophy of Plotinus’ (1923) vol. 2, lecture 22 (quoted by Boris Yeltsin at the time of the failed military coup in Russia, August 1991)
The aim of education is the knowledge not of facts but of values.
‘The Training of the Reason’ in A. C. Benson (ed.) ‘Cambridge Essays on Education’ (1917) ch. 2
9.8 Jean Ingelow 1820-97
Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells! Play all your changes, all your swells.
‘The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571’
Play uppe ‘The Brides of Enderby’.
‘The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571’
‘Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!’ calling E’er the early dews were falling, Farre away I heard her song.
‘The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571’
Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot, Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow,
Jetty, to the milking shed.
‘The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571’
But each will mourn her own (she saith) And sweeter woman ne’er drew breath Than my sonne’s wife, Elizabeth.
‘The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571’
9.9 Robert G. Ingersoll 1833-99
An honest God is the noblest work of man.
‘The Gods’ (1876) pt. 1, p. 2.
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments—there are consequences.
‘Some Reasons Why’ (1881) pt. 8 ‘The New Testament’ in ‘The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll’ (1915) vol. 2,
p.315
9.10J. A. D. Ingres 1780-1867
Le dessin est la probitè de l’art.
Drawing is the true test of art.
‘Pensèes d’Ingres’ (1922) p. 70
9.11 Eugéne Ionesco 1912—
C’est une chose anormale de vivre.
Living is abnormal.
‘Le Rhinocèros’ (1959) act 1
Tu ne prèvois les èvènements que lorsqu’ils sont dèjá arrivès.
You can only predict things after they have happened.
‘Le Rhinocèros’ (1959) act 3
Un fonctionnaire ne plaisante pas.
A civil servant doesn’t make jokes.
‘Tueur sans gages’ (The Killer, 1958) act 1
9.12 Weldon J. Irvine
Young, gifted and black.
Title of song (1969)
9.13 Washington Irving 1783-1859
A woman’s whole life is a history of the affections.
‘The Sketch Book’ (1820) ‘The Broken Heart’
A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.
‘The Sketch Book’ (1820) ‘Rip Van Winkle’
They who drink beer will think beer.
‘The Sketch Book’ (1820) ‘Stratford-on-Avon’
There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse...it is often a comfort to shift one’s position and be bruised in a new place.
‘Tales of a Traveller’ (1824) ‘To the Reader’
The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion.
‘Wolfert’s Roost’ (1855) ‘The Creole Village’
9.14 Anne Ingram, Viscountess Irwin c.1696-1764
A female mind like a rude fallow lies;
No seed is sown, but weeds spontaneous rise. As well might we expect, in winter, spring, As land untilled a fruitful crop should bring.
‘An Epistle to Mr Pope. Occasioned by his Characters of Women’ in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ (1736)
Untaught the noble end of glorious truth, Bred to deceive even from their earliest youth.
‘An Epistle to Mr Pope. Occasioned by his Characters of Women’ in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ (1736)
9.15 Christopher Isherwood 1904-86
The common cormorant (or shag)
Lays eggs inside a paper bag,
You follow the idea, no doubt?
It’s to keep the lightning out.
But what these unobservant birds Have never thought of, is that herds
Of wandering bears might come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.
‘The Common Cormorant’ (written c.1925)
I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.
‘Goodbye to Berlin’ (1939) ‘Berlin Diary’ Autumn 1930
See also W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood (1.115)
10.0J
10.1Andrew Jackson 1767-1845
Each public officer who takes an oath to support the constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others.
Presidential message vetoing the bill to re-charter the Bank of the United States, 10 July 1832, in H. S. Commager (ed.) ‘Documents of American History’ vol. 1 (1963) p. 272
Our Federal Union: it must be preserved.
Toast given on the Jefferson Birthday Celebration, 13 April 1830. In Thomas Hart Benton ‘Thirty Years’ View’ (1856) vol. 1
You are uneasy; you never sailed with me before, I see.
In James Parton ‘Life of Jackson’ (1860) vol. 3, ch. 35
10.2 Holbrook Jackson 1874-1948
A mother never realizes that her children are no longer children.
‘All Manner of Folk’ (1912) ‘On a Certain Arrangement’
Pedantry is the dotage of knowledge.
‘Anatomy of Bibliomania’ (1930) vol. 1, p. 150
As soon as an idea is accepted it is time to reject it.
‘Platitudes in the Making’ (1911) p. 13
10.3 Joe Jacobs 1896-1940
We was robbed!
After Jack Sharkey beat Max Schmeling (of whom Jacobs was manager) in the heavyweight title fight, 21 June 1932: Peter Heller ‘In This Corner’ (1975) p. 44
I should of stood in bed.
After leaving his sick-bed in October 1935 to attend the World Baseball Series in Detroit, and betting on the losers, in John Lardner ‘Strong Cigars’ (1951) p. 61
10.4 Jacopone da Todi c.1230-1306
Stabat Mater dolorosa, Iuxta crucem lacrimosa, Dum pendebat filius.
At the cross her station keeping, Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
Where he hung, the dying Lord.
‘Stabat Mater dolorosa’ (ascribed also to Pope Innocent III and others); translation in ‘Hymns Ancient and Modern’ based on that of E. Caswall in ‘Lyra Catholica’ (1849)
10.5 Mick Jagger 1943—and Keith Richard (Keith Richards) 1943—
Ev’rywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, oh, boy,
’Cause summer’s here and the time is oh, right for fighting in the street, boy. But what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock ’n’ roll band, ’Cause in sleepy London town
There’s just no place for street fighting man!
‘Street Fighting Man’ (1968 song)
10.6 Richard Jago 1715-81
With leaden foot time creeps along While Delia is away.
‘Absence’
10.7 James I (James VI of Scotland) 1566-1625
A branch of the sin of drunkenness, which is the root of all sins.
‘A Counterblast to Tobacco’ (1604)
A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.
‘A Counterblast to Tobacco’ (1604)
Herein is not only a great vanity, but a great contempt of God’s good gifts, that the sweetness of man’s breath, being a good gift of God, should be wilfully corrupted by this stinking smoke.
‘A Counterblast to Tobacco’ (1604)
The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth; for kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God’s throne, but even by God himself they are called gods.
Speech to Parliament, 21 March 1610, in ‘Works’ (1616) p. 529
The king is truly parens patriae, the polite father of his people.
Speech to Parliament, 21 March 1610, in ‘Works’ (1616) p. 529
That which concerns the mystery of the king’s power is not lawful to be disputed; for that is to wade into the weakness of Princes and to take away the mystical reverence, that belongs unto them that sit in the throne of God.
‘A Speech in the Star Chamber’ [speech to the judges] 20 June 1616, in ‘Works’ (1616) p. 557
No bishop, no King.
To a deputation of Presbyterians from the Church of Scotland, seeking religious tolerance in England, in W. Barlow ‘The Sum of the Conference’ (1625) p. 36
I will govern according to the common weal, but not according to the common will.
December, 1621. In J. R. Green ‘History of the English People’ vol. 3 (1879) bk. 7, ch. 4
Dr Donne’s verses are like the peace of God; they pass all understanding.
Saying recorded by Archdeacon Plume (1630-1704)
You cannot name any example in any heathen author but I will better it in Scripture.
In ‘Crumms Fal’n From King James’s Table’ no. 10, in E. F. Rimbault (ed.) ‘The Miscellaneous Works of Sir Thomas Overbury’ (1856) p. 257
10.8 James V of Scotland 1512-42
It cam’ wi’ a lass, it will gang wi’ a lass.
Said on his deathbed, of the crown of Scotland. David Hume ‘The History of England’ (1763) vol. 4, ch. 33 records ‘It came with a woman...and it will go with one.’
10.9 Henry James 1843-1916
The ever-importunate murmur, ‘Dramatize it, dramatize it!’
‘The Altar of the Dead’ (1909 ed.) preface
The terrible fluidity of self-revelation.
‘The Ambassadors’ (1909 ed.) preface
Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to. It doesn’t so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven’t had that, what have you had?
‘The Ambassadors’ (1903) bk. 5, ch. 11
The deep well of unconscious cerebration.
‘The American’ (1909 ed.) preface
The historian, essentially, wants more documents than he can really use; the dramatist only wants more liberties than he can really take.
‘The Aspern Papers’ (1909 ed.) preface
Most English talk is a quadrille in a sentry-box.
‘The Awkward Age’ (1899) bk. 5, ch. 19
Vereker’s secret, my dear man—the general intention of his books: the string the pearls were strung on, the buried treasure, the figure in the carpet.
‘The Figure in the Carpet’ (1896) ch. 11
It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.
One might ennumerate the items of high civilization, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left. No State, in the European sense of the word, and indeed barely a specific national name. No sovereign, no court, no personal loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplomatic service, no country gentlemen, no palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old country houses, nor parsonages, nor thatched cottages, nor ivied ruins; no cathedrals nor abbeys, nor little Norman churches; no great universities nor public schools—no Oxford, nor Eton, nor Harrow; no literature, no novels, no museums, no pictures, no political society, no sporting class—no Epsom nor Ascot!...The natural remark in the almost lurid light of such an indictment, would be that if these things are left out, everything is left out.
‘Hawthorne’ (1879)
Whatever question there may be of his talent, there can be none, I think, of his genius. It was a slim and crooked one; but it was eminently personal. He was imperfect, unfinished, inartistic; he was worse than provincial—he was parochial.
‘Hawthorne’ (1879) ch. 4 (on H. D. Thoreau, q.v.)
The black and merciless things that are behind the great possessions.
‘The Ivory Tower’ (1917) notes p. 287
Poor Gissing...struck me as quite particularly marked out for what is called in his and my profession an unhappy ending.
Letter to Sir Sidney Colvin, 1903
It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.
Letter to H. G. Wells, 10 July 1915
I could come back to America...to die—but never, never to live.
Letter to Alice James
Cats and monkeys—monkeys and cats—all human life is there!
‘The Madonna of the Future’ (1879) vol. 1, p. 59 (‘All human life is there’ became an advertising slogan for the ‘News of the World’ in the late 1950s)
We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.
‘The Middle Years’ (short story, 1893)
Tennyson was not Tennysonian.
‘The Middle Years’ (1917 autobiography) ch. 6
To kill a human being is, after all, the least injury you can do him.
‘My Friend Bingham’ (short story, 1867)
Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue.
‘Partial Portraits’ (1888) ‘The Art of Fiction’
What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?
‘Partial Portraits’ (1888) ‘The Art of Fiction’
I don’t care anything about reasons, but I know what I like.
‘The Portrait of a Lady’ (1881) vol. 2, ch. 5.
The note I wanted; that of the strange and sinister embroidered on the very type of the normal and easy.
‘Prefaces’ (1909) ‘The Altar of the Dead’
Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall happily appear to do so.
‘Roderick Hudson’ (1877) preface
I didn’t, of course, stay her hand—there never is in such cases ‘time’; and I had once more the full demonstration of the fatal futility of Fact.
‘The Spoils of Poynton’ (1909 ed.) preface
We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped.
‘The Turn of the Screw’ (1898) p. 169
Summer afternoon—summer afternoon...the two most beautiful words in the English language.
In Edith Wharton ‘A Backward Glance’ (1934) ch. 10
So here it is at last, the distinguished thing!
On experiencing his first stroke, in Edith Wharton ‘A Backward Glance’ (1934) ch. 14
Of course, of course!
On hearing that Rupert Brooke had died on a Greek island (attributed)
10.10 William James 1842-1910
Man, biologically considered, and whatever else he may be into the bargain, is simply the most formidable of all the beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own species.
‘Atlantic Monthly’ December 1904, p. 845
The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess success. That—with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success—is our national disease.
Letter to H. G. Wells, 11 September 1906, in ‘Letters’ (1920) vol. 2, p. 260
Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdains—under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human core.
‘McClure’s Magazine’ February 1908, p. 422
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
‘The Principles of Psychology’ (1890) vol. 1, ch. 4
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
‘The Principles of Psychology’ (1890) vol. 2, ch. 22
There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.
‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’ (1902) lectures 14 and 15, p. 355
10.11 Randall Jarrell 1914-65
To Americans, English manners are far more frightening than none at all.
‘Pictures from an Institution’ (1954) pt. 1, ch. 4
It is better to entertain an idea than to take it home to live with you for the rest of your life.
‘Pictures from an Institution’ (1954) pt. 1, ch. 4
10.12 Douglas Jay 1907—
Fair shares for all, is Labour’s call.
‘Change and Fortune’ (1980) ch. 7 (slogan devised for the North Battersea by-election, 1946)
In the case of nutrition and health, just as in the case of education, the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves.
‘The Socialist Case’ (1939) ch. 30
10.13 Jean Paul 1763-1825
See Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (6.46) in Volume II
10.14 Sir James Jeans 1877-1946
Taking a very gloomy view of the future of the human race, let us suppose that it can only expect to survive for two thousand million years longer, a period about equal to the past age of the earth. Then, regarded as a being destined to live for three-score years and ten, humanity, although it has been born in a house seventy years old, is itself only three days old.
‘Eos’ (1928) p. 12
Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties.
‘The Mysterious Universe’ (1930) ch. 1
From the intrinsic evidence of his creation, the Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician.
‘The Mysterious Universe’ (1930) ch. 5
10.15 Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776; preamble
We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Original draft for the Declaration of Independence.
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1801
Would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm?
First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1801
Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none.
First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1801
Freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1801
Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours its own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington, 16 January 1787
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.
Letter to James Madison, 30 January 1787, in Thomas Jefferson Randolph (ed.) ‘Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson’ (1829) vol. 2, p. 87
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
Letter to W. S. Smith, 13 November 1787, in Thomas Jefferson Randolph (ed.) ‘Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson’ (1829) vol. 2, p. 269
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on them, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
Letter to Tench Coxe, 1799 (on official positions)
If the principle were to prevail of a common law [i.e a single government] being in force in the United States...it would become the most corrupt government on the earth.
Letter to Gideon Granger, 13 August 1800, in Thomas Jefferson Randolph (ed.) ‘Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson’ (1829) vol. 3, p. 445
I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
Letter to John Adams, 28 October 1813
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, 6 January 1816
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think of them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.
Letter to William Charles Jarvis, 28 September 1816
We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.
Letter to William Roscoe, 27 December 1820
To attain all this [universal republicanism], however, rivers of blood must yet flow, and years of desolation pass over; yet the object is worth rivers of blood, and years of desolation.
Letter to John Adams, 4 September 1823, in Thomas Jefferson Randolph (ed.) ‘Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson’ (1829) vol. 4, p. 387
If a due participation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few; by resignation none.
Letter to John Adams, 4 September 1823 (usually quoted, ‘Few die and none resign’), in Thomas Jefferson Randolph (ed.) ‘Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson’ (1829) vol. 4, p. 387
Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity [of opinion]. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.
‘Notes on the State of Virginia’ (1781-5) Query 17
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.
‘Notes on the State of Virginia’ (1781-5) Query 18 ‘Manners’
No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.
In J. B. MacMaster ‘History of the People of the U.S.’ (1883-1913) vol. 2, ch. 13, p. 586
We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.
On slavery in the United States, 1820, in J. C. Miller ‘The Wolf by the Ears’ (1977)
When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.
Remark to Baron von Humboldt, 1807, in Rayner ‘Life of Jefferson’ (1834) p. 356
10.16 Francis, Lord Jeffrey 1773-1850
This will never do.
On Wordsworth’s ‘The Excursion’ (1814), in ‘Edinburgh Review’ November 1814, p. 1
10.17 David Jenkins 1925—
The withdrawal of an imported, elderly American to leave a reconciling opportunity for some local product is surely neither dishonourable nor improper.
Referring to Ian MacGregor, Chairman of the Coal Board, in ‘The Times’ 22 September 1984
A conjuring trick with bones.
On the Resurrection
10.18 Roy Jenkins (Baron Jenkins of Hillhead) 1920—
The politics of the left and centre of this country are frozen in an out-of-date mould which is bad for the political and economic health of Britain and increasingly inhibiting for those who live within the mould. Can it be broken?
