The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

Happy Greek by this protection, Was not spoiled.

Whilst the Latin, queen of tongues, Is not yet free from rhyme’s wrongs, But rests foiled.

‘A Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme’ (1640)

But that which most doth take my muse and me Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine,

Which is the Mermaid’s now, but shall be mine.

‘Inviting a Friend to Supper’ (1616)

England’s high Chancellor: the destined heir, In his soft cradle, to his father’s chair.

‘On Lord Bacon’s [Sixtieth] Birthday’ (1640)

Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.

‘On My First Son’ (1616)

This figure that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut, Wherein the graver had a strife With Nature, to out-do the life:

O could he but have drawn his wit As well in brass, as he has hit

His face; the print would then surpass All that was ever writ in brass:

But since he cannot, reader, look Not on his picture, but his book.

On the Portrait of Shakespeare, from ‘Mr William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies’ (1623) ‘To the Reader’

Follow a shadow, it still flies you; Seem to fly it, it will pursue:

So court a mistress, she denies you; Let her alone, she will court you. Say, are not women truly then Styled but the shadows of us men?

‘That Women are but Men’s Shadows’ (1616)

Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I’ll not look for wine.

‘To Celia’ (1616)

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make men better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:

A lily of a day

Is fairer far, in May,

Although it fall and die that night; It was the plant and flower of light.

In small proportions we just beauty see, And in short measures life may perfect be.

‘To the Immortal Memory...of...Sir Lucius Carey and Sir H. Morison’ (1640)

Soul of the Age!

The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare...

Thou art a monument, without a tomb, And art alive still while thy book doth live,

And we have wits to read, and praise to give.

‘To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr William Shakespeare’ (1623)

For if I thought my judgement were of years I should commit thee surely with thy peers: And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine, Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe’s mighty line.

‘To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr William Shakespeare’ (1623)

And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek.

‘To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr William Shakespeare’ (1623)

To hear thy buskin tread

And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on, Leave thee alone, for the comparison

Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.

‘To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr William Shakespeare’ (1623)

He was not of an age, but for all time!

‘To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr William Shakespeare’ (1623)

Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were To see thee in our waters yet appear,

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames That so did take Eliza, and our James!

‘To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr William Shakespeare’ (1623)

Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show Of touch or marble, nor canst boast a row

Of polished pillars, or a roof of gold; Thou hast no lantern whereof tales are told,

Or stair, or courts; but standst an ancient pile, And these grudged at, art reverenced the while.

‘To Penshurst’ (1616) l. 1

The blushing apricot and woolly peach

Hang on thy walls, that every child may reach.

‘To Penshurst’ (1616) l. 43

His censure of the English poets was this...That Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging. That Shakespeare wanted art.

In ‘Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden’ (written 1619) no. 3

The players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been ‘Would he had blotted a thousand’; which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted...His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too...But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.

‘Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter’ (1641) l. 658 ‘De Shakespeare Nostrati’.

The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end.

‘Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter’ (1641) l. 906 ‘Dominus Verulamius’ (on Francis Bacon)

Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things.

‘Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter’ (1641) l. 1882 ‘Praecept [a]. Element [aria]

10.46 Janis Joplin 1943-70

Fourteen heart attacks and he had to die in my week. In my week.

When Eisenhower’s death prevented her photograph appearing on the cover of ‘Newsweek’, in ‘New Musical Express’ 12 April 1969

10.47 Thomas Jordan c.1612-85

They plucked communion tables down And broke our painted glasses;

They threw our altars to the ground And tumbled down the crosses. They set up Cromwell and his heir— The Lord and Lady Claypole— Because they hated Common Prayer, The organ and the maypole.

‘How the War began’ (1664)

10.48 John Jortin 1698-1770

Palmam qui meruit, ferat.

Let him who has won it bear the palm.

‘Lusus Poetici’ (3rd ed. 1748) ‘Ad Ventos’ (adopted by Lord Nelson as his motto)

10.49 Sir Keith Joseph 1918—

Problems reproduce themselves from generation to generation...I refer to this as a ‘cycle of deprivation’.

Speech in London to the Pre-School Playgroups Association, 29 June 1972, in ‘The Times’ 30 June 1972

Hard to avoid the feeling that somehow the lean and tight-lipped mufflered men in the 1930s dole queue were at least partly our fault.

In Peter Jenkins ‘Mrs Thatcher’s Revolution’ (1987) p. 63

10.50 Benjamin Jowett 1817-93

One man is as good as another until he has written a book.

In Evelyn Abbott and Lewis Campbell (eds.) ‘The Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett’ (1897) vol. 1, p. 248

Nowhere probably is there more true feeling, and nowhere worse taste, than in a churchyard.

In Evelyn Abbott and Lewis Campbell (eds.) ‘The Letters of Benjamin Jowett’ (1899) ‘Notes and Sayings’

The lie in the soul is a true lie.

Introduction to his translation (1871) of Plato’s ‘Republic’ bk. 2

10.51 James Joyce 1882-1941

Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

‘Dubliners’ (1914) ‘The Dead’

riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

‘Finnegans Wake’ (1939) pt. 1, p. 3

That ideal reader suffering from an ideal insomnia.

‘Finnegans Wake’ (1939) pt. 1, p. 120

The flushpots of Euston and the hanging garments of Marylebone.

‘Finnegans Wake’ (1939) pt. 1, p. 192

O

tell me all about

Anna Livia! I want to hear all about Anna Livia. Well, you know Anna Livia? Yes, of course, we all know Anna Livia. Tell me all. Tell me now.

‘Finnegans Wake’ (1939) pt. 1, p. 196

Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm! Night night! Telmetale of stem or stone. Beside the rivering waters of hitherandthithering waters of. Night!

‘Finnegans Wake’ (1939) pt. 1, p. 216

All moanday, tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday till the fear of the Law.

‘Finnegans Wake’ (1939) pt. 2, p. 301

Three quarks for Muster Mark!

‘Finnegans Wake’ (1939) pt. 2, p. 383

The Gracehoper was always jigging ajog, hoppy on akkant of his joyicity.

‘Finnegans Wake’ (1939) pt. 3, p. 414

If I seen him bearing down on me now under whitespread wings like he’d come from Arkangels, I sink I’d die down over his feet, humbly dumbly, only to washup. Yes, tid. There’s where. First. We pass through grass behush the bush to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. Coming, far! End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousendsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the

‘Finnegans Wake’ (1939) pt. 4, p. 627

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo.

‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ (1916) ch. 1

When the soul of a man is born in this country, there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.

‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ (1916) ch. 5

Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.

‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ (1916) ch. 5

Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer. Terror is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the secret cause.

‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ (1916) ch. 5

The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.

‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ (1916) ch. 5

I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use, silence, exile, and cunning.

‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ (1916) ch. 5

Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race...Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.

‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ (1916) ch. 5

By an epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself. He believed that it was for the man of letters to recover these epiphanies with extreme care, seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments.

‘Stephen Hero’ (1944) ch. 25 (part of a first draft of ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’)

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:—Introibo ad altare Dei.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 1 (ch. 1, l. 1 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 5 (ch. 1, l. 78 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a servant.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 7 (pt. 1, ch. 1, l. 146 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water...Begob, ma’am, says Mrs Cahill, God send you don’t make them in the one pot.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 12 (ch. 1, l. 357 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 31 (ch. 2, l. 264 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 34 (ch. 2, l. 377 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 50 (ch. 3, l. 492 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 53 (ch. 4, l. 1 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 102 (ch. 6, l. 678 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near you. They aren’t going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warm full blooded life.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 107 (ch. 6, l. 1003 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

She used to say Ben Dollard had a base barreltone voice.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 147 (ch. 8, l. 117 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 182 (ch. 9, l. 228 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

But it’s no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That’s not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it’s the very opposite of that that is really life.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 317 (ch. 12, l. 1481 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

Greater love than this, he said, no man hath that a man lay down his wife for his friend. Go

thou and do likewise. Thus, or words to that effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of French letters to the university of Oxtail.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 375 (ch. 14, l. 360 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 651 (ch. 17, l. 1039 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

He kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

‘Ulysses’ (1922) p. 732 (ch. 18, l. 1604 in H. W. Gabler et al. ed., 1986)

Ben Bloom Elijah...at an angle of forty-five degrees over Donohoe’s in Little Green Street like a shot off a shovel.

‘Ulysses’ (1922)

Limp father of thousands.

‘Ulysses’ (1922)

10.52 William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) 1906-1946

Germany calling! Germany calling!

Habitual introduction to propaganda broadcasts to Britain during the Second World War

10.53 Jack Judge 1878-1938 and Harry Williams 1874-1924

It’s a long way to Tipperary, It’s a long way to go;

It’s a long way to Tipperary, To the sweetest girl I know! Goodbye, Piccadilly, Farewell, Leicester Square,

It’s a long, long way to Tipperary, But my heart’s right there!

‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ (1912 song)

10.54 Emperor Julian the Apostate c.332-363

Vicisti, Galilaee.

You have won, Galilean.

Supposed dying words; but a late embellishment of Theodoret ‘Ecclesiastical History’ (c.450) bk. 3, ch. 25

10.55 Julian of Norwich 1343-1443

Sin is behovely, but all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

‘Revelations of Divine Love’, the long text, ch. 27, revelation 13

Wouldest thou wit thy Lord’s meaning in this thing? Wit it well: Love was his meaning. Who

shewed it thee? Love. What shewed He thee? Love. Wherefore shewed it He? for Love...Thus was I learned that Love is our Lord’s meaning.

‘Revelations of Divine Love’, the long text, ch. 86, revelation 16

10.56 Carl Gustav Jung 1875-1961

Eine gewissermassen oberflächliche Schicht des Unbewussten ist zweifellos persönlich. Wir nennen sie das persönliche Unbewusste. Dieses ruht aber auf einer tieferen Schicht, welche nicht mehr persönlicher Erfahrung und Erwerbung entstammt, sondern angeboren ist. Diese tiefere Schicht ist das sogenannte kollektive Unbewusste...Die Inhalte des persönlichen Unbewussten sind in der Hauptsache die sogenannten gefühlsbetonten Komplexe...Die Inhalte des kollektiven Unbewussten dagegen sind die sogenannten Archetypen.

A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is undoubtedly personal. I call it the personal unconscious. But this personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn. This deeper layer I call the collective unconscious...The contents of the personal unconscious are chiefly the feelingtoned complexes...The contents of the collective unconscious, on the other hand, are known as

archetypes.

‘Eranos Jahrbuch’ (1934) p. 180

Ein Mensch, der nicht durch die Hölle seiner Leidenschaften gegangen ist, hat sie auch nie überwunden.

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.

‘Errinerungen, Träume, Gedanken’ (1962) ch. 9

Soweit wir zu erkennen vermögen, ist es die einzige Sinn der menschlichen Existenz, ein Licht anzünden in der Finsternis des blossen Seins.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the

darkness of mere being.

‘Errinerungen, Träume, Gedanken’ (1962) ch. 11

Jede Form von Süchtigkeit ist von übel, gleichgültig, ob es sich um Alkohol oder Morphium oder Idealismus handelt.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or

idealism.

‘Erinnerungen, Träume, Gedanken’ (1962) ch. 12

Wo die Liebe herrscht, da gibt es keinen Machtwillen, und wo die Macht den Vorrang hat, da fehlt die Liebe. Das eine ist der Schatten des andern.

Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking.

The one is the shadow of the other.

‘Gesammelte Werke’ vol. 7 (1964) p. 58 ‘Über die Psychologie des Unbewussten’ (1917)

Alles, was wir an den Kindern ändern wollen, sollten wir zunächst wohl aufmerksam prüfen, ob es nicht etwas sei, was besser an uns zu ändern wäre.

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see

whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

‘Gesammelte Werke’ vol. 17 (1972) p. 194 ‘Vom Werden der Persönlichkeit’ (1932)

Persönlichkeit ist höchste Verwirklichung der eingeborenen Eigenart des besonderen lebenden Wesens. Persönlichkeit ist der Tat des höchsten Lebensmutes, der absoluten Bejahung des individuell Seienden und der erfolgreichsten Anpassung an das universal Gegetene bei grösstmöglicher Freiheit der eigenen Entscheidung.

Personality is the supreme realization of the innate individuality of a particular living being. Personality is an act of the greatest courage in the face of life, the absolute affirmation of all that constitutes the individual, and the most successful adaptation to the universal conditions of

existence coupled with the greatest possible freedom of personal decision.

‘Gesammelte Werke’ vol. 17 (1972) p. 195 ‘Vom Werden der Persönlichkeit’ (1932)

10.57 ‘Junius’

The liberty of the press is the Palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman.

‘The Letters of Junius’ (1772 ed.) ‘Dedication to the English Nation’

The right of election is the very essence of the constitution.

‘Public Advertiser’ 24 April 1769, Letter 11

Is this the wisdom of a great minister? or is it the ominous vibration of a pendulum?

‘Public Advertiser’ 30 May 1769, Letter 12

There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics as well as in religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves.

‘Public Advertiser’ 19 December 1769, Letter 35

However distinguished by rank or property, in the rights of freedom we are all equal.

‘Public Advertiser’ 19 March 1770, Letter 37

The injustice done to an individual is sometimes of service to the public.

‘Public Advertiser’ 14 November 1770, Letter 41

As for Mr Wedderburne, there is something about him, which even treachery cannot trust.

‘Public Advertiser’ 22 June 1771, Letter 49

10.58 Sir John Junor

Pass the sick bag, Alice.

Such a graceful exit. And then he had to go and do this on the doorstep.

On Harold Wilson’s ‘Lavender List’—the honours list he drew up on resigning the British premiership in 1976

10.59 Emperor Justinian c.482-565

Justice is the constant and perpetual wish to render to every one his due.

‘Institutes’ bk. 1, ch. 1, para. 1

10.60 Juvenal A.D. c.60-c.130

Difficile est saturam non scribere.

It’s hard not to write satire.

‘Satires’ no. 1, l. 30

Probitas laudatur et alget.

Honesty is praised and left to shiver.

‘Satires’ no. 1, l. 74 (translation by G. G. Ramsay)

Si natura negat, facit indignatio versum.

Even if nature says no, indignation makes me write verse.

‘Satires’ no. 1, l. 79

Quidquid agunt homines, votum timor ira voluptas Gaudia discursus nostri farrago libelli est.

Everything mankind does, their hope, fear, rage, pleasure, joys, business, are the hotch-potch

of my little book.

‘Satires’ no. 1, l. 85

Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes?

Who would put up with the Gracchi complaining about subversion?

‘Satires’ no. 2, l. 24

Nemo repente fuit turpissimus.

No one ever suddenly became depraved.

‘Satires’ no. 2, l. 83

Iam pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes Et linguam et mores.

The Syrian Orontes has now for long been pouring into the Tiber, with its own language and

ways of behaving.

‘Satires’ no. 3, l. 62

Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes, Augur, schoenobates, medicus, magus, omnia novit Graeculus esuriens: in caelum iusseris ibit.

Scholar, public speaker, geometrician, painter, physical training instructor, diviner of the future, rope-dancer, doctor, magician, the hungry little Greek can do everything: send him to—

heaven (and he’ll go there).

‘Satires’ no. 3, l. 76

Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se Quam quod ridiculos homines facit.

The misfortunes of poverty carry with them nothing harder to bear than that it exposes men to ridicule.

‘Satires’ no. 3, l. 152