The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

When everyone is wrong, everyone is right.

‘La Gouvernante’ (1747) act 1, sc. 3

12.4 James Lackington 1746-1815

At last, by singing and repeating enthusiastic amorous hymns, and ignorantly applying particular texts of scripture, I got my imagination to the proper pitch, and thus was I born again in an instant.

‘Memoirs’ (1791)

12.5 Jean de la Fontaine 1621-95

Aide-toi, le ciel t’aidera.

Help yourself, and heaven will help you.

‘Fables’ bk. 6 (1668) ‘Le Chartier Embourbè’

Je plie et ne romps pas.

I bend and I break not.

‘Fables’ bk. 1 (1668) ‘Le Chêne et le Roseau’

C’est double plaisir de tromper le trompeur.

It is doubly pleasing to trick the trickster.

‘Fables’ bk. 2 (1668) ‘Le Coq et le Renard’

La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure.

The reason of the strongest is always the best.

‘Fables’ bk. 1 (1668) ‘Le Loup et l’Agneau’

Il connaît l’univers et ne se connaît pas.

He knows the world and does not know himself.

‘Fables’ bk. 8 (1678-9) ‘Dèmocrite et les Abdèritains’

La mort ne surprend point le sage, Il est toujours prêt á partir.

Death never takes the wise man by surprise; he is always ready to go.

‘Fables’ bk. 8 (1678-9) ‘La Mort et le Mourant’.

Certain renard voulut, dit-on, se faire loup. Hè! qui peu dire que pour le mètier de mouton jamais aucun loup ne soupire?

A certain fox, it is said, wanted to become a wolf. Ah! who can say why no wolf has ever

craved the life of a sheep?

‘Fables Choisies’ (1693 ed.) bk. 7, no. 9

12.6 Jules Laforgue 1860-87

Ah! que la vie est quotidienne.

Oh, what a day-to-day business life is.

‘Complainte sur certains ennuis’ (1885)

coined in some reign before he was born or thought of, to be new marked and minted with the stamp of his authority, before he will let it pass current in the world.

‘Essays of Elia’ (1823) ‘A Bachelor’s Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People’

Ceremony is an invention to take off the uneasy feeling which we derive from knowing ourselves to be less the object of love and esteem with a fellow-creature than some other person is. It endeavours to make up, by superior attentions in little points, for that invidious preference which it is forced to deny in the greater.

‘Essays of Elia’ (1823) ‘A Bachelor’s Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People’

I have no ear.

‘Essays of Elia’ (1823) ‘A Chapter on Ears’

Sentimentally I am disposed to harmony. But organically I am incapable of a tune.

‘Essays of Elia’ (1823) ‘A Chapter on Ears’

Presents, I often say, endear Absents.

‘Essays of Elia’ (1823) ‘A Dissertation upon Roast Pig’

She unbent her mind afterwards—over a book.

‘Essays of Elia’ (1823) ‘Mrs Battle’s Opinions on Whist’

A votary of the desk—a notched and cropt scrivener—one that sucks his substance, as certain sick people are said to do, through a quill.

‘Essays of Elia’ (1823) ‘Oxford in the Vacation’

The uncommunicating muteness of fishes.

‘Essays of Elia’ (1823) ‘A Quakers’ Meeting’

The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend.

‘Essays of Elia’ (1823) ‘The Two Races of Men’

Your borrowers of books—those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.

‘Essays of Elia’ (1823) ‘The Two Races of Men’

Credulity is the man’s weakness, but the child’s strength.

‘Essays of Elia’ (1823) ‘Witches, and Other Night-Fears’

Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door.

‘Essays of Elia’ (1823) ‘Valentine’s Day’

How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man’s self to himself.

‘Last Essays of Elia’ (1833) ‘The Convalescent’

Books think for me.

‘Last Essays of Elia’ (1833) ‘Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading’

Things in books’ clothing.

‘Last Essays of Elia’ (1833) ‘Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading’

A poor relation—is the most irrelevant thing in nature.

‘Last Essays of Elia’ (1833) ‘Poor Relations’

[A pun] is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.

‘Last Essays of Elia’ (1833) ‘Popular Fallacies’ no. 9

I have something more to do than feel.

On the death of his mother, at his sister Mary’s hands: letter to Coleridge, 1796, in E. Marrs (ed.) ‘The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb’

Cultivate simplicity, Coleridge.

Letter to S. T. Coleridge, 8 November 1796, in E. Marrs (ed.) ‘The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb’ vol. 1 (1975) p. 60

The man must have a rare recipe for melancholy, who can be dull in Fleet Street.

Letter to Thomas Manning, 15 February 1802 (quoting from ‘The Londoner’, no. 1), in E. Marrs (ed.) ‘The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb’ vol. 2 (1976) p. 57

Nursed amid her noise, her crowds, her beloved smoke—what have I been doing all my life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury to such scenes?

On London in a letter to Thomas Manning, 15 February 1802 (quoting from ‘The Londoner’, no. 1), in E. Marrs (ed.) ‘The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb’ vol. 2 (1976) p. 58

Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less, as I never think about them.

Letter to Thomas Manning, 2 January 1810, in E. Marrs (ed.) ‘The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb’ vol. 3 (1978) p. 36

Anything awful makes me laugh.

Letter to Robert Southey, 9 August 1815, in E. Marrs (ed.) ‘The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb’ vol. 3 (1978) p. 181

This very night I am going to leave off tobacco! Surely there must be some other world in which this unconquerable purpose shall be realized.

Letter to Thomas Manning, 26 December 1815, in E. Marrs (ed.) ‘The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb’ vol. 3 (1978) p. 207

An Archangel a little damaged.

On Coleridge, in a letter to Wordsworth, 26 April 1816: E. Marrs (ed.) ‘The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb’ vol. 3 (1978) p. 215

The rogue gives you Love Powders, and then a strong horse drench to bring ’em off your stomach that they mayn’t hurt you.

On Coleridge, in a letter to Wordsworth, 23 September 1816: E. Marrs (ed.) ‘The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb’ vol. 3 (1978) p. 225

Fanny Kelly’s divine plain face.

Letter to Mary Wordsworth, 18 February 1818, in Henry H. Harper (ed.) ‘The Letters of Charles Lamb’ (1905) vol. 4, p. 105

Who first invented work—and tied the free And holy-day rejoicing spirit down

To the ever-haunting importunity Of business?

Letter to Bernard Barton, 11 September 1822, in Henry H. Harper (ed.) ‘The Letters of Charles Lamb’ (1905) vol. 4, p. 189

The greatest pleasure I know, is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.

‘Table Talk by the late Elia’ in ‘The Athenaeum’ 4 January 1834

For thy sake, Tobacco, I Would do any thing but die.

‘A Farewell to Tobacco’ l. 122

Gone before

To that unknown and silent shore.

‘Hester’ (1803) st. 7

I have had playmates, I have had companions,

In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days,— All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

‘The Old Familiar Faces’

A child’s a plaything for an hour.

‘Parental Recollections’ (1809); often attributed to Lamb’s sister Mary

If ever I marry a wife,

I’ll marry a landlord’s daughter, For then I may sit in the bar, And drink cold brandy and water.

‘Written in a copy of Coelebs in Search of a Wife’

If dirt were trumps, what hands you would hold!

In Leigh Hunt ‘Lord Byron and his Contemporaries’ (1828) p. 299

I do not [know the lady]; but damn her at a venture.

In E. V. Lucas ‘Charles Lamb’ (1905) vol. 1, p. 320 n.

The last breath he drew in he wished might be through a pipe and exhaled in a pun.

‘The Diaries of William Charles Macready 1833-1851’ (ed. W. Toynbee, 1912) 9 January 1834

I toiled after it, sir, as some men toil after virtue.

On being asked ‘how he had acquired his power of smoking at such a rate’, in Thomas Noon Talfourd ‘Memoirs of Charles Lamb’ (1892) p. 262

12.12 Constant Lambert 1905-51

The whole trouble with a folk song is that once you have played it through there is nothing much you can do except play it over again and play it rather louder.

‘Music Ho!’ (1934) ch. 3

The average English critic is a don manquè, hopelessly parochial when not exaggeratedly teutonophile, over whose desk must surely hang the motto (presumably in Gothic lettering) ‘Above all no enthusiasm’.

‘Opera’ December 1950

12.13 John George Lambton (first Earl of Durham) 1792-1840

£40,000 a year a moderate income—such a one as a man might jog on with.

In Sir Herbert Maxwell (ed.) ‘The Creevey Papers’ (1903) vol. 2, p. 32, from a letter from Mr Creevey to Miss Elizabeth Ord, 13 September 1821

12.14 George Lamming b. 1927

In the castle of my skin.

Title of novel (1953)

12.15 Giuseppe di Lampedusa 1896-1957

Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga come é, bisogna che tutto cambi.

If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.

‘The Leopard’ (1957) p. 33

12.16 Sir Osbert Lancaster 1908-86

Nymphs and tribal deities of excessive female physique and alarming size balanced precariously on broken pediments, threatening the passer-by with a shower of stone fruit.

‘Pillar to Post’ (1938) ‘Edwardian Baroque’

Fan-vaulting...from an aesthetic standpoint frequently belongs to the ‘Last-supper-carved-on-a- peach-stone’ class of masterpiece.

‘Pillar to Post’ (1938) ‘Perpendicular’

All over the country the latest and most scientific methods of mass-production are being utilized to turn out a stream of old oak beams, leaded window-panes and small discs of bottleglass, all structural devices which our ancestors lost no time in abandoning as soon as an increase in wealth and knowledge enabled them to do so.

‘Pillar to Post’ (1938) ‘Stockbroker’s Tudor’

12.17 Bert Lance 1931—

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

In ‘Nation’s Business’ May 1977, p. 27

12.18 Letitia Elizabeth Landon 1802-38

Few, save the poor, feel for the poor.

‘The Poor’

12.19 Walter Savage Landor 1775-1864

Death stands above me, whispering low I know not what into my ear;

Of his strange language all I know Is, there is not a word of fear.

‘Death stands above me’ (1853)

I strove with none; for none was worth my strife;

Epigram in ‘The Atlas’, 28 April 1855. ‘Notes & Queries’ 3 May 1902, p. 354, for an earlier version

There are no fields of amaranth on this side of the grave.

‘Imaginary Conversations’ ‘Aesop and Rhodope’ in ‘The Works of Walter Savage Landor’ (1846) vol. 2, p. 93

Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry: on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.

‘Imaginary Conversations’ ‘Archdeacon Hare and Walter Landor’ in ‘The Last Fruit off an Old Tree’ (1853)

States, like men, have their growth, their manhood, their decrepitude, their decay.

‘Imaginary Conversations’ ‘Pollio and Calvus’ in ‘The Works of Walter Savage Landor’ (1876) vol. 2, p. 441

Clear writers, like clear fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid look the most profound.

‘Imaginary Conversations’ (1824) ‘Southey and Porson’

Fleas know not whether they are upon the body of a giant or upon one of ordinary size.

‘Imaginary Conversations’ (1824) ‘Southey and Porson’

12.20 Andrew Lang 1844-1912

St Andrews by the Northern sea, A haunted town it is to me!

‘Alma Matres’ (1884)

If the wild bowler thinks he bowls, Or if the batsman thinks he’s bowled, They know not, poor misguided souls, They too shall perish unconsoled.

I am the batsman and the bat, I am the bowler and the ball, The umpire, the pavilion cat,

The roller, pitch, and stumps, and all.

‘Brahma’.

They hear like ocean on a western beach The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.

‘The Odyssey’

12.21 Julia Lang 1921—

Are you sitting comfortably?

Introducing stories on ‘Listen with Mother’, BBC Radio 1950-82

12.22 Suzanne K. Langer 1895-1985

Art is the objectification of feeling, and the subjectification of nature.

‘Mind’ (1967) vol. 1, pt. 2, ch. 4

12.23 William Langland c.1330-c.1400

In a somer seson, whan softe was the sonne.

‘The Vision of Piers Plowman’ B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) prologue l. 1

Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne hilles Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.

‘Piers Plowman’ B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) prologue l. 5; ‘Ac on a May mornyng on Maluerne hulles / Me biful for to slepe, for werynesse of-walked’ in C text (ed. D. Pearsall, 1978) prologue, l. 6

A faire feeld ful of folk fond I ther bitwene— Of alle manere of men, the meene and the riche, Werchynge and wandrynge as the world asketh.

‘Piers Plowman’, B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) prologue l. 17

A gloton of wordes.

‘Piers Plowman’ B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) prologue l. 139

Whan alle tresors arn tried, Truthe is the beste.

‘Piers Plowman’ B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) Passus 1, l. 135

Brewesters and baksters, bochiers and cokes—

For thise are men on this molde that moost harm wercheth To the povere peple.

‘Piers Plowman’ B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) Passus 3, l. 79; ‘As bakeres and breweres, bocheres and cokes; / For thyse men don most harm to the mene peple’ in C text (ed. D. Pearsall, 1978) Passus 3, l. 80

For if hevene be on this erthe, and ese to any soule, It is in cloistre or in scole.

‘Piers Plowman’ B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) Passus 10, l. 297

Suffraunce is a soverayn vertue, and a swift vengeaunce. Who suffreth moore than God?

‘Piers Plowman’ B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) Passus 11, l. 378

Grammer, the ground of al.

‘Piers Plowman’ B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) Passus 15, l. 370

Innocence is next God, and nyght and day it crieth ‘Vengeaunce! Vengeaunce! Forgyve be it nevere That shente us and shedde oure blood!

‘Piers Plowman’ B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) Passus 17, l. 289

‘After sharpest shoures,’ quath Pees ’most shene is the sonne; Is no weder warmer than after watry cloudes.’

‘Piers Plowman’ B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) Passus 18, l. 411 (Pees Peace)

Forthi be noght abasshed to bide and to be nedy,

Since he that wroghte al the world was wilfulliche nedy.

‘Piers Plowman’ B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) Passus 20, l. 48

12.24 Archbishop Stephen Langton d. 1228

Veni, Sancte Spiritus,

Et emitte coelitus

Lucis tuae radium.

Come, Holy Spirit, and send out from heaven the beam of your light.

The ‘Golden Sequence’ for Whitsunday; attributed also to several others, notably Pope Innocent III

Lava quod est sordidum, Riga quod est aridum, Sana quod est saucium. Flecte quod est rigidum, Fove quod est frigidum, Rege quod est devium.

Wash what is dirty, water what is dry, heal what is wounded. Bend what is stiff, warm what is

cold, guide what goes off the road.

The ‘Golden Sequence’ for Whitsunday

12.25 Lâo Tse

Heaven and Earth are not ruthful;

To them the Ten Thousand Things are but as straw dogs.

‘Tao-Tê-Ching’ ch. 5, translated by Arthur Waley in ‘The Way and its Power’ (1934) (Ten Thousand Things all life forms; straw dogs sacrificial tokens)

12.26 Ring Lardner 1885-1933

Are you lost daddy I arsked tenderly. Shut up he explained.

‘The Young Immigrunts’ (1920) ch. 10

12.27 Philip Larkin 1922-1985

Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three

(Which was rather late for me)— Between the end of the Chatterley ban And the Beatles’ first LP.

‘Annus Mirabilis’ (1974)

Time has transfigured them into Untruth. The stone fidelity

They hardly meant has come to be Their final blazon, and to prove Our almost-instinct almost true: What will survive of us is love.

‘An Arundel Tomb’ (1964)

Hatless, I take off

My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.