The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

Fishes, that tipple in the deep, Know no such liberty.

‘To Althea, From Prison’

Stone walls do not a prison make Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage;

If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free; Angels alone, that soar above, Enjoy such liberty.

‘To Althea, From Prison’

If to be absent were to be Away from thee;

Or that when I am gone, You or I were alone;

Then my Lucasta might I crave

Pity from blust’ring wind, or swallowing wave.

‘To Lucasta, Going Beyond the Seas’

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind, That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast, and quiet mind, To war and arms I fly.

True; a new mistress now I chase,

The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith embrace

A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such, As you too shall adore;

I could not love thee, Dear, so much,

Loved I not honour more.

‘To Lucasta, Going to the Wars’

12.129 Samuel Lover 1797-1868

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.

‘Handy Andy’ (1842) ch. 36

12.130 David Low 1891-1963

Colonel Blimp.

Generic name for the archetypal right-wing voter from the shires

I have never met anyone who wasn’t against war. Even Hitler and Mussolini were, according to themselves.

‘New York Times Magazine’ 10 February 1946

12.131 Robert Lowe, Viscount Sherbrooke 1811-92

I believe it will be absolutely necessary that you should prevail on our future masters to learn their letters.

In ‘Hansard’ 15 July 1867, col. 1549, on the passing of the Reform Bill, popularized as ‘We must educate our masters’

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is a man whose duties make him more or less of a taxing machine. He is intrusted with a certain amount of misery which it is his duty to distribute as fairly as he can.

In ‘Hansard’ 11 April 1870, col. 1639

12.132 Amy Lowell 1874-1925

And the softness of my body will be guarded by embrace By each button, hook, and lace.

For the man who should loose me is dead, Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,

In a pattern called a war. Christ! What are patterns for?

‘Patterns’ (1916)

I [Death] was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

‘Sheppy’ (1933) act 3

All books are either dreams or swords, You can cut, or you can drug, with words.

‘Sword Blades and Poppy Seed’ (1914).

12.133 James Russell Lowell 1819-91

An’ you’ve gut to git up airly Ef you want to take in God.

‘The Biglow Papers’ (First Series, 1848) no. 1 ‘A Letter’

It ain’t by princerples nor men My preudunt course is steadied,— I scent wich pays the best, an’ then Go into it baldheaded.

‘The Biglow Papers’ (First Series, 1848) no. 6 ‘The Pious Editor’s Creed’

We’ve a war, an’ a debt, an’ a flag; an’ ef this Ain’t to be interpendunt, why, wut on airth is?

‘The Biglow Papers’ (Second Series, 1867) no. 4 ‘A Message of Jeff. Davis in Secret Session’

There comes Poe with his raven like Barnaby Rudge, Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge.

‘A Fable for Critics’ (1848) l. 1215.

No man is born into the world, whose work Is not born with him; there is always work, And tools to work withal, for those who will: And blesséd are the horny hands of toil!

‘A Glance Behind the Curtain’ (1844)

These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;

The diver Omar plucked them from their bed, Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.

‘In a Copy of Omar Khayy m’

Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.

‘On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves’ (1854)

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.

‘The Present Crisis’ (1845)

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,— Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

‘The Present Crisis’ (1845)

New occasions teach new duties: Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth.

‘The Present Crisis’ (1845)

May is a pious fraud of the almanac.

‘Under the Willows’ (1869) l. 21

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.

‘Democracy and other Addresses’ (1887) ‘Democracy’

12.134 Robert Lowell 1917-77

My eyes have seen what my hand did.

‘Dolphin’ (1973)

Terrible that old life of decency without unseemly intimacy

or quarrels, when the unemancipated woman still had her Freudian papa and maids!

‘During Fever’ (1959)

The aquarium is gone. Everywhere, giant finned cars nose forward like fish; a savage servility

slides by on grease.

‘For the Union Dead’ (1964)

Their monument sticks like a fishbone in the city’s throat.

‘For the Union Dead’ (1964)

These are the tranquillized Fifties,

and I am forty. Ought I to regret my seed-time? I was a fire-breathing Catholic C.O.,

and made my manic statement,

telling off the state and president, and then sat waiting sentence in the bull pen beside a Negro boy with curlicues

of marijuana in his hair.

‘Memories of West Street and Lepke’ (1956)

I saw the spiders marching through the air, Swimming from tree to tree that mildewed day In latter August when the hay

Came creaking to the barn.

‘Mr Edwards and the Spider’ (1950)

This is death.

To die and know it. This is the Black Widow, death.

‘Mr Edwards and the Spider’ (1950)

The Lord survives the rainbow of His will.

‘The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket’ (1950)

We feel the machine slipping from our hands As if someone else were steering;

If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It’s the light of the oncoming train.

‘Since 1939’ (1977).

My mind’s not right.

A car radio bleats,

‘Love, O careless Love...’ I hear my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell, as if my hand were at its throat...

I myself am hell, nobody’s here.

‘Skunk Hour’ (1959) st. 5

But I suppose even God was born too late to trust the old religion— all those settings out

that never left the ground,

beginning in wisdom, dying in doubt.

‘Tenth Muse’ (1964)

At forty-five,

What next, what next? At every corner,

I meet my Father, my age, still alive.

‘Middle Age’ (1964)

Who asks for me, the Shelley of my age, must lay his heart out for my bed and board.

‘Words for Hart Crane’ (1959)

12.135 William Lowndes 1652-1724

Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.

In Lord Chesterfield ‘Letters Written...to his Son’ (1774) 5 February1750; ‘...for the pounds...’ in an earlier letter, 6 November 1747

12.136 L. S. Lowry 1887-1976

I’m a simple man, and I use simple materials.

In Mervyn Levy ‘Paintings of L. S. Lowry’ (1975) p. 11

12.137 Malcolm Lowry 1909-57

How alike are the groans of love to those of the dying.

‘Under the Volcano’ (1947) ch. 12

12.138 Lucan A.D. 39-65

Quis iustius induit arma

Scire nefas, magno se iudice quisque tuetur: Victrix causa deis placuit, sed victa Catoni.

It is not granted to know which man took up arms with more right on his side. Each pleads his

cause before a great judge: the winning cause pleased the gods, but the losing one pleased Cato.

‘Pharsalia’ bk. 1, l. 126

Stat magni nominis umbra.

There stands the ghost of a great name.

‘Pharsalia’ bk. 1, l. 135 (on Pompey)

Nil actum credens, dum quid superesset agendum.

Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri

Per campos instructa tua sine parte pericli.

Sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere

Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena,

Despicere unde queas alios passimque videre

Errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae,

Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,

Noctes atque dies niti praestante labore

Ad summas emergere opes rerumque potiri.

Lovely it is, when the winds are churning up the waves on the great sea, to gaze out from the land on the great efforts of someone else; not because it’s an enjoyable pleasure that somebody is in difficulties, but because it’s lovely to realize what troubles you are yourself spared. Lovely also to witness great battle-plans of war, carried out across the plains, without your having any share in the danger. But nothing is sweeter than to occupy the quiet precincts that are well protected by the teachings of the wise, from where you can look down on others and see them wandering all over the place, getting lost and seeking the way in life, striving by their wits, pitting their noble birth, by night and by day struggling by superior efforts to rise to power at the

top and make all theirs.

‘De Rerum Natura’ bk. 2, l. 1

Augescunt aliae gentes, aliae minuntur, Inque brevi spatio mutantur saecla animantum Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt.

Some races increase, others are reduced, and in a short while the generations of living creatures

are changed and like runners relay the torch of life.

‘De Rerum Natura’ bk. 2, l. 7

Nil igitur mors est ad nos neque pertinet hilum, Quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur.

Death therefore is nothing to us nor does it concern us a scrap, seeing that the nature of the

spirit we possess is something mortal.

‘De Rerum Natura’ bk. 3, l. 830

Scire licet nobis nil esse in morte timendum Nec miserum fieri qui non est posse neque hilum Differre an nullo fuerit iam tempore natus, Mortalem vitam mors cum immortalis ademit.

We can know there is nothing to be feared in death, that one who is not cannot be made unhappy, and that it matters not a scrap whether one might ever have been born at all, when death

that is immortal has taken over one’s mortal life.

‘De Rerum Natura’ bk. 3, l. 866

Vitaque mancipio, nulli datur, omnibus usu.