The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
.pdfHelp of the helpless, O, abide with me.
Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away; Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou, who changest not, abide with me.
‘Abide with Me’ (probably written in 1847). See St Luke ch. 24, v. 29: ‘Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent’
12.150 George Lyttelton (first Baron Lyttleton) 1709-73
Seek to be good, but aim not to be great; A woman’s noblest station is retreat.
‘Advice to a Lady’ (1773)
12.151 E. R. Bulwer, first Earl of Lytton
See Owen Meredith (1.114) in Volume II
1.0M
1.1Ward McAllister 1827-95
There are only about four hundred people in New York society.
Interview with Charles H. Crandall in ‘New York Tribune’, 1888, in ‘Dictionary of American Biography’ vol.
11(1933)
1.2Alexander McArthur and H. Kingsley Long
Battles and sex are the only free diversions in slum life. Couple them with drink, which costs money, and you have the three principal outlets for that escape complex which is for ever working in the tenement dweller’s subconscious mind.
‘No Mean City’ (1935) ch. 4
1.3 Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964
In war, indeed, there can be no substitute for victory.
‘Congressional Record’ 19 April 1951, vol. 97, pt. 3, p. 4125
I came through and I shall return.
On reaching Australia, 20 March 1942, having broken through Japanese lines on his way from Corregidor; ‘New York Times’ 21 March 1942, p. 1
1.4 Thomas Babington Macaulay (first Baron Macaulay of Rothley Temple) 1800-59
In order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North America.
‘Biographical Essays’ (1857) ‘Frederic the Great’
The English Bible, a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.
‘John Dryden’ in ‘Edinburgh Review’ January 1828
His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. It enabled him to run, though not to soar.
‘John Dryden’ in ‘Edinburgh Review’ January 1828
The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion.
‘Essay on Athenian Orators’ in ‘Knight’s Quarterly Magazine’ August 1824
The business of everybody is the business of nobody.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 1 ‘Hallam’
The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 1 ‘Hallam’
He knew that the essence of war is violence, and that moderation in war is imbecility.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 1 ‘John Hampden’
The Life of Johnson is assuredly a great, a very great work. Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 1 ‘Samuel Johnson’
They knew luxury; they knew beggary; but they never knew comfort.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 1 ‘Samuel Johnson’
The gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed with the scars of disease, the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the grey wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 1 ‘Samuel Johnson’
Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for the Devil.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 1 ‘Machiavelli’
As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 1 ‘Milton’
Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait for ever.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 1 ‘Milton’
On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they [the Puritans] looked down with contempt: for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 1 ‘Milton’
We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 1 ‘Moore’s Life of Lord Byron’
From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics, compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness, a system in which the two great commandments were, to hate your neighbour, and to love your neighbour’s wife.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 1 ‘Moore’s Life of Lord Byron’
We have heard it said that five per cent is the natural interest of money.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 1 ‘Southey’s Colloquies’
With the dead there is no rivalry. In the dead there is no change. Plato is never sullen. Cervantes is never petulant. Demosthenes never comes unseasonably. Dante never stays too long. No difference of political opinion can alienate Cicero. No heresy can excite the horror of Bossuet.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 2 ‘Lord Bacon’
An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 2 ‘Lord Bacon’
The rising hope of those stern and unbending Tories.
On Gladstone in ‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 2 ‘Gladstone on Church and State’
The highest intellects, like the tops of mountains, are the first to catch and to reflect the dawn.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 2 ‘Sir James Mackintosh’
The history of England is emphatically the history of progress.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 2 ‘Sir James Mackintosh’
Biographers, translators, editors, all, in short, who employ themselves in illustrating the lives or writings of others, are peculiarly exposed to the Lues Boswelliana, or disease of admiration.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 2 ‘William Pitt, Earl of Chatham’
The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ 1843 vol. 2 ‘Horace Walpole’
The reluctant obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it [the territory] is worth.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 2 ‘War of the Succession in Spain’
Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and who strangled Atahualpa.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 3 ‘Lord Clive’
The Chief Justice was rich, quiet, and infamous.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 3 ‘Warren Hastings’
That temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 3 ‘Warren Hastings’ (on Westminster Abbey)
She [the Roman Catholic Church] may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St Paul’s.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 3 ‘Von Ranke’.
She [the Church of Rome] thoroughly understands what no other church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts.
‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1843) vol. 3 ‘Von Ranke’
A rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes.
On Richard Steele in ‘Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’’ (1850) ‘The Life and Writings of Addison’
[History] is a debatable line. It lies on the confines of two distinct territories. It is under the jurisdiction of two hostile powers; and like other districts similarly situated it is ill-defined, illcultivated, and ill-regulated. Instead of being equally shared between its two rulers, the Reason and the Imagination, it falls alternately under the sole and absolute dominion of each. It is sometimes fiction. It is sometimes theory.
‘History’ in ‘Edinburgh Review’ May 1828
Knowledge advances by steps, and not by leaps.
‘History’ in ‘Edinburgh Review’ May 1828
I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history.
‘History of England’ vol. 1 (1849) ch. 1
Thus our democracy was, from an early period, the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic in the world.
‘History of England’ vol. 1 (1849) ch. 1
Persecution produced its natural effect on them [Puritans and Calvinists]. It found them a sect; it made them a faction.
‘History of England’ vol. 1 (1849) ch. 1
It was a crime in a child to read by the bedside of a sick parent one of those beautiful collects which had soothed the griefs of forty generations of Christians.
‘History of England’ vol. 1 (1849) ch. 2
The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.
‘History of England’ vol. 1 (1849) ch. 2
We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.
Minute, as Member of Supreme Council of India, 2 February 1835, in W. Nassan Lees ‘Indian Musalm ns’ (1871) p. 93
Chatham was only the ruin of Pitt, but an awful and majestic ruin, not to be contemplated by any man of sense and feeling without emotions resembling those which are excited by the remains of the Parthenon and the Coliseum.
‘William Pitt’ in ‘Edinburgh Review’ January 1859
Thank you, madam, the agony is abated.
Aged four, hot coffee having been spilt over his legs, in G. M. Trevelyan ‘The Life and Letters of Macaulay’ ch. 1
We were regaled by a dogfight...How odd that people of sense should find any pleasure in being accompanied by a beast who is always spoiling conversation.
In G. M. Trevelyan ‘The Life and Letters of Macaulay’ ch. 14
The rugged miners poured to war from Mendip’s sunless caves.
‘The Armada’ (1833)
Till Belvoir’s lordly terraces the sign to Lincoln sent,
And Lincoln sped the message on o’er the wide vale of Trent; Till Skiddaw saw the fire that burned on Gaunt’s embattled pile, And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlisle.
‘The Armada’ (1833)
Obadiah Bind-their-kings-in-chains-and-their-nobles-with-links-of-iron.
‘The Battle of Naseby’ (1824) fictitious author’s name.
Oh, wherefore come ye forth in triumph from the north, With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment all red? And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout? And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which ye tread?
‘The Battle of Naseby’ (1824)
And the Man of Blood was there, with his long essenced hair, And Astley, and Sir Marmaduke, and Rupert of the Rhine.
‘The Battle of Naseby’ (1824)
To my true king I offered free from stain Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain.
‘A Jacobite’s Epitaph’ (1845)
By those white cliffs I never more must see, By that dear language which I spake like thee, Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear O’er English dust. A broken heart lies here.
‘A Jacobite’s Epitaph’ (1845)
Let no man stop to plunder, But slay, and slay, and slay; The Gods who live for ever Are on our side to-day.
‘Lays of Ancient Rome’ (1842) ‘The Battle of Lake Regillus’ st. 35
Lars Porsena of Clusium By the nine gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin Should suffer wrong no more. By the Nine Gods he swore it, And named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth, East and west and south and north, To summon his array.
‘Lays of Ancient Rome’ (1842) ‘Horatius’ st. 1
Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate:
‘To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods?’
‘Lays of Ancient Rome’ (1842) ‘Horatius’ st. 27
‘Now who will stand on either hand, And keep the bridge with me?’
‘Lays of Ancient Rome’ (1842) ‘Horatius’ st. 29
Then none was for a party; Then all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great: Then lands were fairly portioned; Then spoils were fairly sold:
The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old.
‘Lays of Ancient Rome’ (1842) ‘Horatius’ st. 32
Was none who would be foremost To lead such dire attack;
But those behind cried ‘Forward!’ And those before cried ‘Back!’
‘Lays of Ancient Rome’ (1842) ‘Horatius’ st. 50
‘Oh, Tiber! father Tiber To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman’s life, a Roman’s arms, Take thou in charge this day!’
‘Lays of Ancient Rome’ (1842) ‘Horatius’ st. 59
And even the ranks of Tuscany Could scarce forbear to cheer.
‘Lays of Ancient Rome’ (1842) ‘Horatius’ st. 60
With weeping and with laughter Still is the story told,
How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old.
‘Lays of Ancient Rome’ (1842) ‘Horatius’ st. 70
1.5 Dame Rose Macaulay 1881-1958
Gentlemen know that fresh air should be kept in its proper place—out of doors—and that, God having given us indoors and out-of-doors, we should not attempt to do away with this distinction.
‘Crewe Train’ pt. 1, ch. 5
‘What does a lovely maid with rhyming, pray?’ ‘It makes no differ, being a maid,’ Julian told him...’It makes no differ. Men or women, if we crave to write verse, we must write it, and write it the best we can.’
‘They Were Defeated’ (1932) pt. 3, ch. 5
‘Take my camel, dear,’ said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.
‘The Towers of Trebizond’ (1956) p. 9
1.6 General Anthony McAuliffe 1898-1975
Nuts!
Reply to the German demand to surrender at Bastogne, Belgium, 22 December 1944; in ‘New York Times’ 28 December 1944, p. 4, and 30 December 1944, p. 1
1.7 Joseph McCarthy 1908-57
McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled.
Speech in Wisconsin, 1952, in Richard Rovere ‘Senator Joe McCarthy’ (1973) p. 8
1.8 Mary McCarthy 1912-89
If someone tells you he is going to make a ‘realistic decision’, you immediately understand that he has resolved to do something bad.
‘On the Contrary’ (1961) ‘American Realist Playwrights’
The immense popularity of American movies abroad demonstrates that Europe is the unfinished negative of which America is the proof.
‘On the Contrary’ (1961) ‘America the Beautiful’
In violence, we forget who we are.
‘On the Contrary’ (1961) ‘Characters in Fiction
There are no new truths, but only truths that have not been recognized by those who have perceived them without noticing.
‘On the Contrary’ (1961) ‘Vita Activa’
Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.
Quoting herself on Lillian Hellman in ‘New York Times’ 16 February 1980, p. 12
1.9 George B. McClellan 1826-85
All quiet along the Potomac.
Attributed in the American Civil War.
1.10 David McCord 1897—
By and by
God caught his eye.
‘Remainders’ (1935) (epitaph for a waiter)
1.11 Horace McCoy 1897-1955
They shoot horses don’t they.
Title of novel (1935)
1.12 John McCrae 1872-1918
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
‘In Flanders Fields’ (1915)
To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow.
‘In Flanders Fields’ (1915)
1.13 Hugh MacDiarmid (Christopher Murray Grieve) 1892-1978
I’ll ha’e nae hauf-way hoose, but aye be whaur Extremes meet—it’s the only way I ken
To dodge the curst conceit o’ bein’ richt That damns the vast majority o’ men.
‘A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle’ (1926) p. 6
He’s no a man ava’, And lacks a proper pride,
Gin less than a’ the world Can ser’ him for a bride!
‘A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle’ (1926) p. 36
1.14 George MacDonald 1824-1905
Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the everywhere into here.
‘At the Back of the North Wind’ (1871) ch. 33 ‘Song’
Here lie I, Martin Elginbrodde: Hae mercy o’ my soul, Lord God; As I wad do, were I Lord God,
And ye were Martin Elginbrodde.
‘David Elginbrod’ (1863) bk. 1, ch. 13
They all were looking for a king
To slay their foes, and lift them high; Thou cam’st, a little baby thing, That made a woman cry.
‘That Holy Thing’
1.15 Ramsay MacDonald 1866-1937
We hear war called murder. It is not: it is suicide.
In ‘Observer’ 4 May 1930
Tomorrow every Duchess in London will be wanting to kiss me!
After forming the National Government, 25 August 1931; in Philip Viscount Snowden ‘An Autobiography’ (1934) vol. 2, p. 957
1.16 A. G. MacDonell 1889—
England, their England.
Title of novel (1933).
1.17 William McGonagall c.1825-1902
Alas! Lord and Lady Dalhousie are dead, and buried at last, Which causes many people to feel a little downcast.
‘The Death of Lord and Lady Dalhousie’
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay! Alas, I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remembered for a very long time.
‘The Tay Bridge Disaster’
1.18 Roger McGough 1937—
You will put on a dress of guilt and shoes with broken high ideals.
‘Comeclose and Sleepnow’
Let me die a youngman’s death Not a clean & in-between— The-sheets, holy-water death, Not a famous-last-words Peaceful out-of-breath death.
‘Let Me Die a Youngman’s Death’ (1967)
1.19 Sir Ian MacGregor 1912—
People are now discovering the price of insubordination and insurrection. And boy, are we going to make it stick!
Reported during the coal-miners’ strike, in ‘Sunday Telegraph’ 10 March 1985.
1.20 Jimmy McGregor
Oh, he’s football crazy, he’s football mad
And the football it has robbed him o’ the wee bit sense he had. And it would take a dozen skivvies, his clothes to wash and scrub, Since our Jock became a member of that terrible football club.
‘Football Crazy’ (1960 song)
1.21 Antonio Machado 1875-1902
Yo vivo en paz con los hombres y en guerra con mis entrañas.
I am living at peace with men and at war with my innards.
‘Proverbios y Cantares’ no. 22 in ‘Campos de Castilla’ (1917)
1.22 Niccoló Machiavelli 1469-1527
As a prince must be able to act just like a beast, he should learn from the fox and the lion; because the lion does not defend himself against traps, and the fox does not defend himself against wolves. So one has to be a fox in order to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten off wolves.
‘The Prince’ (1532) ch. 18
1.23 Claude McKay 1890-1948
If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot.
‘If We Must Die’ (1953)
1.24 Sir Compton Mackenzie 1883-1972
Women do not find it difficult nowadays to behave like men, but they often find it extremely difficult to behave like gentlemen.
‘Literature in My Time’ (1933) ch. 22
You are offered a piece of bread and butter that feels like a damp handkerchief and sometimes, when cucumber is added to it, like a wet one.
‘Vestal Fire’ (1927) bk. 1, ch. 3
1.25 Sir James Mackintosh 1765-1832