The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
.pdfOr was it his bees-winged eyes?
He rose, and he put down The Yellow Book. He staggered—and, terrible-eyed,
He brushed past the palms on the staircase
And was helped to a hansom outside.
‘The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel’ (1937)
And girls in slacks remember Dad, And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad, And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’ Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.
And is it true? And is it true, This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue, A Baby in an ox’s stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?
‘Christmas’ (1954)
Oh! Chintzy, Chintzy cheeriness, Half dead and half alive!
‘Death in Leamington’ (1931)
Spirits of well-shot woodcock, partridge, snipe Flutter and bear him up the Norfolk sky.
‘Death of King George V’ (1937)
Old men in country houses hear clocks ticking Over thick carpets with a deadened force.
‘Death of King George V’ (1937)
Old men who never cheated, never doubted, Communicated monthly, sit and stare
At the new suburb stretched beyond the run-way Where a young man lands hatless from the air.
‘Death of King George V’ (1937)
Whist upon whist upon whist upon whist drive, in Institute, Legion and Social Club. Horny hands that hold the aces which this morning held the plough.
‘Dorset’ (1937)
Oh shall I see the Thames again? The prow-promoted gems again, As beefy ATS
Without their hats
Come shooting through the bridge? And ‘cheerioh’ or ‘cheeri-bye’ Across the waste of waters die And low the mists of evening lie And lightly skims the midge.
‘Henley-on-Thames’ (1945)
Phone for the fish-knives, Norman As Cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes And I must have things daintily served.
‘How to get on in Society’ (1954)
Milk and then just as it comes dear? I’m afraid the preserve’s full of stones; Beg pardon, I’m soiling the doileys With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.
‘How to get on in Society’ (1954)
In the Garden City Cafè with its murals on the wall Before a talk on ‘Sex and Civics’ I meditated on the Fall.
‘Huxley Hall’ (1954)
The Church’s Restoration In eighteen-eighty-three Has left for contemplation Not what there used to be.
‘Hymn’ in ‘Mount Zion’ (1931)
Think of what our Nation stands for, Books from Boots’ and country lanes, Free speech, free passes, class distinction, Democracy and proper drains.
Lord, put beneath Thy special care One-eighty-nine Cadogan Square.
‘In Westminster Abbey’ (1940)
In the licorice fields at Pontefract My love and I did meet
And many a burdened licorice bush Was blooming round our feet;
Red hair she had and golden skin, Her sulky lips were shaped for sin, Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack’d, The strongest legs in Pontefract.
‘The Licorice Fields at Pontefract’ (1954)
Belbroughton Road is bonny, and pinkly bursts the spray
Of prunus and forsythia across the public way,
For a full spring-tide of blossom seethed and departed hence,
Leaving land-locked pools of jonquils by sunny garden fence.
And a constant sound of flushing runneth from windows where
The toothbrush too is airing in this new North Oxford air.
‘May-Day Song for North Oxford’ (1945)
Gaily into Ruislip Gardens Runs the red electric train,
With a thousand Ta’s and Pardon’s Daintily alights Elaine;
Hurries down the concrete station With a frown of concentration, Out into the outskirt’s edges Where a few surviving hedges
Keep alive our lost Elysium—rural Middlesex again.
‘Middlesex’ (1954)
Pam, I adore you, Pam, you great big mountainous sports girl, Whizzing them over the net, full of the strength of five:
That old Malvernian brother, you zephyr and khaki shorts girl,
Although he’s playing for Woking, can’t stand up to your wonderful backhand drive.
‘Pot Pourri from a Surrey Garden’ (1940)
The gas was on in the Institute, The flare was up in the gymn,
A man was running a mineral line, A lass was singing a hymn,
When Captain Webb the Dawley man, Captain Webb from Dawley,
Came swimming along in the old canal That carries the bricks to Lewley.
‘A Shropshire Lad’ (1940)
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now,
There isn’t grass to graze a cow. Swarm over, Death!
‘Slough’ (1937)
Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Furnish’d and burnish’d by Aldershot sun, What strenuous singles we played after tea, We in the tournament—you against me.
Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won.
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.
‘A Subaltern’s Love-Song’ (1945)
By roads ‘not adopted’, by woodlanded ways, She drove to the club in the late summer haze, Into nine-o’clock Camberley, heavy with bells And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, I can hear from the car-park the dance has begun. Oh! full Surrey twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl’s hand!
‘Subaltern’s Love-Song’ (1945)
The dread of beatings! Dread of being late! And, greatest dread of all, the dread of games!
‘Summoned by Bells’ (1960) ch. 7
There was sun enough for lazing upon beaches, There was fun enough for far into the night. But I’m dying now and done for,
What on earth was all the fun for?
For God’s sake keep that sunlight out of sight.
‘Sun and Fun’ (1954)
Broad of Church and ‘broad of Mind’, Broad before and broad behind,
A keen ecclesiologist,
A rather dirty Wykehamist.
‘The Wykehamist’ (1931)
Ghastly good taste, or a depressing story of the rise and fall of English architecture.
Title of book (1933)
2.113 Aneurin Bevan 1897-1960
This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time.
Speech at Blackpool 24 May 1945, in ‘Daily Herald’ 25 May 1945
No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my
heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party...So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
Speech at Manchester, 4 July 1948, in ‘The Times’ 5 July 1948
The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism.
Speech at Labour Party Conference in Blackpool, 8 June 1949, in ‘Report of the 48th Annual Conference’ (1949) p. 172
Why read the crystal when he can read the book?
Referring to Robert Boothby during a debate on the Sterling Exchange Rate, ‘Hansard’ 29 September 1949, col. 319
[Winston Churchill] does not talk the language of the 20th century but that of the 18th. He is still fighting Blenheim all over again. His only answer to a difficult situation is send a gun-boat.
Speech at Labour Party Conference, Scarborough, 2 October 1951, in ‘Daily Herald’ 3 October 1951
I am not going to spend any time whatsoever in attacking the Foreign Secretary...If we complain about the tune, there is no reason to attack the monkey when the organ grinder is present.
During a debate on the Suez crisis, ‘Hansard’ 16 May 1957, col. 680
If you carry this resolution you will send Britain’s Foreign Secretary naked into the conference chamber.
Speech at Labour Party Conference in Brighton, 3 October 1957, against a motion proposing unilateral nuclear disarmament by the UK, in ‘Daily Herald’ 4 October 1957
Listening to a speech by Chamberlain is like paying a visit to Woolworth’s: everything in its place and nothing above sixpence.
In Michael Foot ‘Aneurin Bevan’ (1962) vol. 1, ch. 8
I know that the right kind of leader for the Labour Party is a desiccated calculating machine who must not in any way permit himself to be swayed by indignation. If he sees suffering, privation or injustice he must not allow it to move him, for that would be evidence of the lack of proper education or of absence of self-control. He must speak in calm and objective accents and talk about a dying child in the same way as he would about the pieces inside an internal combustion engine.
In Michael Foot ‘Aneurin Bevan’ (1973) vol. 2, ch. 11
Damn it all, you can’t have the crown of thorns and the thirty pieces of silver.
In Michael Foot ‘Aneurin Bevan’ (1973) vol. 2, ch. 13
We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down.
In ‘Observer’ 6 December 1953
I read the newspapers avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction.
In ‘The Times’ 29 March 1960
2.114 William Henry Beveridge (First Baron Beveridge) 1879-1963
Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.
‘Full Employment in a Free Society’ (1944) pt. 7
The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.
‘Social Insurance and Allied Services’ (1942) pt. 7
Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction...the others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.
‘Social Insurance and Allied Services’ (1942) pt. 7
The state is or can be master of money, but in a free society it is master of very little else.
‘Voluntary Action’ (1948) ch. 12
2.115 Ernest Bevin 1881-1951
The most conservative man in this world is the British Trade Unionist when you want to change him.
Speech, 8 September 1927, in ‘Report of Proceedings of the Trades Union Congress’ (1927) p. 298
I hope you will carry no resolution of an emergency character telling a man with a conscience like Lansbury what he ought to do...It is placing the Executive in an absolutely wrong position to be taking your conscience round from body to body to be told what you ought to do with it.
‘Labour Party Conference Report’ (1935)
There never has been a war yet which, if the facts had been put calmly before the ordinary folk, could not have been prevented...The common man, I think, is the great protection against war.
‘Hansard’ 23 November 1945, col. 786
My [foreign] policy is to be able to take a ticket at Victoria Station and go anywhere I damn well please.
In ‘Spectator’ 20 April 1951, p. 514
If you open that Pandora’s Box, you never know what Trojan ’orses will jump out.
On the Council of Europe, in Sir Roderick Barclay ‘Ernest Bevin and Foreign Office’ (1975) ch. 3
I didn’t ought never to have done it. It was you, Willie, what put me up to it.
To Lord Strang, after officially recognizing Communist China, in C. Parrott ‘Serpent and Nightingale’ (1977) ch. 3
2.116 The Bible
2.116.1 Authorized Version
See also The Book of Common Prayer for the Psalms (4.93) in Volume II
Upon the setting of that bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth of most happy memory.
The Epistle Dedicatory
The appearance of Your Majesty, as of the Sun in his strength.
The Epistle Dedicatory
2.116.2 Old Testament
2.116.2.1 Genesis
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Genesis ch. 1, v. 1
And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Genesis ch. 1, v. 5
And God saw that it was good.
Genesis ch. 1, v. 10
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Genesis ch. 1, v. 16
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Genesis ch. 1, v. 26
Male and female created he them.
Genesis ch. 1, v. 27
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.
Genesis ch. 1, v. 28
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden.
Genesis ch. 2, v. 7
And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis ch. 2, v. 9
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Genesis ch. 2, v. 17
It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
Genesis ch. 2, v. 18
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman.
Genesis ch. 2, v. 21
This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called
Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Genesis ch. 2, v. 23
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Genesis ch. 2, v. 24
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field.
Genesis ch. 3, v. 1
Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Genesis ch. 3, v. 5
And they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
Genesis ch. 3, v. 7 (‘and made themselves breeches’ in the Genevan Bible (1560), also known as the ‘Breeches Bible’ for that reason.
The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. What is this that thou hast done?
The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.
For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Genesis ch. 3, v. 19
The mother of all living.
Genesis ch. 3, v. 20
Am I my brother’s keeper?
The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.
My punishment is greater than I can bear.
And the Lord set a mark upon Cain.
And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
Genesis ch. 4, v. 16
And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
Genesis ch. 5, v. 24
And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.
Genesis ch. 5, v. 27
And Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Genesis ch. 5, v. 32
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
Genesis ch. 6, v. 4
There went in two and two unto Noah into the Ark, the male and the female.
Genesis ch. 7, v. 9
But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot.
Genesis ch. 8, v. 9
For the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.
Genesis ch. 8, v. 21
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Genesis ch. 8, v. 22
At the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.
Genesis ch. 9, v. 5
Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.
Genesis ch. 9, v. 6
I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud.
Genesis ch. 9, v. 13
Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.
Genesis ch. 10, v. 9
Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between thee and me...for we be brethren.
Genesis ch. 13, v. 8
An horror of great darkness fell upon him.
Genesis ch. 15, v. 12
Thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
Genesis ch. 15, v. 15
His [Ishmael’s] hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.
Genesis ch. 16, v. 12
Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.
Genesis ch. 18, v. 11
Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right.
Genesis ch. 18, v. 25
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
Genesis ch. 19, v. 26
Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest.
Genesis ch. 22, v. 2
My son, God will provide himself a lamb.
Genesis ch. 22, v. 8
Behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns.
Genesis ch. 22, v. 13
Esau selleth his birthright for a mess of potage.
Heading to ch. 25 in Genevan Bible (1560).
Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.
Genesis ch. 25, v. 27
And he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
Genesis ch. 25, v. 33
Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man.
Genesis ch. 27, v. 11
The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.
Genesis ch. 27, v. 22
Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing.
Genesis ch. 27, v. 35
And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
Genesis ch. 28, v. 12
Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.
Genesis ch. 28, v. 16
This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
Genesis ch. 28, v. 17
And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.
Genesis ch. 29, v. 20
The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.
Genesis ch. 31, v. 49
There wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.
Genesis ch. 32, v. 24
I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.