The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (15 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
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Arabian Nights
Entertainments, or the Thousand and one Nights
1
Who will change old lamps for new ones?…new lamps for old ones?

"The History of Aladdin"

2
Open Sesame!

"The History of Ali Baba"

Arabin, William
1773–1841
1
Prisoner, God has given you good abilities, instead of which you go about the country stealing ducks.

also attributed to a Revd Mr Alderson, in Frederick Pollock
Essays in the Law
(1922)

2
They will steal the very teeth out of your mouth as you walk through the streets.
I know it from experience
.
on the citizens of Uxbridge

Sir W. Ballantine
Some Experiences of a Barrister's Life
(1882) vol. 1, ch. 6

Aragon, Louis
1897–1982
1
Ô mois des floraisons mois des métamorphoses
Mai qui fut sans nuage et Juin poignardé
Je n'oublierai jamais les lilas ni les roses
Ni ceux que le printemps dans ses plis a gardé.
O month of flowerings, month of metamorphoses,
May without cloud and June that was stabbed,
I shall never forget the lilac and the roses
Nor those whom spring has kept in its folds.

"Les lilas et les roses" (1940)

Arbus, Diane
1923–71
1
A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.

Patricia Bosworth
Diane Arbus: a Biography
(1985)

Arbuthnot, John
1667–1735
1
Law is a bottomless pit.

The History of John Bull
(1712) title of first pamphlet

Archilochus
1
The fox knows many things—the hedgehog one
big
one.

E. Diehl (ed.)
Anthologia Lyrica Graeca
(3rd ed., 1949–52) vol. 1, no. 103.

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