The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (25 page)
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Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1813–65
"He is coming! he is coming!"
Like a bridegroom from his room,
Came the hero from his prison
To the scaffold and the doom.
"The Execution of Montrose" (1849) st. 14
The earth is all the home I have,
The heavens my wide roof-tree.
"The Wandering Jew" (1867) l. 49
1792–1871
Every moment dies a man,
Every moment 1
/
16
parody of Tennyson's "Vision of Sin", in an unpublished letter to the poet, in
New Scientist
4 Dec 1958.
1894–1940
No iron can stab the heart with such force as a full stop put just at the right place.
Guy de Maupassant
(1932)
1685–1750
There is nothing to it. You only have to hit the right notes at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
when complimented on his organ playing
K. Geiringer
The Bach Family
(1954)
1561–1626
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
The Advancement of Learning
(1605) bk. 1, ch. 5, sect. 8
Words are the tokens current and accepted for conceits, as moneys are for values.
The Advancement of Learning
(1605) bk. 2, ch. 16, sect. 3
A dance is a measured pace, as a verse is a measured speech.
The Advancement of Learning
(1605) bk. 2, ch. 16, sect. 5
Ancient times were the youth of the world.
De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum
(1623) bk. 1 (tr. Gilbert Watts, 1640)
He is the fountain of honour.
An Essay of a King
(1642); attribution doubtful.
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
Essays
(1625) "Of Atheism"
Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
Essays
(1625) "Of Beauty"
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
Essays
(1625) "Of Beauty"
He said it that knew it best.
referring to Demosthenes
Essays
(1625) "Of Boldness"
In civil business; what first? boldness; what second and third? boldness: and yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness.
Essays
(1625) "Of Boldness"
Books will speak plain when counsellors blanch.
Essays
(1625) "Of Counsel"
I knew one that when he wrote a letter he would put that which was most material in the postscript, as if it had been a bymatter.
Essays
(1625) "Of Cunning".
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
Essays
(1625) "Of Death"
Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour aspireth to it; grief flieth to it.
Essays
(1625) "Of Death"
Cure the disease and kill the patient.
Essays
(1625) "Of Friendship"
God Almighty first planted a garden; and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.
Essays
(1625) "Of Gardens"
Nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn.
Essays
(1625) "Of Gardens"
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.
Essays
(1625) "Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature"
All rising to great place is by a winding stair.
Essays
(1625) "Of Great Place"
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.
Essays
(1625) "Of Innovations"
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
Essays
(1625) "Of Marriage and the Single Life".
He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry? "A young man not yet, an elder man not at all."
Essays
(1625) "Of Marriage and the Single Life".
It is generally better to deal by speech than by letter.
Essays
(1625) "Of Negotiating"
Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.
Essays
(1625) "Of Parents and Children"
Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.
Essays
(1625) "Of Praise"
Age will not be defied.
Essays
(1625) "Of Regimen of Health"
Revenge is a kind of wild justice.
Essays
(1625) "Of Revenge"
Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
Essays
(1625) "Of Seditions and Troubles"
The remedy is worse than the disease.
Essays
(1625) "Of Seditions and Troubles"
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
Essays
(1625) "Of Studies"
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
Essays
(1625) "Of Studies"
Neither is money the sinews of war (as it is trivially said).
Essays
(1625) "Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms".
Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.
Essays
(1625) "Of Travel"
What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.
Essays
(1625) "Of Truth".
All colours will agree in the dark.
Essays
(1625) "Of Unity in Religion"
It was prettily devised of Aesop, "The fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot-wheel and said, what a dust do I raise."
Essays
(1625) "Of Vain-Glory"
Be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others.
Essays
(1625) "Of Wisdom for a Man's Self".
It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set a house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs.
Essays
(1625) "Of Wisdom for a Man's Self"
It is the wisdom of the crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour.
Essays
(1625) "Of Wisdom for a Man's Self"
I have taken all knowledge to be my province.
"To My Lord Treasurer Burghley" (1592) in J. Spedding (ed.)
The Letters and Life of Francis Bacon
vol. 1 (1861)
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.For also knowledge itself is power.
Meditationes Sacrae
(1597) "Of Heresies"
God's first Creature, which was Light.
New Atlantis
(1627)
Magna ista scientiarum mater.That great mother of sciences.
of natural philosophy
Novum Organum
(1620) bk. 1, Aphorism 80 (tr. J. Spedding)
Printing, gunpowder, and the mariner's needle [compass]…these three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world.
Novum Organum
(1620) bk. 1, Aphorism 129 (tr. J. Spedding).
Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.
often attributed to Queen Elizabeth I from a misreading of the text
J. Spedding (ed.)
The Works of Francis Bacon
vol. 7 (1859) "Baconiana"
The world's a bubble; and the life of man
Less than a span.
The World
(1629)
What then remains, but that we still should cry,
Not to be born, or being born, to die?
The World
(1629)
