The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (262 page)
Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Online
Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1844–1912
They hear like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.
"The Odyssey" (1881)
He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts—for support rather than illumination.
Alan L. Mackay
Harvest of a Quiet Eye
(1977); attributed
c.
1330–1400
In a somer seson, whan softe was the sonne.
The Vision of Piers Plowman
B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) prologue l. 1
Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne hilles
Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.
The Vision of Piers Plowman
B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) prologue l. 5
Me biful for to slepe, for werynesse of-walked.
The Vision of Piers Plowman
C text (ed. D. Pearsall, 1978) prologue l. 6)
A faire feeld ful of folk fond I ther bitwene.
The Vision of Piers Plowman
B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) prologue l. 17
Grammer, the ground of al.
The Vision of Piers Plowman
B text (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 1987) Passus 15, l. 370
d. 1228
Veni, Sancte Spiritus,
Et emitte coelitus
Lucis tuae radium.
Come, Holy Spirit, and send out from heaven the beam of your light.
The "Golden Sequence" for Whit Sunday (also attributed to several others, notably Pope Innocent III)
c.
604
bc
1
Heaven and earth are not humane
They regard all things as straw dogs.
The sage is not humane.
He regards all people as straw dogs.
Tao-te Ching
ch. 5
The best [rulers] are those whose existence is [merely] known by the people.
The next best are those who are loved and praised.
The next are those who are feared.
And the next are those who are reviled…
[The great rulers] accomplish their task; they complete their work.
Nevertheless their people say that they simply follow Nature.
Tao-te Ching
ch. 17
There is nothing softer and weaker than water,
And yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things.
For this reason there is no substitute for it.
All the world knows that the weak overcomes the strong and the soft overcomes the hard.
But none can practice it.
Tao-te Ching
ch. 78
1793–1859
Men might as well project a voyage to the moon as attempt to employ steam navigation against the stormy North Atlantic Ocean.
speech to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1838
1885–1933
Are you lost daddy I arsked tenderly.
Shut up he explained.
The Young Immigrunts
(1920) ch. 10
