The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (31 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
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Barry, Sebastian
1955–
1
Do you not feel that this island is moored only lightly to the sea-bed, and might be off for the Americas at any moment?

Prayers of Sherkin
(1991)

Barthes, Roland
1915–80
1
I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.

Mythologies
(1957) "La nouvelle Citroën"

Baruch, Bernard
1870–1965
1
We are today in the midst of a cold war.
"cold war" was suggested to him by H. B. Swope, former editor of the New York World

speech to South Carolina Legislature, 16 April 1947

2
To me old age is always fifteen years older than I am.

in
Newsweek
29 August 1955

Barzun, Jacques
1907–
1
If it were possible to talk to the unborn, one could never explain to them how it feels to be alive, for life is washed in the speechless real.

The House of Intellect
(1959) ch. 6

Basho, Matsuo
1644–94
1
How pleasant—
just once
not
to see
Fuji through mist.

tr. Lucien Stryk

2
Old pond,
leap-splash—
a frog.

tr. Lucien Stryk

3
You, the butterfly—
I, Chuang Tzu's
dreaming heart.

tr. Lucien Stryk.

Bateman, Edgar
and
Le Brunn, George
1
Wiv a ladder and some glasses,
You could see to 'Ackney Marshes,
If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between.

"If it wasn't for the 'Ouses in between" (1894 song)

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