The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (25 page)

And proud of seeing our names in print.

Poems (1915) "Song of Defeat"

Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget.

For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.

Poems (1915) "The Secret People"

We only know the last sad squires ride slowly towards the sea,

And a new people takes the land: and still it is not we.

Poems (1915) "The Secret People"

They spoke of Progress spiring round,

Of Light and Mrs Humphry Ward--

It is not true to say I frowned,

Or ran about the room and roared;

I might have simply sat and snored--

I rose politely in the club

And said,"I feel a little bored.

Will someone take me to a pub?"

Poems (1915) "Ballade of an Anti-Puritan"

The gallows in my garden, people say,

Is new and neat and adequately tall.

I tie the noose on in a knowing way

As one that knots his necktie for a ball;

But just as all the neighbours--on the wall--

Are drawing a long breath to shout "Hurray!"

The strangest whim has seized me....After all

I think I will not hang myself today.

Poems (1915) "Ballade of Suicide"

It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the

problem.

Scandal of Father Brown (1935) "Point of a Pin"

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only

one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.

Tremendous Trifles (1909) "On Lying in Bed"

Hardy went down to botanize in the swamp, while Meredith climbed towards

the sun. Meredith became, at his best, a sort of daintily dressed Walt

Whitman: Hardy became a sort of village atheist brooding and blaspheming

over the village idiot.

Victorian Age in Literature (1912) ch. 2

He [Tennyson] could not think up to the height of his own towering style.

Victorian Age in Literature (1912) ch. 3

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been

found difficult; and left untried.

What's Wrong with the World (1910) pt. 1, ch. 5

She was maintaining the prime truth of woman, the universal mother: that

if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

What's Wrong with the World (1910) pt. 4, ch. 14

When fishes flew and forests walked

And figs grew upon thorn,

Some moment when the moon was blood

Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry

And ears like errant wings,

The devil's walking parody

On all four-footed things.

Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900) "The Donkey"

Fools! For I also had my hour;

One far fierce hour and sweet:

There was a shout about my ears,

And palms before my feet.

Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900) "The Donkey"

But Higgins is a Heathen,

And to lecture rooms is forced,

Where his aunts, who are not married,

Demand to be divorced.

Wine, Water and Song (1915) "Song of the Strange Ascetic"

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to

want it.

Wisdom of Father Brown (1914) "Paradise of Thieves"

Journalism largely consists in saying "Lord Jones Dead" to people who

never knew that Lord Jones was alive.

Wisdom of Father Brown (1914) "The Purple Wig"

3.51 Maurice Chevalier =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1888-1972

On his seventy-second birthday in 1960, he [Chevalier] was asked what he

felt about the advancing years. "Considering the alternative," he said,

"it's not too bad at all."

Michael Freedland Maurice Chevalier (1981) ch. 20

3.52 Erskine Childers =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1870-1922

The riddle of the sands.

Title of novel (1903)

The [firing] squad took up their positions across the prison yard. "Come

closer, boys," Childers called out to them. "It will be easier for you."

Burke Wilkinson Zeal of Convert (1976) ch. 26

3.53 Charles Chilton =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1914-

See Joan Littlewood (12.66)

3.54 Noam Chomsky =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1928-

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action

arise, human science is at a loss.

Television interview, 30 Mar. 1978, in Listener 6 Apr. 1978

The notion "grammatical" cannot be identified with "meaningful" or

"significant" in any semantic sense. Sentences (1) and (2) are equally

nonsensical, but...only the former is grammatical.

(1) Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

(2) Furiously sleep ideas green colourless.

Syntactic Structures (1957) ch. 2

3.55 Dame Agatha Christie =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1890-1976

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing that to

win a war is as disastrous as to lose one!

Autobiography (1977) pt. 10

"This affair must all be unravelled from within." He [Hercule Poirot]

tapped his forehead. "These little grey cells. It is 'up to them'--as you

say over here."

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) ch. 10

Trust the train, Mademoiselle, for it is le bon Dieu who drives it.

The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) ch. 36

3.56 Frank E. Churchill =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1901-1942

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Title of song (1933; probably written in collaboration with Ann Ronell)

3.57 Sir Winston Churchill =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1874-1965

In defeat unbeatable: in victory unbearable.

In Edward Marsh Ambrosia and Small Beer (1964) ch. 5 (describing Viscount

Montgomery)

After the war one quip which went the rounds of Westminster was attributed

to Churchill himself. "An empty taxi arrived at 10 Downing Street, and

when the door was opened [Clement] Attlee got out." When [John] Colville

repeated this, and its attribution, to Churchill he obviously did not like

it. His face set hard, and "after an awful pause" he said: "Mr Attlee is

an honourable and gallant gentleman, and a faithful colleague who served

his country well at the time of her greatest need. I should be obliged if

you would make it clear whenever an occasion arises that I would never

make such a remark about him, and that I strongly disapprove of anybody

who does."

Kenneth Harris Attlee (1982) ch. 16

Always remember, Clemmie, that I have taken more out of alcohol than

alcohol has taken out of me.

In Quentin Reynolds By Quentin Reynolds (1964) ch. 11

[Clement Attlee is] a modest man who has a good deal to be modest about.

In Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine of Books 27 June 1954

Question: What are the desirable qualifications for any young man who

wishes to become a politician?

Mr Churchill: It is the ability to foretell what is going to happen

tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability

afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.

In B. Adler Churchill Wit (1965) p. 4

The British people have taken for themselves this motto--"Business carried

on as usual during alterations on the map of Europe." They expect the

navy, on which they have lavished so much care and expense, to make that

good, and that is what, upon the whole, we are actually achieving at the

present time.

Speech at the Guildhall, 9 Nov. 1914, in Complete Speeches (1974) vol. 3,

p. 2341

Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt....We shall

not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock

of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us

down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job.

Speech on radio, 9 Feb. 1941, in Complete Speeches (1974) vol. 6, p. 6350

The people of London with one voice would say to Hitler: "You have

committed every crime under the sun....We will have no truce or parley

with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your

worst--and we will do our best."

Speech at County Hall, London, 14 July 1941, in Complete Speeches (1974)

vol. 6, p. 6451

Do not let us speak of darker days; let us rather speak of sterner days.

These are not dark days: these are great days--the greatest days our

country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been

allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making

these days memorable in the history of our race.

Speech at Harrow School, 29 Oct. 1941, in Complete Speeches (1974) vol. 6,

p. 6500

It becomes still more difficult to reconcile Japanese action with prudence

or even with sanity. What kind of a people do they think we are?

Speech to US Congress, 26 Dec. 1941, in Complete Speeches (1974) vol. 6,

p. 6540

When I warned them [the French Government] that Britain would fight on

alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his

divided Cabinet, "In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like

a chicken." Some chicken! Some neck!

Speech to Canadian Parliament, 30 Dec. 1941, in Complete Speeches (1974)

vol. 6, p. 6544

There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into

babies. Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.

Speech on radio, 21 Mar. 1943, in Complete Speeches (1974) vol. 7, p. 6761

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has

descended across the Continent.

Speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, 5 Mar. 1946, in Complete

Speeches (1974) vol. 7, p. 7290

Somebody said, "One never hears of Baldwin nowadays--he might as well be

dead." "No," said Winston, "not dead. But the candle in that great turnip

has gone out."

Harold Nicolson Diary 17 Aug. 1950, in Diaries and Letters (1968) p. 193

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it

is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Speech at the Mansion House, London, 10 Nov. 1942, in End of the Beginning

(1943) p. 214

We mean to hold our own. I have not become the King's First Minister in

order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.

Speech in London, 10 Nov. 1942, in End of the Beginning (1943) p. 215

Once he [Churchill] said to me, "Alfred, if you met Picasso coming down

the street, would you join with me in kicking his something something

something?" I said, "Yes, sir, I would."

Sir Alfred Munnings in speech at Royal Academy, 28 Apr. 1949, in The

Finish (1952) ch. 22

Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and

the lash.

In Sir Peter Gretton Former Naval Person (1968) ch. 1

A labour contract into which men enter voluntarily for a limited and for a

brief period, under which they are paid wages which they consider

adequate, under which they are not bought or sold and from which they can

obtain relief...on payment of �17.10s, the cost of their passage, may not

be a healthy or proper contract, but it cannot in the opinion of His

Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of

the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.

Hansard 22 Feb. 1906, col. 555

He [Lord Charles Beresford] is one of those orators of whom it was well

said, "Before they get up, they do not know what they are going to say;

when they are speaking, they do not know what they are saying; and when

they have sat down, they do not know what they have said."

Hansard 20 Dec. 1912, col. 1893

The whole map of Europe has been changed. The position of countries has

been violently altered. The modes of thought of men, the whole outlook on

affairs, the grouping of parties, all have encountered violent and

tremendous changes in the deluge of the world, but as the deluge subsides

and the waters fall short we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and

Tyrone emerging once again. The integrity of their quarrel is one of the

few institutions that has been unaltered in the cataclysm which has swept

the world.

Hansard 16 Feb. 1922, col. 1270

I decline utterly to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the

fire.

Hansard 7 July 1926, col. 2216 (replying to complaints of his bias in

editing the British Gazette during the General Strike)

I remember, when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's

circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the

exhibit on the programme which I most desired to see was the one described

as "The Boneless Wonder." My parents judged that that spectacle would be

too revolting and demoralizing for my youthful eyes, and I have waited 50

years to see the boneless wonder [Ramsay Macdonald] sitting on the

Treasury Bench.

Hansard 28 Jan. 1931, col. 1021

So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be

undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for