The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (68 page)

wrong members in control--that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to

describing England in a phrase.

The Lion and the Unicorn (1941) pt. 1 "England Your England"

Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but

the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.

The Lion and the Unicorn (1941) pt. 1 "England Your England"

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) pt. 1, ch. 1

On each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous

face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so

contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS

WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) pt. 1, ch. 1

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) pt. 1, ch. 1

"Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who

controls the present controls the past."

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) pt. 1, ch. 3

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is

granted, all else follows.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) pt. 1, ch. 7

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's

mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) pt. 2, ch. 9

Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship

in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to

establish the dictatorship.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) pt. 3, ch. 3

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human

face--for ever.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) pt. 3, ch. 3

The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent

cannot be both honest and intelligent.

Polemic Jan. 1946 "The Prevention of Literature"

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

Polemic May 1946 "Second Thoughts on James Burnham"

It is only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can

remain superior.

The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) ch. 2

A person of bourgeois origin goes through life with some expectation of

getting what he wants, within reasonable limits. Hence the fact that in

times of stress "educated" people tend to come to the front.

The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) ch. 3

There can hardly be a town in the South of England where you could throw a

brick without hitting the niece of a bishop.

The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) ch. 7

As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is

its adherents.

The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) ch. 11

The typical Socialist is...a prim little man with a white-collar job,

usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with

a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social

position which he has no intention of forfeiting.

The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) ch. 11

To the ordinary working man, the sort you would meet in any pub on

Saturday night, Socialism does not mean much more than better wages and

shorter hours and nobody bossing you about.

The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) ch. 11

The high-water mark, so to speak, of Socialist literature is W. H. Auden,

a sort of gutless Kipling.

The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) ch. 11

We of the sinking middle class...may sink without further struggles into

the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will

not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose

but our aitches.

The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) ch. 13

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the

indefensible.

Shooting an Elephant (1950) "Politics and the English Language"

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap

between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were

instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish

squirting out ink.

Shooting an Elephant (1950) "Politics and the English Language"

Political language--and with variations this is true of all political

parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists--is designed to make lies sound

truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to

pure wind.

Shooting an Elephant (1950) "Politics and the English Language"

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

Shooting an Elephant (1950) "Reflections on Gandhi"

To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.

Tribune 22 Mar. 1946, "In Front of your Nose"

15.25 John Osborne =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1929-

Don't clap too hard--it's a very old building.

The Entertainer (1957) no. 7

Thank God we're normal, normal, normal,

Thank God we're normal,

Yes, this is our finest shower!

The Entertainer (1957) no. 7

But I have a go, lady, don't I? I 'ave a go. I do.

The Entertainer (1957) no. 7

Never believe in mirrors or newspapers.

The Hotel in Amsterdam (1968) act 1

Oh heavens, how I long for a little ordinary human enthusiasm. Just

enthusiaism--that's all. I want to hear a warm, thrilling voice cry out

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! I'm alive!

Look Back in Anger (1956) act 1

His knowledge of life and ordinary human beings is so hazy, he really

deserves some sort of decoration for it--a medal inscribed "For Vaguery in

the Field."

Look Back in Anger (1956) act 1

I don't think one "comes down" from Jimmy's university. According to him,

it's not even red brick, but white tile.

Look Back in Anger (1956) act 2, sc. 1

They spend their time mostly looking forward to the past.

Look Back in Anger (1956) act 2, sc. 1

There aren't any good, brave causes left. If the big bang does come, and

we all get killed off, it won't be in aid of the old-fashioned, grand

design. It'll just be for the Brave New-nothing-very-much-thank-you.

About as pointless and inglorious as stepping in front of a bus.

Look Back in Anger (1956) act 3, sc. 1

This is a letter of hate. It is for you my countrymen, I mean those men

of my country who have defiled it. The men with manic fingers leading the

sightless, feeble, betrayed body of my country to its death....I only hope

it [my hate] will keep me going. I think it will. I think it may sustain

me in the last few months. Till then, damn you England. You're rotting

now, and quite soon you'll disappear. My hate will outrun you yet, if only

for a few seconds. I wish it could be eternal.

Tribune 18 Aug. 1961

15.26 Sir William Osler =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1849-1919

That man can interrogate as well as observe nature, was a lesson slowly

learned in his evolution.

In Aphorisms from his Bedside Teachings (1961) p. 62

Failure to examine the throat is a glaring sin of omission, especially in

children. One finger in the throat and one in the rectum makes a good

diagnostician.

In Aphorisms from his Bedside Teachings (1961) p. 104

One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to

take medicine.

In Aphorisms from his Bedside Teachings (1961) p. 105

It is strange how the memory of a man may float to posterity on what he

would have himself regarded as the most trifling of his works.

In Aphorisms from his Bedside Teachings (1961) p. 112

The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which

distinguishes man from animals.

In H. Cushing Life of Sir William Osler (1925) vol. 1, ch. 14

My second fixed idea is the uselessness of men above sixty years of age,

and the incalculable benefit it would be in commercial, political, and in

professional life, if as a matter of course, men stopped work at this age.

Speech at Johns Hopkins University, 22 Feb. 1905, in H. Cushing Life of

Sir William Osler (1925) vol. 1, ch. 24

To talk of diseases is a sort of Arabian Nights entertainment.

In Oliver Sacks The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat (1985) epigraph

The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.

Montreal Medical Journal Sept. 1902, p. 696

The natural man has only two primal passions, to get and beget.

Science and Immortality (1904) ch. 2

15.27 Peter Demianovich Ouspensky =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1878-1947

Truths that become old become decrepit and unreliable; sometimes they may

be kept going artificially for a certain time, but there is no life in

them. This explains why reverting to old ideas, when people become

disappointed in new ideas, does not help much. Ideas can be too old.

A New Model of the Universe (ed. 2, 1934) preface

15.28 David Owen =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1938-

We are fed up with fudging and mudging, with mush and slush. We need

courage, conviction, and hard work.

Speech to his supporters at Labour Party Conference in Blackpool, 2 Oct.

1980, in Guardian 3 Oct. 1980

The price of championing human rights is a little inconsistency at times.

Hansard 30 Mar. 1977, p. 397

I don't care if you criticize us, agree with us or disagree with us. Just

mention us, that is all we ask.

Observer 28 Apr. 1985

15.29 Wilfred Owen =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1893-1918

Above all I am not concerned with Poetry.

My subject is War, and the pity of War.

The Poetry is in the pity.

Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They

may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true

Poets must be truthful.

Poems (1963 ed.) preface

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,--

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Poems (1963 ed.) "Anthem for Doomed Youth"

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

Poems (1963 ed.) "Dulce et Decorum Est"

Move him into the sun--

Gently its touch awoke him once,

At home, whispering of fields unsown.

Always it woke him, even in France,

Until this morning and this snow.

If anything might rouse him now

The kind old sun will know.

Poems (1963 ed.) "Futility"

Was it for this the clay grew tall?

--O what made fatuous sunbeams toil

To break earth's sleep at all?

Poems (1963 ed.) "Futility"

Red lips are not so red

As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.

Poems (1963 ed.) "Greater Love"

So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.

They were not ours:

We never heard to which front these were sent.

Nor there if they yet mock what women meant

Who gave them flowers.

Poems (1963 ed.) "The Send-Off"

It seemed that out of battle I escaped

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped

Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Poems (1963 ed.) "Strange Meeting"

"Strange friend," I said, "here is no cause to mourn."

"None," said that other, "save the undone years,

The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,

Was my life also; I went hunting wild

After the wildest beauty in the world.

Poems (1963 ed.) "Strange Meeting"

Courage was mine, and I had mystery,

Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:

To miss the march of this retreating world

Into vain citadels that are not walled.

Poems (1963 ed.) "Strange Meeting"

I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark: for you so frowned

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.

I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.

Let us sleep now...

Poems (1963 ed.) "Strange Meeting"

15.30 Oxford and Asquith, Countess of =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1864-1945

See Margot Asquith (1.61)

15.31 Oxford and Asquith, Earl of =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-