The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (87 page)

That is not paid with moan;

For we are born in other's pain,

And perish in our own.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Daisy"

Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare,

And left the flushed print in a poppy there.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "The Poppy"

The sleep-flower sways in the wheat its head,

Heavy with dreams, as that with bread:

The goodly grain and the sun-flushed sleeper

The reaper reaps, and Time the reaper.

I hang 'mid men my needless head,

And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread:

The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper

Time shall reap, but after the reaper

The world shall glean of me, me the sleeper.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "The Poppy"

Look for me in the nurseries of heaven.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "To My Godchild Francis M.W.M."

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 1

But with unhurrying chase,

And unperturb�d pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat--and a Voice beat

More instant than the Feet--

All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 1

For, though I knew His love Who follow�d, Yet was I sore adread

Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 2

Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 2

I said to Dawn: Be sudden--to Eve :

Be soon.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 2

To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;

Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 2

Still with unhurrying chase,

And unperturb�d pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

Came on the following Feet,

And a Voice above their beat--

"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 2

I was heavy with the even,

When she lit her glimmering tapers

Round the day's dead sanctities.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 3

My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,

And smitten me to my knee.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 4

Yea, faileth now even dream

The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;

Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist

I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 4

Ah! must--

Designer infinite!--

Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limm with it?

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 4

Such is: what is to be?

The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 4

Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds

From the hid battlements of Eternity;

Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then

Round the half-glimps�d turrets slowly wash again.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 4

Now of that long pursuit

Comes on at hand the bruit;

That Voice is round me like a bursting sea :

"And is thy earth so marred,

Shattered in shard on shard?

Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!"

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 5

All which I took from thee I did but take,

Not for thy harms,

But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 5

Halts by me that footfall :

Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?

"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,

I am He whom thou seekest!

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Hound of Heaven" pt. 5

And thou--what needest with thy tribe's black tents

Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Arab Love-Song"

It is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk,

Though my own red roses there may blow;

It is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk,

Though the red roses crest the caps I know.

For the field is full of shades as I near the shadowy coast,

And a ghostly batsman plays to the bowling of a ghost,

And I look through my tears on a soundless-clapping host

As the run-stealers flicker to and fro,

To and fro:--

O my Hornby and my Barlow long ago!

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "At Lord's"

There is no expeditious road

To pack and label men for God,

And save them by the barrel-load.

Some may perchance, with strange surprise,

Have blundered into Paradise.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Epilogue to 'A Judgement in Heaven'"

Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play;

Go, children of swift joy and tardy sorrow:

And some are sung, and that was yesterday,

And some unsung, and that may be to-morrow.

Poems (1913) vol. 1 "Envoy"

Ah, for a heart less native to high Heaven,

A hooded eye, for jesses and restraint,

Or for a will accipitrine to pursue!

Poems (1913) vol. 2 "Dread of Height"

Spring is come home with her world-wandering feet,

And all things are made young with young desires.

Poems (1913) vol. 2 "From the Night of Forebeing"

Let even the slug-abed snail upon the thorn

Put forth a conscious horn!

Poems (1913) vol. 2 "From the Night of Forebeing"

And, while she feels the heavens lie bare,

She only talks about her hair.

Poems (1913) vol. 2 "The Way of a Maid"

Pontifical Death, that doth the crevasse bridge

To the steep and trifid God.

Poems (1913) vol. 2 "An Anthem of Earth"

And all man's Babylons strive but to impart

The grandeurs of his Babylonian heart.

Poems (1913) vol. 2 "The Heart" no. 2

What heart could have thought you?--

Past our devisal

(O filigree petal!)

Fashioned so purely,

Fragilely, surely,

From what Paradisal

Imagineless metal,

Too costly for cost?

Poems (1913) vol. 2 "To a Snowflake"

Insculped and embossed,

With His hammer of wind,

And His graver of frost.

Poems (1913) vol. 2 "To a Snowflake"

O world invisible, we view thee,

O world intangible, we touch thee,

O world unknowable, we know thee,

Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

Poems (1913) vol. 2 "The Kingdom of God"

The angels keep their ancient places;--

Turn but a stone, and start a wing!

'Tis ye, 'tis your estrang�d faces,

That miss the many-splendoured thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)

Cry;--and upon thy so sore loss

Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder

Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,

Cry,--clinging Heaven by the hems;

And lo, Christ walking on the water

Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!

Poems (1913) vol. 2 "The Kingdom of God"

20.17 Hunter S. Thompson =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1939-

Fear and loathing in Las Vegas.

Title of two articles in Rolling Stone 11 and 25 Nov. 1971 (under the

pseudonym "Raoul Duke")

20.18 Lord Thomson (Roy Herbert Thomson, Baron Thomson of Fleet) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1894-1976

It is just like having your own licence to print money.

On the profitability of commercial television in Britain, in R. Braddon

Roy Thomson (1965) ch. 32

20.19 Jeremy Thorpe =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1929-

Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his

life.

Comment on Harold Macmillan sacking many of his Cabinet, 13 July 1962, in

D. E. Butler and Anthony King General Election of 1964 (1965) ch. 1

20.20 James Thurber =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1894-1961

I suppose that the high-water mark of my youth in Columbus, Ohio, was the

night the bed fell on my father.

My Life and Hard Times (1933) ch. 1

Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible

suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.

My Life and Hard Times (1933) ch. 2

All right, have it your own way--you heard a seal bark!

Cartoon caption in New Yorker 30 Jan. 1932

That's my first wife up there and this is the present Mrs Harris.

Cartoon caption in New Yorker 16 Mar. 1933

The war between men and women.

Title of series of cartoons in New Yorker 20 Jan.-28 Apr. 1934

It's a na�ve domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be

amused by its presumption.

Cartoon caption in New Yorker 27 Mar. 1937

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?

Cartoon caption in New Yorker 5 June 1937

There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.

New Yorker 4 Feb. 1939 "The Fairly Intelligent Fly"

Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead.

New Yorker 18 Feb. 1939 "The Shrike and the Chipmunks"

It's our own story exactly! He bold as a hawk, she soft as the dawn.

Cartoon caption in New Yorker 25 Feb. 1939

Then, with that faint fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the

firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty,

the undefeated, inscrutable to the last.

New Yorker 18 Mar. 1939 "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"

You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.

New Yorker 29 Apr. 1939 "The Bear Who Let It Alone"

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.

New Yorker 29 Apr. 1939 "The Owl who was God"

"Humour," he said, "is emotional chaos remembered in tranquillity."

In New York Post 29 Feb. 1960. Cf. Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1979)

583:10

20.21 Paul Tillich =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1886-1965

Neurosis is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being.

The Courage To Be (1952) pt. 2, ch. 3

He who knows about depth knows about God.

The Shaking of the Foundations (1948) ch. 7

20.22 Dion Titheradge =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

And her mother came too!

Title of song (1921; music by Ivor Novello)

20.23 Alvin Toffler =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1928-

Future shock.

Title of book (1970)

20.24 J. R. R. Tolkien =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1892-1973

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet

hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry,

bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was

a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

The Hobbit (1937) ch. 1

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Lord of the Rings, pt. 1 The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) epigraph

20.25 Nicholas Tomalin =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The only qualities for real success in journalism are ratlike cunning,

a plausible manner and a little literary ability.... The capacity to steal

other people's ideas and phrases--that one about ratlike cunning was

invented by my colleague Murray Sayle--is also invaluable.

Sunday Times Magazine 26 Oct. 1969

20.26 Barry Took and Marty Feldman =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Hello, I'm Julian and this is my friend, Sandy.

Catch-phrase in Round the Horne (BBC radio series, 1965-8)

20.27 Sue Townsend =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13-3/4.

Title of book (1982)

20.28 Pete Townshend =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1945-

Hope I die before I get old.

My Generation (1965 song)

20.29 Polly Toynbee =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1946-

Feminism is the most revolutionary idea there has ever been. Equality for

women demands a change in the human psyche more profound then anything

Marx dreamed of. It means valuing parenthood as much as we value banking.

Guardian 19 Jan. 1987

20.30 Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1852-1917

To a man who was staggering in the street under the weight of a

grandfather clock. "My poor fellow, why not carry a watch?"

Hesketh Pearson Beerbohm Tree (1956) ch. 12

His own note books inform us that a gramophone company asked him for

a testimonial, and he replied that he never gave testimonials to objects