The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (38 page)

Bennett, Alan
1934–

1
Standards are always out of date. That is what makes them standards.

Forty Years On
(1969) act 2

2
Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery with Violence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature.

Forty Years On
(1969) act 2

3
To be Prince of Wales is not a position. It is a predicament.

The Madness of King George
(1995 film); in the 1992 play
The Madness of George III
the line was "To be heir to the throne…"

 
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Bennett, Arnold
1867–1931

1
"What great cause is he identified with?" "He's identified…with the great cause of cheering us all up."

The Card
(1911) ch. 12

2
A cause may be inconvenient, but it's magnificent. It's like champagne or high heels, and one must be prepared to suffer for it.

The Title
(1918) act 1

3
Literature's always a good card to play for Honours.

The Title
(1918) act 3

 
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Bennett, Jill
1931–90

1
Never marry a man who hates his mother, because he'll end up hating you.

in
Observer
12 September 1982 "Sayings of the Week"

 
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Benson, A. C.
1862–1925

1
Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,
How shall we extol thee who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set;
God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet.

"Land of Hope and Glory" written to be sung as the Finale to Elgar's
Coronation Ode
(1902)

 
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Benson, Stella
1892–1933

1
Call no man foe, but never love a stranger.

This is the End
(1917)

 
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Bentham, Jeremy
1748–1832

1
Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

Anarchical Fallacies
in J. Bowring (ed.)
Works
vol. 2 (1843)

2
The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.
Bentham claimed to have acquired the "sacred truth" either from Joseph Priestley or Cesare Beccaria (1738–94)

The Commonplace Book
in J. Bowring (ed.)
Works
vol. 10 (1843).

3
All punishment is mischief: all punishment in itself is evil.

Principles of Morals and Legislation
(1789) ch. 13, para. 2

4
Every law is contrary to liberty.

Principles of the Civil Code
(1843)

5
Prose is when all the lines except the last go on to the end. Poetry is when some of them fall short of it.

M. St. J. Packe
The Life of John Stuart Mill
(1954) bk. 1, ch. 2

 
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