The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (383 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
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Schwitters, Kurt
1887–1948
1
I am a painter and I nail my pictures together.

R. Hausmann
Am Anfang war Dada
(1972)

Scott, C. P.
1846–1932
1
Comment is free, but facts are sacred.

in
Manchester Guardian
5 May 1921.

2
Television
? The word is half Greek, half Latin. No good can come of it.

Asa Briggs
The BBC: the First Fifty Years
(1985)

Scott, Robert Falcon
1868–1912
1
Great God! this is an awful place.
of the South Pole

diary, 17 January 1912

2
For God's sake look after our people.

last diary entry, 29 March 1912

Scott, Sir Walter
1771–1832
1
But answer came there none.

The Bridal of Triermain
(1813) canto 3, st. 10.

2
Come open the West Port, and let me gang free,
And it's room for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee!"

The Doom of Devorgoil
(1830) act 2, sc. 2 "Bonny Dundee"

3
Yet seemed that tone, and gesture bland,
Less used to sue than to command.

The Lady of the Lake
(1810) canto 1, st. 21.

4
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel.

The Lady of the Lake
(1810) canto 5, st. 10

5
If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel
(1805) canto 2, st. 1

6
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!

The Lay of the Last Minstrel
(1805) canto 6, st. 1

7
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel
(1805) canto 6, st. 1

8
O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!

The Lay of the Last Minstrel
(1805) canto 6, st. 2

9
O! many a shaft, at random sent,
Finds mark the archer little meant!
And many a word, at random spoken,
May soothe or wound a heart that's broken.

The Lord of the Isles
(1813) canto 5, st. 18

10
Had'st thou but lived, though stripped of power,
A watchman on the lonely tower.

Marmion
(1808) introduction to canto 1, st. 8

11
And come he slow, or come he fast,
It is but Death who comes at last.

Marmion
(1808) canto 2, st. 30

12
O, young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best.

Marmion
(1808) canto 5, st. 12 ("Lochinvar" st. 1)

13
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

Marmion
(1808) canto 5, st. 12 ("Lochinvar" st. 1)

14
O what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!

Marmion
(1808) canto 6, st. 17

15
O Woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!

Marmion
(1808) canto 6, st. 30.

16
Vacant heart and hand, and eye,—
Easy live and quiet die.

The Bride of Lammermoor
(1819) ch. 2

17
Touch not the cat but a glove.
"but" = without

The Fair Maid of Perth
(1828) ch. 34

18
And three wild lads were we;
Thou on the land, and I on the sand,
And Jack on the gallows-tree!

Guy Mannering
(1815) ch. 34

19
The hour is come, but not the man.

The Heart of Midlothian
(1818) ch. 4, title

20
March, march, Eskdale and Liddesdale,
All the Blue Bonnets are bound for the Border.

The Monastery
(1820) ch. 25

21
There's a gude time coming.

Rob Roy
(1817) ch. 32

22
The play-bill, which is said to have announced the tragedy of Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being left out.
commonly alluded to as "Hamlet without the Prince"

The Talisman
(1825) introduction; W. J. Parke
Musical Memories
(1830) vol. 1 gives a similar anecdote from 1787

23
The Big Bow-Wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me.
on Jane Austen

W. E. K. Anderson (ed.)
Journals of Sir Walter Scott
(1972) 14 March 1826.

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