The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (77 page)

belonging to one category in the idioms appropriate to another. To explode

a myth is accordingly not to deny the facts but to re-allocate them. And

this is what I am trying to do.

Concept of Mind (1949) introduction

Philosophy is the replacement of category-habits by category-disciplines.

Concept of Mind (1949) introduction

Such in outline is the official theory. I shall often speak of it, with

deliberate abusiveness, as "the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine."

Concept of Mind (1949) ch. 1 (referring to Descartes' mental-conduct

concepts)

19.0 S =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

19.1 Rafael Sabatini =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1875-1950

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.

And that was all his patrimony.

Scaramouche (1921) bk. 1, ch. 1

19.2 Oliver Sacks =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1933-

The man who mistook his wife for a hat.

Title of book (1985)

19.3 Victoria ('Vita') Sackville-West =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1892-1962

The greater cats with golden eyes

Stare out between the bars.

Deserts are there, and different skies,

And night with different stars.

King's Daughter (1929) pt. 2, no. 1 "The Greater Cats with Golden Eyes"

The country habit has me by the heart,

For he's bewitched for ever who has seen,

Not with his eyes but with his vision, Spring

Flow down the woods and stipple leaves with sun.

The Land (1926) "Winter"

19.4 Fran�oise Sagan =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1935-

Rien n'est plus affreux que le rire pour la jalousie.

To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter.

La Chamade (1965) ch. 9

19.5 Antoine de Saint-Exup�ry =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1900-1944

Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c'est

fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des

explications.

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for

children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince, 1943) ch. 1

On ne voit bien qu'avec le c�ur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is

invisible to the eye.

Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince, 1943) ch. 21

L'exp�rience nous montre qu' aimer ce n'est point nous regarder l'un

l'autre mais regarder ensemble dans la m�me direction.

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but

in looking together in the same direction.

Terre des Hommes (translated as "Wind, Sand and Stars," 1939) ch. 8

19.6 George Saintsbury =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1845-1933

I have never yet given a second-hand opinion of any thing, or book, or

person.

Notes on a Cellar-Book (1920) "Preliminary"

19.7 Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1870-1916

"But why should you want to shield him?" cried Egbert; "the man is a

common murderer." "A common murderer, possibly, but a very uncommon cook."

Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914) "The Blind Spot"

"Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death,"

said Clovis.

Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914) "The Feast of Nemesis"

He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.

Chronicles of Clovis (1911) "The Match-Maker"

"I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion," he resumed

presently. "They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they justify it,

they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them. Once they arrive

at the supper-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the

thing. There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the

sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster."

Chronicles of Clovis (1911) "The Match-Maker"

All decent people live beyond their incomes nowadays, and those who aren't

respectable live beyond other peoples'. A few gifted individuals manage to

do both.

Chronicles of Clovis (1911) "The Match-Maker"

The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume

locally.

Chronicles of Clovis (1911) "The Jesting of Arlington Stringham"

His socks compelled one's attention without losing one's respect.

Chronicles of Clovis (1911) "Ministers of Grace"

People may say what they like about the decay of Christianity; the

religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die.

Reginald (1904) "Reginald on Christmas Presents"

Every reformation must have its victims. You can't expect the fatted calf

to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal's return.

Reginald (1904) "Reginald on the Academy"

I always say beauty is only sin deep.

Reginald (1904) "Reginald's Choir Treat"

Her frocks are built in Paris, but she wears them with a strong English

accent.

Reginald (1904) "Reginald on Worries"

The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have

reminiscences of what never happened.

Reginald (1904) "Reginald at the Carlton"

There may have been disillusionments in the lives of the medieval saints,

but they would scarcely have been better pleased if they could have

forseen that their names would be associated nowadays chiefly with

racehorses and the cheaper clarets.

Reginald (1904) "Reginald at the Carlton"

The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as good cooks go, she went.

Reginald (1904) "Reginald on Besetting Sins"

Women and elephants never forget an injury.

Reginald (1904) "Reginald on Besetting Sins"

The Young Turkish candidate, who had conformed to the Western custom of

one wife and hardly any mistresses, stood by helplessly while his

adversary's poll swelled to a triumphant majority.

Reginald in Russia (1910) "A Young Turkish Catastrophe"

The death of John Pennington had left his widow in circumstances which

were more straitened than ever, and the Park had receded even from her

notepaper, where it had long been retained as a courtesy title on the

principle that addresses are given to us to conceal our whereabouts.

Reginald in Russia (1910) "Cross Currents"

But, good gracious, you've got to educate him first. You can't expect

a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school.

Reginald in Russia (1910) "The Baker's Dozen"

I should be the last person to say anything against temptation, naturally,

but we have a proverb down here "in baiting a mouse-trap with cheese,

always leave room for the mouse."

The Square Egg (1924) "The Infernal Parliament"

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.

The Square Egg (1924) "Clovis on the Alleged Romance of Business"

Children with Hyacinth's temperament don't know better as they grow older;

they merely know more.

Toys of Peace and Other Papers (1919) "Hyacinth"

A buzz of recognition came from the front rows of the pit, together with

a craning of necks on the part of those in less favoured seats. It

heralded the arrival of Sherard Blaw, the dramatist who had discovered

himself, and who had given so ungrudgingly of his discovery to the world.

The Unbearable Bassington (1912) ch. 13

19.8 J. D. Salinger =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1919-

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want

to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how

my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David

Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it.

Catcher in the Rye (1951) ch. 1

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it,

you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you

could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.

Catcher in the Rye (1951) ch. 3

Sex is something I really don't understand too hot. You never know where

the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I

break them right away.

Catcher in the Rye (1951) ch. 9

The only thing old Phoebe liked was when Hamlet patted this dog on the

head. She thought that was funny and nice, and it was. What I'll have to

do is, I'll have to read that play. The trouble with me is, I always have

to read that stuff by myself. If an actor acts it out, I hardly listen.

I keep worrying about whether he's going to do something phoney every

minute.

Catcher in the Rye (1951) ch. 16

Take most people, they're crazy about cars. They worry if they get

a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles

they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start

thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer. I don't even like

old cars. I mean they don't even interest me. I'd rather have a goddam

horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake.

Catcher in the Rye (1951) ch. 17

"You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye?' I'd

like--"

"It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said.

"It's a poem. By Robert Burns."

"I know it's a poem by Robert Burns."

She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the

rye." I didn't know it then, though.

"I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'" I said. "Anyway, I keep

picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye

and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around--nobody big,

I mean--except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What

I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the

cliff--I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going

I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all

day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but

that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."

Catcher in the Rye (1951) ch. 22

A confessional passage has probably never been written that didn't stink

a little bit of the writer's pride in having given up his pride.

Seymour: an Introduction (1959) in Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters

and Seymour: an Introduction (1963) p. 195

19.9 Lord Salisbury (Robert Arthur James Gascoyne-Cecil, fifth Marquess of Salisbury) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1893-1972

He is, as we all know, a man of most unusual intellectual brilliance; and

he is, moreover, both brave and resolute. Those are valuable and not too

common attributes in politics. But the fact remains that I believe he has

adopted, especially in his relationship to the white communities of

Africa, a most unhappy and an entirely wrong approach. He has been too

clever by half.

Said of Iain Macleod, Colonial Secretary, in Hansard (House of Lords)

7 Mar. 1961, col. 307

19.10 Anthony Sampson =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1926-

Members [of civil service orders] rise from CMG (known sometimes in

Whitehall as "Call Me God") to the KCMG ("Kindly Call Me God") to--for

a select few governors and super-ambassadors--the GCMG ("God Calls Me

God").

Anatomy of Britain (1962) ch. 18

19.11 Lord Samuel (Herbert Louis, first Viscount Samuel) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1870-1963

A library is thought in cold storage.

A Book of Quotations (1947) p. 10

It takes two to make a marriage a success and only one a failure.

A Book of Quotations (1947) p. 115

Without doubt the greatest injury of all was done by basing morals on

myth. For, sooner or later, myth is recognized for what it is, and

disappears. Then morality loses the foundation on which it has been built.

Romanes Lecture, 1947, p. 14

19.12 Carl Sandburg =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1878-1967

Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look

through to guess about what is seen during a moment.

Atlantic Monthly Mar. 1923 "Poetry Considered"

Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

Atlantic Monthly Mar. 1923 "Poetry Considered"

Hog Butcher for the World,

Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;

Stormy, husky, brawling,

City of the Big Shoulders.

Chicago Poems (1916) "Chicago"

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.