The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (90 page)

1858-1935

April, April,

Laugh thy girlish laughter;

Then, the moment after,

Weep thy girlish tears!

Poems (1905) vol. 1, "Song"

These and a thousand tricks and ways and traits

I noted as of Demos at their root,

And foreign to the staid, conservative

Came-over-with-the Conqueror type of mind.

Poems (1905) vol. 1, "A Study in Contrasts"

23.14 Evelyn Waugh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1903-1966

Brideshead revisited.

Title of novel (1945)

A shriller note could now be heard rising from Sir Alastair's rooms; any

who have heard that sound will shrink at the recollection of it; it is the

sound of English county families baying for broken glass.

Decline and Fall (1928) "Prelude." Cf. Hilaire Belloc 25:9

I expect you'll be becoming a schoolmaster, sir. That's what most of the

gentlemen does, sir, that gets sent down for indecent behaviour.

Decline and Fall (1928) "Prelude"

"We class schools, you see, into four grades: Leading School, First-rate

School, Good School, and School. Frankly," said Mr Levy, "School is

pretty bad."

Decline and Fall (1928) pt. 1, ch. 1

For generations the British bourgeoisie have spoken of themselves as

gentlemen, and by that they have meant, among other things,

a self-respecting scorn of irregular perquisites. It is the quality that

distinguishes the gentleman from both the artist and the aristocrat.

Decline and Fall (1928) pt. 1, ch. 6

"I often think," he continued, "that we can trace almost all the disasters

of English history to the influence of Wales!"

Decline and Fall (1928) pt. 1, ch. 8

I haven't been to sleep for over a year. That's why I go to bed early. One

needs more rest if one doesn't sleep.

Decline and Fall (1928) pt. 2, ch. 3

Apparently he has been reading a series of articles by a popular bishop

and has discovered that there is a species of person called a "Modern

Churchman" who draws the full salary of a beneficed clergyman and need not

commit himself to any religious belief.

Decline and Fall (1928) pt. 2, ch. 4

I came to the conclusion many years ago that almost all crime is due to

the repressed desire for aesthetic expression.

Decline and Fall (1928) pt. 3, ch. 1

Any one who has been to an English public school will always feel

comparatively at home in prison. It is the people brought up in the gay

intimacy of the slums, Paul learned, who find prison so soul-destroying.

Decline and Fall (1928) pt. 3, ch. 4

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.

Michael Davie (ed.) Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (1976) "Irregular Notes

1960-65," 26 Mar. 1962

Randolph Churchill went into hospital...to have a lung removed. It was

announced that the trouble was not "malignant." Seeing Ed Stanley in

White's, on my way to Rome, I remarked that it was a typical triumph of

modern science to find the only part of Randolph that was not malignant

and remove it.

Michael Davie (ed.) Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (1976) "Irregular Notes

1960-65," Mar. 1964

You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs--except in England, of

course.

The Loved One (1948) ch. 1

In the dying world I come from quotation is a national vice. No one would

think of making an after-dinner speech without the help of poetry. It used

to be the classics, now it's lyric verse.

The Loved One (1948) ch. 9

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with

anything.

In Observer 15 Apr. 1962

"The Beast stands for strong mutually antagonistic governments

everywhere," he [Lord Copper] said. "Self-sufficiency at home,

self-assertion abroad."

Scoop (1938) bk. 1, ch. 1

Mr Salter's side of the conversation was limited to expressions of assent.

When Lord Copper was right, he said, "Definitely, Lord Copper"; when he

was wrong, "Up to a point."

Scoop (1938) bk. 1, ch. 1

"He [Boot]'s supposed to have a particularly high-class style:

'Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole.'..would

that be it?" "Yes," said the Managing Editor. "That must be good style."

Scoop (1938) bk. 1, ch. 1

News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read.

And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead.

Scoop (1938) bk. 1, ch. 5

"I will not stand for being called a woman in my own house," she [Mrs Earl

Russell Jackson] said.

Scoop (1938) bk. 2, ch. 1

Other nations use "force"; we Britons alone use "Might."

Scoop (1938) bk. 2, ch. 5

All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go

to my dentist any day.

Vile Bodies (1930) ch. 6

Lady Peabury was in the morning room reading a novel; early training gave

a guilty spice to this recreation, for she had been brought up to believe

that to read a novel before luncheon was one of the gravest sins it was

possible for a gentlewoman to commit.

Work Suspended (1942) "An Englishman's Home"

The trouble with the Conservative Party is that it has not turned the

clock back a single second.

Attributed

23.15 Frederick Weatherly =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1848-1929

Where are the boys of the old Brigade,

Who fought with us side by side?

The Old Brigade

Roses are flowering in Picardy,

But there's never a rose like you.

Roses of Picardy (1916 song)

23.16 Beatrice Webb =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1858-1943

If I ever felt inclined to be timid as I was going into a room full of

people, I would say to myself, "You're the cleverest member of one of the

cleverest families in the cleverest class of the cleverest nation in the

world, why should you be frightened?"

In Bertrand Russell Autobiography (1967) vol. 1, ch. 4

See also Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb (23.20)

23.17 Geoffrey Webb and Edward J. Mason =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

An everyday story of country folk.

Introduction to The Archers (BBC radio serial, 1950 onwards)

23.18 Jim Webb =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1946-

Up, up and away.

Title of song (1967)

23.19 Sidney Webb (Baron Passfield) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1859-1947

First let me insist on what our opponents habitually ignore, and indeed,

what they seem intellectually incapable of understanding, namely the

inevitable gradualness of our scheme of change.

Presidential address at Labour Party Conference in London, 26 June 1923,

in Report (1923) p. 178

23.20 Sidney Webb (Baron Passfield) and Beatrice Webb =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sidney Webb (Baron Passfield) 1859-1947

Beatrice Webb 1858-1943

Sidney would remark, "I know just what Beatrice is saying at this moment.

She is saying, 'as Sidney always says, marriage is the waste-paper basket

of the emotions.'"

Bertrand Russell Autobiography (1967) vol. 1, ch. 4

23.21 Simone Weil =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1909-1943

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which

enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war.

Gasoline is much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international

conflict.

In W. H. Auden A Certain World (1971) p. 384

La culture est un instrument mani� par des professeurs pour fabriquer des

professeurs qui � leur tour fabriqueront des professeurs.

Culture is an instrument wielded by professors, to manufacture professors,

who when their turn comes will manufacture professors.

L'Enracinement (The Need for Roots, 1949) "D�racinement ouvrier"

Tous les P�ch�s sont des tentatives pour combler des vides.

All sins are attempts to fill voids.

La Pesanteur et la gr�ce(Gravity and Grace, 1948) p. 27

23.22 Johnny Weissmuller =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1904-1984

I didn't have to act in "Tarzan, the Ape Man"--just said, "Me Tarzan, you

Jane."

Photoplay Magazine June 1932 (the words "Me Tarzan, you Jane" do not

occur in the 1932 film)

23.23 Thomas Earle Welby =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1881-1933

"Turbot, Sir," said the waiter, placing before me two fishbones, two

eyeballs, and a bit of black mackintosh.

The Dinner Knell (1932) "Birmingham or Crewe?"

23.24 Fay Weldon =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1931-

Natalie had left the wives and joined the women.

Heart of the Country (1987) p. 51

The life and loves of a she-devil.

Title of novel (1984)

23.25 Colin Welland =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1934-

The British are coming.

Speech accepting an Oscar for his Chariots of Fire screenplay, 30 Mar.

1982, in Sight & Sound Summer 1982

23.26 Orson Welles =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1915-1985

To his associate, Richard Wilson...Orson [Welles] then declared, "This

[the RKO studio] is the biggest electric train set any boy ever had!"

Peter Noble The Fabulous Orson Welles (1956) ch. 7

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror,

murder, bloodshed--they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the

Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of

democracy and peace and what did that produce...? The cuckoo clock.

The Third Man (1949 film; words added by Welles to the script, in Graham

Greene and Carol Reed The Third Man (1969) p. 114

23.27 H. G. Wells =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1866-1946

If Max [Beaverbrook] gets to Heaven he won't last long. He will be chucked

out for trying to pull off a merger between Heaven and Hell. after having

secured a controlling interest in key subsidiary companies in both places,

of course.

In A. J. P. Taylor Beaverbrook (1972) ch. 8

The thing his [Henry James's] novel is about is always there. It is like

a church lit but without a congregation to distract you, with every light

and line focussed on the high altar. And on the altar, very reverently

placed, intensely there, is a dead kitten, an egg-shell, a bit of string.

Boon (1915) ch. 4

It is leviathan retrieving pebbles. It is a magnificent but painful

hippopotamus resolved at any cost, even at the cost of its dignity, upon

picking up a pea which has got into a corner of its den. Most things, it

insists, are beyond it, but it can, at any rate modestly, and with an

artistic singleness of mind, pick up that pea.

Boon (1915) ch. 4 (on Henry James)

He [James Holroyd] was a practical electrician but fond of whisky,

a heavy, red-haired brute with irregular teeth. He doubted the existence

of the Deity but accepted Carnot's cycle, and he had read Shakespeare and

found him weak in chemistry.

Complete Short Stories (1927) "Lord of the Dynamos"

But Nunez advanced with the confident steps of a youth who enters upon

life. All the old stories of the lost valley and the Country of the Blind

had come back to his mind, and through his thoughts ran this old proverb,

as if it were a refrain--In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is

King.

The Country of the Blind (1904; revised 1939) p. 52

"Sesquippledan," he would say. "Sesquippledan verboojuice."

History of Mr Polly (1909) ch. 1, pt. 5

"I'm a Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of one who had

seen trouble.

Kipps (1905) bk. 1, ch. 6, pt. 1

"I expect," he said, "I was thinking jest what a Rum Go everything is.

I expect it was something like that."

Kipps (1905) bk. 3, ch. 3, pt. 8

The Social Contract is nothing more or less than a vast conspiracy of

human beings to lie to and humbug themselves and one another for the

general Good. Lies are the mortar that bind the savage individual man into

the social masonry.

Love and Mr Lewisham (1900) ch. 23

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and

catastrophe.

Outline of History (1920) vol. 2, ch. 41, pt. 4

The shape of things to come.

Title of book (1933)

The war that will end war.

Title of book (1914). Cf. David Lloyd-George 138:8

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.

The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman (1914) ch. 9, sect. 2

In England we have come to rely upon a comfortable time-lag of fifty years

or a century intervening between the perception that something ought to be

done and a serious attempt to do it.

The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1931) ch. 2