Favo(u)rite Quotations

[Alex De Kok]

Fellow writers may be interested in the quotations voted as 'top ten' by readers of the Oxford University Press 'Ask Oxford' site (well worth a browse).

Alex

 

[NoJo]

??? shirley shum mistake...

Where's "Nice to see you, to see you, nice"? - B. Forsyth, 1972-2004 passim

 

[Guest]

I would bump one of them for,

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

As for Wilde, I would think "I can resist anything but temptation" more popular than the lost parent quote.

And Yeats! "A terrible beauty is born" or "How can we know the dancer from the dance?" must be better quoted.

So many others I'd have chosen...

Perdita

 

[oggbashan]

I would have included this in my top 10:

"It is a mark of insincerity of purpose to spend one's time in looking for the Sacred Emperor in the low-class tea-shops."

-Ernest Bramah
The Wallet of Kai Lung


Og

 

[Alex De Kok]

Perdita, Og -

remember we are talking 'popular vote', which tends not to promote gems.

On 'temptation', I'm fond too of Mark Twain: There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.

And of course I'm partial to the quote from Sir Philip Sidney in my sig. below.

Alex

Roll on January 4th!

 

[~photoguy~]

hmmmphfffff

not a single quote from Wallace and Gromit ...


whaddatheyknow!

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Wilde's definition of a cynic: A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Dr. Johnson's remark when he heard that Edward Gibbon had just published Volume IV of his compendius The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire: "Another book, Mr Gibbon? Scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, Mr. Gibbon?"


--dr.M.

 

[Guest]

They neglected Groucho Marx too (and the other Marx). Sheesh!

Perdita

 

[Alex De Kok]

Both Marxes are of course in the Dictionary, although at least some of Groucho's are attributed to the writer (Bert Kalmar). I wish I'd known about the site when the full hundred 'favourites' were shown. I suspect some gems may have sunk without trace in the popular vote. I've been browsing around the site and I signed up for the 'Word of the day' email. Sad case, me.

The A Word A Year list is interesting, even if only to find that the word for 1943 is 'pissed off' (yeah, I know it's two words) - presumably how my mother felt in labour with me! I'm surprised that 'mobile phone' is attributed to 1945, and 'kitten heels' for 1995 missed me completely...

Alex

 

[Guest]

Alex, you are not sad! I used to have the word-a-day as my homepage and looked forward to logging on everyday just for that. Now I have access to the OED online, quite a treat for me.

soon, Perdita

 

[Alex De Kok]

Now I have access to the OED online, quite a treat for me.

soon, Perdita

Jealous? Me? Yes!

Alex

Edited to add: Well, I was jealous, but now I find I have access through the OU! Yay, me.

 

[wildsweetone]

Fancy S King's comment

Plot is, I think, the good writer's last resort and the dullard's first choice.

not being included.



Great thread Alex!

 

[BlackShanglan]

As for Wilde, I would think "I can resist anything but temptation" more popular than the lost parent quote.

And Yeats! "A terrible beauty is born" or "How can we know the dancer from the dance?" must be better quoted.

Yes, there are so many other better options for both of those writers ... those are some very odd choices. Of course, we could fill the entire list just with those two. But my personal favorites would also include ...

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." - Thoreau.

"When people stop believing in God, the problem is not that thereafter they believe in nothing, it is that thereafter they will believe in anything." - G. K. Chesteron (who has an awful lot of interesting things to say)

"There never was a cause so bad that good men did not believe in it for good reasons." - John O'Leary

"In my father's house, there are many mansions, and I am preparing one for you." - Christ

And just to balance that last, probably my favorite quotation of all time, at least in the frequency with which I think of it:

"I cannot help but think that you [humans] are the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." - Jonathan Swift

Thank goodness for we horses

Shanglan

 

[fifty5]

Now I have access to the OED online, quite a treat for me.

Jammy sod! I've lusted after the full OED ever since CD technology started (paper is way too expensive), but the price has always been too high for me. Now I'm running Linux, the CD version won't work, so on-line ought to be the answer, but four quid a week is still too much for something I'd probably only use a few times a year!

The OED ought to be 'public domain'!

Eff

 

[Guest]

Jammy sod!

I shall endeavor to use that expression soon.

Btw, I get my access through my job (could only ever afford the 'concise' OED). P.

 

[fifty5]

I shall endeavor to use that expression soon.

Btw, I get my access through my job (could only ever afford the 'concise' OED). P.

Snap! (But we do have 2 copies, so there's one to hand no matter whether we're upstairs or down...)

PS I'm quoting you in my sig. I should have asked before I did it, but belatedly, is that OK with you?

 

[Guest]

I'm quoting you in my sig. I should have asked before I did it, but belatedly, is that OK with you?

S'ok, buggerlugs.

Perdita

 

[doormouse]

"Wakey, wakey, hands off snakey."

Taken from one of my all time fave movies, Razorback.

Ahh... that's going in my sig ... lol