Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations for Free Online Page A

torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
    "Musée des Beaux Arts" (1940)
    [Auden]

16
To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say,
Is a keen observer of life,
The word "Intellectual" suggests straight away
A man who's untrue to his wife.
    New Year Letter (1941) l. 1277 n.
    [Auden]

17
This is the Night Mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.
    "Night Mail" (1936) pt. 1
    [Auden]

18
Private faces in public places
Are wiser and nicer
Than public faces in private places.
    Orators (1932) dedication
    [Auden]

19
Out on the lawn I lie in bed,
Vega conspicuous overhead.
    "Out on the lawn I lie in bed" (1936)
    [Auden]

20
O what is that sound which so thrills the ear
Down in the valley drumming, drumming?
Only the scarlet soldiers, dear,
The soldiers coming.
    "O what is that sound" (1936)
    [Auden]

21
Some thirty inches from my nose
The frontier of my Person goes,
And all the untilled air between
Is private pagus or demesne.
Stranger, unless with bedroom eyes
I beckon you to fraternize,
Beware of rudely crossing it:
I have no gun, but I can spit.
    "Prologue: the Birth of Architecture" (1966) postscript
    [Auden]

22
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
    "September 1, 1939" (1940)
    [Auden]

23
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
    "September 1, 1939" (1940)
    [Auden]

24
A shilling life will give you all the facts.
    title of poem (1936)
    [Auden]

25
At Twenty I tried to
vex my elders, past Sixty it's the young whom
I hope to bother.
    "Shorts I" (1969)
    [Auden]

26
A poet's hope: to be,
like some valley cheese,
local, but prized elsewhere.
    "Shorts II" (1976)
    [Auden]

27
History to the defeated
May say Alas but cannot help or pardon.
    "Spain 1937" (1937) st. 23
    [Auden]

28 Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.
    The Dyer's Hand (1963) "Reading"
    [Auden]

29 Art is born of humiliation.
    Stephen Spender World Within World (1951) ch. 2
    [Auden]

30 Nothing I wrote in the thirties saved one Jew from Auschwitz.
    attributed
    [Auden]
     
Back   -    
New Search

Augier, Émile 1820–89
    1 La nostalgie de la boue!Longing to be back in the mud!
    Le Mariage d'Olympe (1855) act 1, sc. 1
     
Back   -    
New Search

Augustine, St of Hippo ad 354–430
    1 Give me chastity and continency—but not yet!
    Confessions ( ad 397–8) bk. 8, ch. 7

2 When he was reading, he drew his eyes along over the leaves, and his heart searched into the sense, but his voice and tongue were silent.
of St Ambrose
    Confessions ( ad 397–8) bk. 6, ch. 3
    [Augustine]

3 Tolle lege, tolle lege.Take up and read, take up and read.
    Confessions ( ad 397–8) bk. 8, ch. 12
    [Augustine]

4 Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi! et ecce intus eras et ego foris, et ibi te quaerebam.Too late came I to love thee, O thou Beauty both so ancient and so fresh, yea too late came I to love thee. And behold, thou wert within me, and I out of myself, where I made search for thee.
    Confessions ( ad 397–8) bk. 10, ch. 27
    [Augustine]

5 There is no salvation outside the church.
    De Baptismo contra Donatistas bk. 4, ch. 17, sect. 24.
    [Augustine]

6 Dilige et quod vis fac.Love and do what you will.
often quoted as "Ama et fac quod vis"
    In Epistolam Joannis ad Parthos ( ad 413) tractatus 7, sect. 8
    [Augustine]

7 Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum.With love for mankind and hatred of sins.
often quoted as "Love the sinner but hate the sin"
    letter 211 in J.-P. Migne (ed.) Patrologiae Latinae (1845) vol. 33
    [Augustine]

8 Roma locuta est; causa finita est.Rome has spoken; the case is concluded.
    traditional summary of words found in Sermons (Antwerp, 1702) no. 131, sect. 10
    [Augustine]
     
Back