13872 Quotes by English authors

English quotations carry a crisp, wry music: understatement sharpened by irony, tenderness tempered by restraint. They wander hedgerows and factory streets alike, weighing justice, manners, longing, and folly with a steady eye. Weather becomes character; time treads softly but leaves marks. From the cadence of the theater to the quiet sting of the essay, language delights in double meanings and exactness. Here humor is dry as chalk, romance practical, rebellion polite yet stubborn, and memory lit by drizzle, hearthlight, and a steadfast faith in ordinary courage.

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"Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen"

George Savile, Politician

Small: George Savile

"A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell!"

Thomas Fuller, Clergyman

Small: Thomas Fuller

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known"

Charles Dickens, Novelist

Small: Charles Dickens

"Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards"

Aldous Huxley, Novelist

Small: Aldous Huxley

"Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort"

John Ruskin, Writer

Small: John Ruskin

"A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition"

Gilbert K. Chesterton, Writer

Small: Gilbert K. Chesterton

"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question"

Charles Babbage, Mathematician

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested"

Francis Bacon, Philosopher

Small: Francis Bacon

"Beware the fury of a patient man"

John Dryden, Poet

Small: John Dryden

"Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

Small: William Shakespeare

"Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

Small: William Shakespeare

"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions"

Gilbert K. Chesterton, Writer

Small: Gilbert K. Chesterton

"'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'"

Lewis Carroll, Author

Small: Lewis Carroll

"Don't just count your years, make your years count"

George Meredith, Novelist

Small: George Meredith

"Never trust a man who speaks well of everybody"

John Churton Collins, Critic

"When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

Small: William Shakespeare

"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly"

Gilbert K. Chesterton, Writer

Small: Gilbert K. Chesterton

"The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance"

Thomas Paine, Writer

Small: Thomas Paine

"We forge the chains we wear in life"

Charles Dickens, Novelist

Small: Charles Dickens

"Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath"

Michael Caine, Actor

"I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself"

David Herbert Lawrence, Writer

Small: David Herbert Lawrence

"Better murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unacted desire"

William Blake, Poet

Small: William Blake

"Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table"

W. H. Auden, Poet

Small: W. H. Auden

"The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo"

Desmond Morris, Scientist

"Better one's House be too little one day than too big all the Year after"

Thomas Fuller, Clergyman

Small: Thomas Fuller

"All my possessions for a moment of time"

Elizabeth I, Royalty

Small: Elizabeth I

"The golden age is before us, not behind us"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

Small: William Shakespeare

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

Small: William Shakespeare

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last"

Winston Churchill, Statesman

Small: Winston Churchill

"Its not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

Small: William Shakespeare

"Order is heaven's first law"

Alexander Pope, Poet

Small: Alexander Pope

"Grief is the price we pay for love"

Queen Elizabeth II, Royalty

Small: Queen Elizabeth II

"Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool that follows it?"

Alec Guinness, Actor

"If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all"

Elizabeth I, Royalty

Small: Elizabeth I

"Errors are not in the art but in the artificers"

Isaac Newton, Mathematician

Small: Isaac Newton

"On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows, In every rill a sweet instruction flows"

Edward Young, Poet

Small: Edward Young

"If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise"

William Blake, Poet

Small: William Blake

"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom"

John Locke, Philosopher

Small: John Locke

"Always live in the ugliest house on the street - then you don't have to look at it"

David Hockney, Artist

Small: David Hockney

"Where there's tea there's hope"

Arthur W. Pinero, Playwright

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