The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

Sixth edition

Edited by Elizabeth Knowles

20 000 quotations

A major new edition of Oxford's largest and most comprehensive dictionary of quotations, with quotations covering people and events from Cleopatra to J. K. Rowling, and the battle of Marathon to the Hutton Inquiry. Special sections bring together categories such as Misquotations and Film lines.

Sjette utgave

Redigert av Elizabeth Knowles

20 000 sitater

En stor, ny utgave av Oxfords største og mest omfattende sitatordbok. Inneholder sitater hentet fra personer og begivenheter fra Cleopatra til J. K. Rowling, fra slaget ved Marathon til dagens politiske situasjon i Storbritannia. Egne avsnitt tar for seg sitater i spesielle kategorier som feilsiteringer («Misquotations») og filmreplikker («Film lines»).

© Oxford University Press 1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005

© Kunnskapsforlaget
H. Aschehoug Co. (W. Nygaard) A/S og Gyldendal ASA
Oslo

Introduction
Introduction to first edition (1941)

Project Team

In this new sixth edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, the comprehensive nature of its coverage has been extended and sustained. Since the fifth edition appeared in 1999, the Dictionary, first published in 1941, has celebrated its diamond jubilee. The later part of this Introduction will look back at the history of the Dictionary, and we also reprint here the Introduction to the First Edition. Earlier editions provided the foundations of the current book, and these foundations are constantly added to with new material from the reading programme with which we monitor the language. Such new material includes not only high-profile utterances of the last few years (from «axis of evil» to «shock and awe»), but also, and excitingly, quotations from an earlier time which have acquired new resonance and currency.

A notable example of this occurred in the aftermath of «9/11», the terrorist attacks of 11 September, 2001, which destroyed the World Trade Center. In the debate on a possible invasion of Afghanistan, those opposed to intervention cited the words of John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, who in 1821 gave it as his view that America «goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy». A later President was also to be directly quoted. At an address in Washington National Cathedral, on 14 September 2001, George W. Bush stated that «Today we feel what Franklin Roosevelt called the warm courage of national unity», reaching back to Roosevelt's first inaugural address of 4 March 1933.

At the end of the 20th century, events in the Balkans recalled Kipling's 19th-century war correspondent in The Light that Failed, who «always opened his conversation with the news that there would be trouble in the Balkans in the spring.» What happened during the crumbling of the former Yugoslavia reminded us of the dreadful nature of civil war, but one aspect of its cruelty was highlighted over three centuries ago, when the Parliamentary General William Waller wrote to his Royalist counterpart (and old comrade) Ralph Hopton, «With what a perfect hatred I detest this war without an enemy.» A few years later, another soldier of the time summed up the possible dangers of military victory. The Royalist Sir Jacob Astley, captured after a battle in 1646, said prophetically to his captors, «Gentlemen, ye may now sit and play, for you have done all your work, if you fall not out among yourselves.»

It is fascinating to see similar ideas echoing across the centuries. «The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms,» said Galen, the Greek physician of the 2nd century AD. In 1665, John Bunyan (alluding to the Authorized Version of the Bible) wrote that «Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark; when high and learned ones do only piece the air.» Anxieties about heavy taxes might be thought of as a more recent concern, but it was the Roman Emperor Tiberius who pointed out to his provincial governors that «It is the part of the good shepherd to shear his flock, not skin it.» (Tiberius would presumably have agreed with the words attributed to Jean–Baptiste Colbert, chief minister to Louis XIV of France, «The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.») The Machiavellian French cleric and statesman of the 17th century, the Cardinal de Retz, held the view that «A man who does not trust himself will never really trust anybody.» Two centuries later we find in Goethe's Faust the line, «Just trust yourself and you'll learn the art of living.» In the uncertain aftermath of the American Presidential election of 2000, when the exact nature of the vote in Florida was still being discussed, Bill Clinton commented, «The American people have spoken…but it's going to take a little while to determine exactly what they said.» The remark would have been appreciated by the great 19th–century Conservative statesman, Lord Salisbury, who after a by–election in 1877 said wryly, «One of the nuisances of the ballot is that when the oracle has spoken you never know what it means.»

Sometimes it is the precise wording of a quotation which is reworked. In 1931, Rudyard Kipling coined the phrase «Power without responsibility.» In our own time, the Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman offers the revision: «Responsibility without power, the fate of the secretary through the ages.»

The advisability of taking thought before committing oneself to a course is often pointed out. «The closer these practical probabilities drive war toward the absolute…the more imperative the need not to take the first step without considering the last,» warned the Prussian military theorist Karl von Clausewitz. An earlier quotation, attributed to Edmund Burke, looks at the dangers of large–scale undertakings:

Those who carry on great public schemes must be proof against the most fatiguing delays, the most mortifying disappointments, the most shocking insults, and, worst of all, the presumptuous judgements of the ignorant upon their designs.

We think of concern about the influence of spin-doctors to be a comparatively recent phenomenon, but John Buchan in The Three Hostages (1924) has a recognizable account of the process: «Have you ever considered what a diabolical weapon that can be—using all the channels of modern publicity to poison and warp men's minds?» He described it as the most dangerous thing on earth, although happily in the long run (and having «sown the world with mischief») self–defeating. Again, the accuracy of media reports is frequently criticized today, but it was in 1807 that Thomas Jefferson wrote, «Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.»

Power has traditionally been seen as a dangerous commodity. «Excessive dealings with tyrants are not good for the security of free states» said the Athenian statesman Demosthenes. In the sixteenth century, Thomas More warned that, «Anyone who campaigns for public office becomes disqualified for holding any office at all.» On the other hand, Nathan Hale, the American revolutionary hanged as a spy by the British in 1776, thought that «Every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honourable by being necessary.» In the twentieth century Willy Brandt was determinedly optimistic: «We want to risk more democracy.»

Some quotations reflect a personal passion. «Good food is always a trouble and its preparation should be regarded as a labour of love,» said Elizabeth David in 1951, introducing her groundbreaking French Country Cooking. The English ceramic designer Susie Cooper pointed out, sensibly, the advantages of her chosen medium. «Pottery…is a practical and lasting form of art. Not everyone can afford original paintings, but most people can afford pottery.» Another ceramic artist, Clarice Cliff, reflected, «Colour seems to radiate happiness and the spirit of modern life and movement, and I cannot put too much of it in my designs to please women.» The sculptor Barbara Hepworth said of her own work, «I rarely draw what I see—I draw what I feel in my own body.» The chemist Dorothy Hodgkin, a Nobel prizewinner, said of her early engagement in her subject, «I was captured for life by chemistry and by crystals.» The French painter Paul Cézanne asserted, «I will astonish Paris with an apple.»

A number of quotations bring the individuality (and story) of the speaker strongly to mind. «I will not be triumphed over» said Cleopatra (according to the Roman historian Livy). «Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle» said Michelangelo (according to Samuel Smiles). Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister who liked the Garter because there was «no damned merit» about it, had a clear view of the management of higher education: «Universities never reform themselves; everyone knows that.» Theodore Roosevelt likened the attempt to make an agreement with Colombia to trying to nail currant jelly to a wall. «And the failure to nail currant jelly to the wall is not due to the nail. It's due to the currant jelly.» The explorer Ernest Shackleton thought that, «Superhuman effort isn't worth a damn unless it achieves results.» Eleanor Roosevelt, speaking to the new President after the sudden death of her husband Franklin, said to Harry Truman, «Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now.» The Canadian writer Robert MacNeil said of reading aloud to children, «Parents can plant magic in a child's mind through certain words spoken with some thrilling quality of voice.»

The richness and diversity of the Dictionary is one of its great strengths, and abiding pleasures, but the book originally proposed would have been much less expansive. In 1915 there was an initial suggestion for «an Oxford Dictionary of Poetry Quotations (not foreign quotations)», to be based on «Oxford texts and the N.E.D. [now the Oxford English Dictionary]».

The idea was not immediately followed up, and it was not until the 1930s that the project got under way. An assessment of what was wanted, in a letter of 1931, shows an extension of the original vision of 1915, highlighting especially familiar quotations from foreign languages and «modern quotations that have not yet got into the books». With major sources such as the Bible and Shakespeare, they would have to limit themselves to what was «eminently quotable and constantly quoted». The Classics were a particular consideration: if the book were not to be limited to English, it would seem illiterate to give «a mere handful of classical tags». It would however be essential to give translations. The question of overall organization was also debated, and the principle of A–Z author organization finally agreed.

There was a strong view that «non–English quotations must be reduced to very narrow limits» (partly, it must be said, on grounds of extent and cost). A distinction was to be drawn between what a French scholar would quote in French, and «that rather small number of French phrases which are almost current English (or have been)». Latin should provide the bulk of the foreign quotations, with German, Italian, and Spanish being satisfied by a handful of tags. There was doubt too about the currency of classical Greek, with the question being asked «Isn't it a fact that Greek has disappeared from the House of Commons?»

Consideration of the collection of material came with the warning that «Even in English we shall have to guard against things quotable, as apart from things commonly quoted.» From a practical point of view it was thought risky to have texts read by people who were devoted to them. «They probably quote, or think they quote, those texts to an abnormal extent.» The result would be a flood of material, and preparatory work that was «vast or uneven».

In conclusion, then, they were looking at a dictionary of quotations which would have a primarily literary base, and which would include quotations from major writers likely to be quoted in English by the literate and cultured person. The importance of the American market was somewhat grudgingly acknowledged («We must consider the Americans lovingly»), but in reality this was more likely to mean American authors regarded as having honorary status in English literature, rather than a true reflection of American culture.

By the end of the 1930s, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations was nearing publication. One problem, however, remained. In May 1941, an appeal was made to the writer Bernard Darwin, noted for his knowledge and love of quotations, with the words «Come over into Macedonia and help us» (Bible, Acts 16:9; Darwin had served in Macedonia during the First World War). It was explained that many months previously, in duty bound, they had asked the Vice–Chancellor, George Gordon, President of Magdalen, to write an Introduction to the Dictionary. According to the rueful explanation,

With his customary charming politeness he said he would, but with his I fear equally customary press of business and, if I may be guilty of scandalum magnum, habit of postponement he has not delivered the goods.

The failure might have been predicted: according to the article on Gordon in the Dictionary of National Biography, It was hard to persuade him that even a lecture was fit to be printed; if he parted with the manuscript, he clung to the proof. Of anything much more than a lecture his friends learned to despair. OUP sensibly did despair of Gordon's producing what was needed, and instead appealed to «the sister University [to] come, as so often» to the rescue. Would Darwin write, and moreover write very quickly, the Introduction? If he would come over to Oxford as soon as possible he could be provided with a quiet room, the proofs of the book, and the factual Preface. They would «gladly and thankfully» pay him fifteen guineas if at the end of six hours Darwin could produce an Introduction.

Darwin may have been flattered by the terms of the appeal («You are the man…It's a great book, and we want a great Introduction»), or touched by its frankness («We really are in a hole»). Whatever his reason, he accepted, and provided the Introduction which is reprinted here on pages xix–xxvi.

The Dictionary was published in October 1941, and generally extremely well received, the first printing of 20,000 being exhausted about a month after publication. For three months subsequently they struggled with wartime restrictions to get a reprint on to the market. This was «the constantly recurring trouble with all our books nowadays»; a more individual difficulty is recorded in an exchange of correspondence with the famously litigious Lord Alfred Douglas.

Lord Alfred wrote to Humphrey Milford, Publisher to the Oxford University Press, in November 1941, to complain that he was represented in the Dictionary by two lines taken from his early nonsense verse. He was undecided as to whether this indicated deliberate rudeness or that the compiler was «merely ignorant & illiterate». The line on which the subsequent correspondence centred was «The placid pug that paces in the park», from The Placid Pug, and Other Rhymes, by the Belgian Hare (London, 1906).

Milford, replying two days later, stated the general position, that the Dictionary was a collection of familiar quotations and not an anthology of chosen authors, good and bad, and then went on to the particular:

I see a pug (not often, thank Heaven, in these days) and I at once think of your line and so do many other people. Therefore it naturally appears in a book of familiar quotations. This was not an argument to appeal to Lord Alfred, and he found the letter «singularly unconvincing». The correspondence rumbled on, involving at one stage Lord Alfred's solicitors. It is possible to feel some sympathy for the solicitor whose instructions forced him to write,

We are acting for Lord Alfred Douglas, who, as you must know, is one of the greatest living poets and has been so described by those best able to form an opinion and entitled to express it. Today Lord Alfred is represented by the lineI am the love that dare not speak its name.Two Loves (1896)

It is far from clear that he would have been happy with this sole evidence of his poetic mastery, but it is almost certainly the only line of his which today can be described as «familiar».

To return to the Dictionary as published in 1941. The book was, inevitably, Anglocentric, a feature reinforced by the arrangement of material. The quotations were organized in such separate sections as Authors Writing in English, Book of Common Prayer, Holy Bible, Anonymous, Ballads, Nursery Rhymes, Quotations from Punch, and Foreign Quotations (Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, and German have the language of origin; Russian, Norwegian, and Swedish appear only in translation). Opening the pages is rather like walking into a traditional study lined with leather–bound volumes.

The selection was pre-eminently a literary one: according to the prefatory note, «The Compilers to the Reader», the writers most frequently quoted were Browning, Byron, Cowper, Dickens, Johnson, Kipling, Milton, Shakespeare, Shelley, Tennyson, and Wordsworth. Beyond the dominance of the canonical writers, room was also found for lesser figures. The Victorian writer Thomas Ashe (1836–89), whose poems according to the Dictionary of National Biography «failed entirely to gain the ear of his generation» is represented by the plaintive line, «Meet we no angels, Pansie?» The moderns were cautiously admitted: the single quotation from Virginia Woolf is the title of A Room of One's Own.

In his hastily compiled Introduction, Bernard Darwin had reflected that, «It is difficult today not to deal in warlike metaphors», but in fact the text of the first Dictionary reflected little of the period leading up to the Second World War. Winston Churchill, outnumbered by his father Randolph, has a single quotation from 1906, «It cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.» George V's official last words, «How is the Empire?» were there, but not the former Edward VIII's reference to «the help and support of the woman I love» in his Abdication broadcast. The Prime Minister who had to deal with the Abdication Crisis, Stanley Baldwin, did not appear at all, although his warning that «the bomber will always get through» was given in 1932. Franklin Roosevelt had a single quote: his assertion during his 1932 election campaign that, «I pledge you—I pledge myself—to a new deal for the American people.» Neville Chamberlain was also absent: it should have been possible to record his mistaken «I believe it is peace for our time» (returning from Munich in 1938), although the equally erroneous «Hitler has missed the bus» of April 1940 did come too late for a book published in the autumn of 1941. There was in fact very little to indicate the coming storm, other than an item in the Addenda to German quotations, Hermann Goering's comment in a radio broadcast of 1936, «Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.»

The novelist Norman Douglas once suggested that «You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements», and a number appeared in the Dictionary. Darwin's Introduction referred to what in 1941 was still a familiar advertising slogan, «Pink pills for pale people», and the Oxford English Dictionary notes that the slogan for Kruschen salts, «that Kruschen feeling», became a catchphrase of the 1920s to indicate a feeling of vigorous health. Health and concurrent good looks were in fact of particular concern, although some of the slogans seem to verge on the personal: for example, «Good morning! Have you used Pears' soap?». Wright's Coal Tar soap (corrected to Pears in the 2nd edition of 1953) has the somewhat surprising statement, «He won't be happy till he gets it.»

Popular songs included soldiers' songs from the First World War («Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag») and earlier music-hall favourites («We don't want to fight, but by jingo, if we do»). There were a few precursors of larger entries in later editions: Irving Berlin was included for «Alexander's Ragtime Band» (1911), but not for «Let's face the music and dance» (1936). The possible dangers of social life (prefiguring Flanders and Swann's «Have some madeira, m'dear» of the 1950s) were indicated by an anonymous limerick about a young lady of Kent who,When men asked her to dine,Gave her cocktails and wine,She knew what it meant—but she went!

The warm reception given to the Dictionary ensured that a second edition would follow, and in 1949 it was agreed that the time had come to start on a revision. There was already «an immense accumulation of suggestions» which would have to be sorted through by a committee, and there were proposals for what could be dropped, including advertising slogans and lines from comic songs. Book titles and the opening lines of hymns were tags rather than quotes, and if they went so too could the opening words of Latin prayers. It was noted however that, «No one has successfully solved what is and is not a quotation»: a question which may still be debated today.

The ensuing discussion recognized that there was a point of view which «would like to see all frivolities go» but felt that what was genuinely popular should keep its place. While it could be said that «the post-first war jocularities which have by now completely faded out» (i.e., what was in 1941 the most topical and ephemeral should go), the «frivolities of the '80s and '90s» had «stood up to time much better»: an interesting distinction which most quotations editors would find valid today. There were doubts about coverage of some of the «canonical» authors, a comment on the Jane Austen entry running, «I am not certain that the expert…is the best person to select from his author. To him all is familiar.»

A revision committee was set up, which was to go through the Dictionary considering existing matter for deletion or re–arrangement, and through addenda held for inclusion. It was agreed that any item receiving two votes should be included.

Between April 1949 and August 1950, the committee met 17 times. Authors and texts identified for examination were quite diverse. At the first meeting, it was agreed to to get an outside opinion on the Addison entry, to look for additional quotations from Emily Brontë, and to examine Charles I's speech on the scaffold for quotable passages. The minutes of 5 May 1949 noted both Donne's prose and The Wind in the Willows as possible sources. Overall the coverage was still fairly Anglocentric—Roosevelt's speeches being an exception, although it was also agreed that the «Foreign Section» needed thorough revision. It is noticeable however that reference to these items is made in the form «French quotations» or «German quotations»: individual authors are not given. The meeting of 8 September was a key one, as it also made a momentous decision as to the organization of the material:

It was then decided that reference would be facilitated if all the separate sections-including Greek-were to be incorporated into the main body of the book.

In other words, the overall author organization would be maintained, while entries like Anonymous, Ballads, and The Bible, would be incorporated into the alphabetic sequence.The index would similarly be single-sequence with the exception of Greek: this would have its own index. It was also agreed that «every key word» should be indexed: an over–ambitious plan which in August 1950 had to be rescinded when the extent (and cost) implications became apparent.

Another plan, which was wisely abandoned, was to include a section at the end of the text for quotations which had not been successfully sourced. By 1951 it was decided that any such should be held over to the next edition, although they made a last effort to verify outstanding problems. An appeal elicited this lament from Dorothy L. Sayers:

Oh, dear…! I never know where things come from. Nearly all are familiar, but I can't at the moment say where any of them come from.

The second edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations was published in 1953, and is much more recognizably the Dictionary we know today. The single alphabetic sequence has already been described, and for the first time quotations were individually numbered through the page, providing the page number to quotation number (e.g. 223:11) which is still the form of reference today.

The content, however, was more reordered than substantially different. Items dropped were from the more ephemeral end of the scale: for example, «Dr Brighton», as exemplifying Brighton's health-giving propensities, and the slogan «Where's George? Gone to Lyonch» , which reflected the popularity of Lyons' Corner Houses in the 1920s. Key material added focused on Second World War quotations, especially reflected, of course, in the enhanced entry for Winston Churchill.

1979 was to present the first substantial revision of the Dictionary since the original compilation, and it was at this point that particular categories of material were excluded. Nursery rhymes were cut altogether, on the assumption that they were fully covered by Iona and Peter Opie's Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (first published in 1951). Songs were also excluded:

The rule of thumb, given to the revision team and followed by the editors, has been that if the words cannot be said without the tune (a tune, in the case of many hymns) coming to mind, they are not quotations in the same sense as others.

Advertisements, slogans, catchphrases, and other items from the world of «broadcasting and other mass–media» were similarly to be avoided.

The existing text had been considered by the revision team. Each of the core members read the whole text (ten copies of the book with interleaved blank pages for comment were prepared). Suggestions for quotations to be added were circulated on specially prepared forms with a voting box for each item: the lists were then photocopied and distributed to the whole team, with three votes being considered necessary for inclusion. The aim was to compile a collection of popular (as distinct from familiar) quotations: the editors were particularly concerned that the book should not be:

An anthology displaying the choice and taste of one man, or even of a small committee of the Press such as compiled the first edition of the Dictionary. The result of their efforts was to return the collection firmly to its mainstream and literary tradition: quotations reflecting what we would think of now as the western canon rather than current affairs. (Although this was not necessarily their own view of their endeavours: according to the introduction, one of the revisers had commented on the necessity of clearing the «huge snowdrifts of Wordsworth»). Perhaps more than any of the other editions it is a committee book, with fewer examples of the odd or quirky. The compilation's solid worth was to sustain the Dictionary for another thirteen years, until the publication of the fourth edition in 1992.

The fourth edition, the last to be compiled on paper, was notable for improving the coverage of non–English authors, thinkers, and public figures, both European and American. Scientists, like a number of women writers, began to make a long–delayed appearance, and current affairs were paid more attention. Existing material was re–evaluated and verified (songs and hymns, rightly, were allowed to «make a welcome reappearance» as the then Editor put it), and quoted authors were given brief descriptions (for nationality and occupation) as well as dates.

This particular introduction underlines a trend that can be traced through the life of the Dictionary: the further we get from 1915, the clearer a particular social and cultural change becomes. In 1941, it could be assumed that the educated reader would have had a particular kind of education, following a monolithic classical curriculum (with possibly a nod to the «Modern Side»). That is now a world away: our readers come to us from many and diverse educational and cultural backgrounds, and the notion of «English–speaking culture» has to incorporate World English.

Another result of this, of course, is the identification of gaps which need to be addressed. The fifth edition, of 1999, for the first time gave proper place to the sacred texts of world religions other than Christianity. This was of course appropriate to a multicultural age, but it was fascinating to see how words and phrases from such sources were already permeating the English language. More contextual information was provided: because something is familiar to one section of our readership, we cannot necessarily assume that everyone will know it. We also responded to queries from readers by restoring proverbs and nursery rhymes (it has been clear from correspondence over the years that our readers expect to find this kind of material in the Dictionary).

The 1999 edition was also the first to be compiled online, and this fed back to the presentation of material: more navigational paths were provided for our readers, including a consciously generous system of cross–referencing. Particular categories of quotation, which in the main had previously been buried in the Anonymous section, were brought together in special category sections integrated into the main sequence: for example, Advertising slogans and Newspaper headlines.

The world of quotations is a kaleidoscopic one. What of the future? The collection of quotations, and background material, will continue, and new information may be discovered relating even to apparently familiar sayings. The comment on T. E. Lawrence, «Always backing into the limelight», is traditionally attributed to Lord Berners, but we now know that a similar comment was made by George Bernard Shaw, and recorded in a contemporary source. The diaries of the German diplomat, Count Harry Kessler, tell of a meeting with Shaw in November 1929. Lawrence had apparently complained that every move of his was followed by the Press, eliciting the Shavian response, «You always hide just in the middle of the limelight.» The information came to light just too late to be fully covered by this edition.

What will perhaps be considered the most famous soundbite of 2003 («Ladies and gentlemen, we got him»-Paul Bremer on the capture of Saddam Hussein) was uttered after the book went to Press. Topical material will always be a problem, not least because we have a devoted, and protective, readership. Those who care for the Dictionary are, rightly, concerned for its quality: less rightly, they may then extrapolate the view that the inclusion of topical or ephemeral material is somehow likely to devalue an adjacent quotation from classical literature. While having the charge of an iconic reference book is properly a serious responsibility, we still need to remember that we are publishing for our own times. A quotations collection published in 2004 needs to include the highest profile quotations of the recent past, though with the awareness that by the time the next edition is published some of them will be dropped. In the interim, however, we cannot tell people what they should remember, or refuse to answer questions which they may reasonably ask.

In compiling the new edition, we have once more drawn on the resources of Oxford Quotations Dictionaries: our published texts (and the research which lies behind them), and our growing database of new quotations derived from our reading programme. As always we have benefited from the generosity of readers who take the trouble to write to us with questions, comments, and suggestions. Colleagues in the Reference Department have again put forward quotations encountered in work and leisure. Among those to whom we are particularly grateful for contributions of material or solutions to particular questions, we would like to thank Matthew Carter, Margot Charlton, Mike Clark, Susie Dent, Henry Hardy, Antony Jay, Ian Linton, Kirk Marlow, Nigel Rees, Ned Sherrin, Donald Smith, and Sarah Waldram. Finally, and most importantly, Susan Ratcliffe»s editorial contribution has been of key importance in the preparation of this edition.

We know that the Dictionary must continue to be replanned and remade, and we face with resignation the fact that some future Editor will find a number of our choices as improbable as «Meet we no angels, Pansie?» He or she, in their turn, will face difficulties: for example, grappling with the fact that the Authorized Version, although a main source for established phrases in the language, will no longer be the most familiar translation of the Bible to a new generation.

In his Introduction, Bernard Darwin envisaged typical readers of the Dictionary as «friends by the fireside…indulging in a heated quoting–match», or as allies trying to solve a crossword puzzle. In 2004, readers are as likely to turn to it as a resource when trying to outdo a contestant on a television quiz show, solving a reference found while browsing the Net, or preparing for a presentation of their own. But although there are over sixty years, and infinite cultural and technological differences, between the worlds of the first and sixth editions, there is still a common thread: the fascination with words identified by Darwin in his opening sentence: «Quotation brings to many people one of the intensest joys of living.» It is in response to this continuing fascination that we monitor the language and collect quotations. It is as always our aim to edit a text that for our own time will answer the key quotations questions, «Who said that?» and «What's been said about this?»
Elizabeth KnowlesOxford 2004

By Bernard Darwin
Quotation brings to many people one of the intensest joys of living. If they need any encouragement they have lately received it from the most distinguished quarters. Mr Roosevelt quoted Longfellow to Mr Churchill; Mr Churchill passed the quotation on to us and subsequently quoted Clough on his own account. Thousands of listeners to that broadcast speech must have experienced the same series of emotions. When the Prime Minister said that there were some lines that he deemed appropriate we sat up rigid, waiting in mingled pleasure and apprehension. How agreeable it would be if we were acquainted with them and approved the choice! How flat and disappointing should they be unknown to us! A moment later we heard «For though the tired waves, vainly breaking» and sank back in a pleasant agony of relief. We whispered the lines affectionately to ourselves, following the speaker, or even kept a word or two ahead of him in order to show our familiarity with the text. We were if possible more sure than ever that Mr Churchill was the man for our money. He had given his ultimate proofs by flattering our vanity. He had chosen what we knew and what, if we had thought of it, we could have quoted ourselves. This innocent vanity often helps us over the hard places in life; it gives us a warm little glow against the coldness of the world and keeps us snug and happy. It certainly does its full share in the matter of quotations. We are puffed up with pride over those that we know and, a little illogically, we think that everyone else must know them too. As to those which lie outside our line of country we say, with Jowett as pictured by some anonymous genius at Balliol, «What I don't know isn't knowledge.» Yet here again we are illogical and unreasonable, for we allow ourselves to be annoyed by those who quote from outside our own small preserves. We accuse them in our hearts, as we do other people's children at a party, of «showing off». There are some departments of life in which we are ready to strike a bargain of mutual accommodation. The golfer is prepared to listen to his friend's story of missed putts, in which he takes no faintest interest, on the understanding that he may in turn impart his own heart–rending tale, and the bargain is honourably kept by both parties. The same rule does not apply to other people's quotations, which are not merely tedious but wound us in our tenderest spot. And the part played by vanity is perhaps worth pointing out because everybody, when he first plunges adventurously into this great work, ought in justice to the compilers to bear it in mind.

It is safe to say that there is no single reader who will not have a mild grievance or two, both as to what has been put in and what has been left out. In particular he will «murmur a little sadly» over some favourite that is not there. I, for instance, have a small grievance. William Hepworth Thompson, sometime Master of Trinity, the author of many famous and mordant sayings on which I have been brought up, is represented by but a single one. Can it be, I ask myself, that this is due to the fact that an Oxford Scholar put several of the Master's sayings into his Greek exercise book but attributed them to one Talirantes? Down, base thought! I only mention this momentary and most unworthy suspicion to show other readers the sort of thing they should avoid as they would the very devil. It is not that of which any one of us is fondest that is entitled as of right to a place. As often as he feels ever so slightly aggrieved, the reader should say to himself, if need be over and over again, that this is not a private anthology, but a collection of the quotations which the public knows best. In this fact, moreover, if properly appreciated, there ought to be much comfort. «My head» said Charles Lamb, «has not many mansions nor spacious», and is that not true of most of us? If in this book there are a great many quotations that we do not know, there are also a great many that we do. There is that example of Clough with which I began. We may have to admit under cross–examination that we have only a rather vague acquaintance with Clough's poems, but we do know «Say not the struggle»; and there on page so–and–so it is. Both we and the dictionary's compilers are thereupon seen to be persons of taste and discrimination.

If I may be allowed to harp a little longer on this string of vanity, it is rather amusing to imagine the varied reception given to this book by those who are quoted in it. They will consist largely of more or less illustrious shades, and we may picture them looking over one another's pale shoulders at the first copy of the dictionary to reach the asphodel. What jealousies there will be as they compare the number of pages respectively allotted to them! What indignation at finding themselves in such mixed company! Alphabetical order makes strange bedfellows. Dickens and Dibdin must get on capitally and convivially together, but what an ill–assorted couple are Mrs Humphrey Ward and the beloved Artemus of the same name! George Borrow may ask, «Pray, who is this John Collins Bossidy?» Many readers may incidentally echo his question, and yet no man better merits his niche, for Mr Bossidy wrote the lines ending «And the Cabots talk only to God», which have told the whole world of the blue blood of Boston. John Hookham Frere, singing of the mailed lobster clapping his broad wings, must feel his frivolity uncomfortably hushed for a moment by his next–door neighbour, Charles Frohman, on the point of going down with the Lusitania. And apropos of Frere, there rises before me the portentous figure of my great–great–grandfather, Erasmus Darwin. He was thought a vastly fine poet in his day and there is a family legend that he was paid a guinea a line for his too fluent verses. And yet he is deservedly forgotten, while those who parodied him in the Anti–Jacobin attain an equally well–deserved immortality. He was a formidable old gentleman, with something of the Johnson touch, but not without a sense of humour, and I do not think he will be greatly hurt.

The most famous poets must be presumed to be above these petty vanities, thought it would be agreeable to think of Horace contemplating his array of columns and saying, «I told you so—Exegi monumentum». In any case the number of columns or pages does not constitute the only test. Another is the number of words in each line by which any particular quotation can be identified, and this gives me a chance of making my compliments to the ingenuity and fullness of the index. The searcher need never despair and should he draw blank under «swings» he is pretty sure to find what he wants under «roundabouts». There is a little game to be played (one of the many fascinating games which the reader can devise for himself) by counting the number of «key words» in each line and working out the average of fame to which any passage is entitled. Even a short time so spent shows unexpected results, likely to spread envy and malice among the shades. It might be imagined that Shakespeare would be an easy winner. It has been said that every drop of the Thames is liquid history and almost every line of certain passages of Shakespeare is solid quotation. Let us fancy that his pre–eminence is challenged, that a sweepstake is suggested, and that he agrees to be judged by «To be or not to be». It seems a sufficiently sound choice and is found to produce fifty–five key words in thirty–three lines. All the other poets are ready to give in at once; they cannot stand against such scoring as that and Shakespeare is about to pocket the money when up sidles Mr Alexander Pope. What, he asks, about that bitter little thing of his which he sent to Mr Addison? And he proves to be right, for in those two and twenty lines to Atticus there are fifty–two key words. I have not played this game nearly long enough to pronounce Pope the winner. Very likely Shakespeare or somebody else can produce a passage with a still higher average, but here at any rate is enough to show that it is a good game and as full of uncertainties as cricket itself.

Though the great poets may wrangle a little amongst themselves, they do not stand in need of anything that the dictionary can do for them. Very different is the case of the small ones, whose whole fame depends upon a single happy line or even a single absurd one. To them exclusion from these pages may virtually mean annihilation, while inclusion makes them only a little lower than the angels. Their anxiety must therefore be pitiful and their joy when they find themselves safe in the haven proportionately great. Sometimes that joy may be short–lived. Think of Mr Robert Montgomery, who was highly esteemed till the ruthless Macaulay fell upon him. With trembling hand he turns the pages and finds no less than four extracts from «The Omnipresence of the Deity». Alas! under his own letter M the traducer is waiting for him, and by a peculiar refinement of cruelty there are quoted no less than five of Lord Macaulay's criticisms on that very poem. This is a sad case; let us take a more cheerful one and still among the M's. Thomas Osbert Mordaunt has full recognition as the author of «Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife», after having for years had to endure the attribution of his lines to Sir Walter Scott, who in pure innocency put them at the head of a chapter. This to be sure was known already, but whoever heard the name of the author of «We don't want to fight», the man who gave the word «Jingo» to the world? We know that the Great McDermott sang it, but even he may not have known who wrote it, just as Miss Fotheringay did not know who wrote «The Stranger». Now G. W. Hunt comes into his kingdom and with him another who helped many thousands of soldiers on their way during the last war. Mr George H. Powell is fortunately still alive to enjoy the celebrity of «Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag». How many thousands, too, have sung «Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket» without realizing that it was by Whyte Melville? To him, however, recognition is of less account. His place was already secure.

Among the utterers of famous sayings some seem to have been more fortunate than others. Lord Westbury, for instance, has always had the rather brutal credit of telling some wretched little attorney to turn the matter over «in what you are pleased to call your mind»; but how many of us knew who first spoke of a «blazing indiscretion» or called the parks «the lungs of London»? We may rejoice with all these who, having for years been wronged, have come into their rights at last, but there are others with whom we can only sympathize. They must be contented with the fact that their sayings or their verses have been deemed worth recording, even though their names «shall be lost for evermore». The Rugby boy who called his headmaster «a beast but a just beast» sleeps unknown, while through him Temple lives. He can only enjoy what the dynamiter Zero called «an anonymous infernal glory». So do the authors of many admirable limericks, though some of the best are attributed to a living divine of great distinction, who has not disclaimed such juvenile frolics. So again to those who have given us many household words from the advertisement hoardings, the beloved old jingle of «the Pickwick, the Owl, and the Waverley pen», the alluring alliteration of «Pink Pills for Pale People». Let us hope that it is enough for them that they did their duty and sent the sales leaping upward.

So much for the authors without whom this book could never have been. Now for the readers and some of the happy uses to which they will put it. «Hand me over the Burton's Anatomy», said Captain Shandon, «and leave me to my abominable devices.» It was Greek and Latin quotations that he sought for his article, but fashion has changed and today it would rather be English ones. Here is one of the most obvious purposes for which the dictionary will be used. It cannot accomplish impossibilities. It will not prevent many an honest journalist from referring to «fresh fields and pastures new» nor from describing a cup–tie as an example of «Greek meeting Greek». There is a fine old crusted tradition of misquoting not lightly to be broken and it might almost seem pedantry to deck these ancient friends in their true but unfamiliar colours. Misquoting may even be deemed an amiable weakness, since Dickens in one of his letters misquoted Sam Weller; but here at least is a good chance of avoiding it. There is likewise a chance of replenishing a stock grown somewhat threadbare. «Well, you're a boss word», exclaimed Jim Pinkerton, when he lighted on «hebdomadary» in a dictionary. «Before you're very much older I'll have you in type as long as yourself.» So the hard–pressed writer in turning over these pages may find and note many excellent phrases against future contingencies, whether to give a pleasing touch of erudition or to save the trouble of thinking for himself. These, however, are sordid considerations, and the mind loves rather to dwell on fireside quoting–matches between two friends, each of whom thinks his own visual memory the more accurate. There are certain writers well adapted to this form of contest and among the moderns Conan Doyle must, with all respect to Mr Wodehouse, be assigned the first place. Sherlock Holmes scholars are both numerous and formidable; they set themselves and demand of others a high standard. It is one very difficult to attain since there often seems no reason why any particular remark should have been made on any particular occasion. This is especially true of Dr Watson. He was constantly saying that his practice was not very absorbing or that he had an accommodating neighbour, but when did he say which? Even the most learned might by a momentary blunder confuse «A Case of Identity» with «The Final Problem». It would be dry work to plough through all the stories, even though the supreme satisfaction of being right should reward the search. Now a glance at the dictionary will dispose of an argument which would otherwise «end only with the visit».

It is incidentally curious and interesting to observe that two authors may each have the same power of inspiring devotion and the competitive spirit, and yet one may be, from the dictionary point of view, infinitely more quotable than the other. Hardly any prose writer, for instance, produces a more fanatical adoration than Miss Austen, and there are doubtless those who can recite pages of her with scarce a slip; but it is perhaps pages rather than sentences that they quote. Mr Bennet provides an exception, but generally speaking she is not very amenable to the treatment by scissors and paste. George Eliot, if we leave out Mrs Poyser, a professed wit and coiner of aphorisms, is in much poorer case. Another and a very different writer, Borrow, can rouse us to a frantic pitch of romantic excitement, but it is the whole scene and atmosphere that possess this magic and we cannot take atmosphere to pieces. These are but three examples of writers who do not seem to lend themselves to brief and familiar quotations. They have jewels in plenty, but these form part of a piece of elaborate ornament from which they cannot be detached without irreparable damage. The works of some writers may by contrast be said to consist of separate stones, each of which needs no setting and can sparkle on its own account. Dickens is an obvious and unique instance. Stevenson, too, has the gift of producing characters such as Prince Florizel and Alan Breck, John Silver and Michael Finsbury, whose words can stand memorable by themselves, apart from context and atmosphere. Those who share my love for Florizel will rejoice to observe that he has had some faithful friend among the compilers. As for Michael I cannot help feeling that he has been rather scurvily used, for «The Wrong Box» is admirably suited to competition and even learned Judges of the Court of Appeal have been known, all unsuspected by their ignorant auditors, to bandy quotations from it on the Bench. Here, however, I taken leave to give any indignant reader a hint. Let him not cry too loudly before he is hurt! It is true that «nothing like a little judicious levity» is not in the main body of the dictionary, but someone awoke just in time and it is among the addenda.

To return to those friends by the fireside whom I pictured indulging in a heated quoting–match, it may be that they will presently become allies and united to use the dictionary over a crossword puzzle. It is hardly too much to say that the setters of these problems should not use a quotation unless it is to be found in the dictionary. A crossword quotation should not be too simple, but it should be such that that hypothetical personage, the reasonable man, might have heard of it. The solver demands fair play, and the setter who takes a volume of verse at haphazard, finds a word that fits, and subtitutes a blank for it, is not playing the game. There are solvers whose standard of sportsmanship is so high that they would as soon allow themselves to cheat at patience as have recourse to a book. We may admire though we cannot emulate this fine austere arrogance. It is the best fun to win unaided, but there is good fun too in ferreting out a quotation. It well repays the ardours of the chase. Moreover a setter of puzzles who oversteps honourable limits should be fought with his own weapons. He has palpably used books and this is an epoch of reprisals. Then let us use books today and hoist him with his own petard.

It is difficult today not to deal in warlike metaphors, but perhaps the truest and most perfect use of the dictionary is essentially peaceful. Reviewers are apt to say of a detective story that it is «impossible to lay it down till the last page is reached». It is rather for books of reference that such praise should be reserved. No others are comparable with them for the purposes of eternal browsing. They suggest all manner of lovely, lazy things, in particular the watching of a cricket match on a sunshiny day. We have only dropped in for half an hour, but the temptation to see just one more over before we go is irresistible. Evening draws on, the shadows of the fielders lengthen on the grass, nothing much is happening, a draw becomes every minute more inevitable, and still we cannot tear ourselves away. So it is with works of reference, even with the most arid, even with Bradshaw, whose vocabulary, as Sherlock Holmes remarked, is «nervous and terse but limited.» Over the very next page of Bradshaw there may be hidden a Framlingham Admiral; adventure may always be in wait a little farther down the line. So, but a thousand times more so, is some exciting treasure–trove awaiting us over the next page of this dictionary. What it is we cannot guess, but it is for ever calling in our ears to turn over just one more. We have only taken down the book to look up one special passage, but it is likely enough that we shall never get so far. Long before we have reached the appropriate letter we shall have been waylaid by an earlier one, and shall have clean forgotten our original quest. Nor is this all, for, if our mood changes as we browse, it is so fatally, beautifully easy to change our pasture. We can play a game akin to that «dabbing» cricket, so popular in private–school days, in which the batsman's destiny depended or was supposed to depend—for we were not always honest—on a pencil delivered with eyes tightly shut. We can close the book and open it again at random, sure of something that shall set us off again on a fresh and enchanting voyage of not too strenuous discovery.

Under this enchantment I have fallen deep. I have pored over the proofs so that only by a supreme effort of will could I lay them down and embark on the impertinent task of trying to write about them. I now send them back to their home with a sense of privation and loneliness. Here seems to me a great book. Then Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly, this humble tribute to Oxford from another establishment over the way.
May 1941  B. D.