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Quotes by English Authors


"Love is flower like; Friendship is like a sheltering tree."

"The Barks of Trees are best gathered in the Spring, if it be of great Trees, as Oaks or the like, because then they come easiest off, and so you may dry them if you please, but indeed your best way is to gather all Barks only for present use."

"So great was the extremity of his pain and anguish, that he did not only sigh but roar."

"I can't stress the importance of working hard enough, work on all aspects of your game. If you does that and you have the ability, you'll come through."

"The passage of time is a continuing thing. At 18, you're going to live forever, and you are definitely not at 52, so that is a recurring topic. I still think it's the main stuff."

"But we need to show that the EU can modernise itself, can adapt to the needs of its citizens, can take their views into account. That will be our ambition for the UK Presidency."


"Our repertoire consisted of rhythm and blues, sort of country rhythm and blues, Sonny Terry things."


"It's happened time and time again, but the committee has always decided against it-the work was too conservative or didn't fit within the budget; there are millions of different reasons."

"Men who hold a theory of the Church which excludes from communion those whom they admit to have the Spirit of Christ simply proclaim that their theory is in flat contradiction to the spiritual fact."

"The direction and constancy of the will is what really matters, and intellect and feeling are only important insofar as they contribute to that."

"Then, all of a sudden, he stopped and nobody heard from him or got a response to orders. At this point Rod Walker looked him up and found he was living in a commune and seemed to be dropping out of the hobby."


"I think that songwriting changed when groups started spending more time in the studio."

"Fifteen years ago I walked out of a production of one of my plays at the RSC because I decided it was a waste of time."

"If thou art master to thyself, circumstances shall harm thee little."

"I don't take me seriously. If we get some giggles, I don't mind."


"Christianity is not a theory or speculation, but a life; not a philosophy of life, but a life and a living process."

"So in one leap we had gone from being a friendly society to something almost professional."

"To make your people understand what righteousness is, this must be the basis of all your teaching."

"This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play."


"The police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence."

"Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become."

"Such is the facility with which mankind believe at one and the same time things inconsistent with one another, and so few are those who draw from what they receive as truths, any consequences but those recommended to them by their feelings, that multitudes have held the undoubting belief in an Omnipotent Author of Hell, and have nevertheless identified that being with the one best conception they were able to form of perfect goodness."


"The life of a good man is a continual warfare with his passions."


"'Tis the last rose of summer Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone."

"Everybody said, "Follow your heart". I did, it got broken."

"To spend this particular year reading essays to Dennis Robertson as one's supervisor, and, simultaneously, enjoying membership of the group round Keynes was indeed an intellectual treat."

"When I came to England at the very beginning of commercial television it was easy for me because I was only doing one or two shows a week at most. It was really a holiday."

"My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India."

"It is bitter to lose a friend to evil, before one loses him to death."
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