The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (7 page)

What price glory?

Title of play (1924)

1.37 Robert Anderson =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1917-

All you're supposed to do is every once in a while give the boys a little

tea and sympathy.

Tea and Sympathy (1957) act 1

1.38 James Anderton =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1932-

God works in mysterious ways. Given my love of God and my belief in God

and in Jesus Christ, I have to accept that I may well be used by God in

this way [as a prophet].

In radio interview, 18 Jan. 1987, in Daily Telegraph 19 Jan. 1987

Everywhere I go I see increasing evidence of people swirling about in a

human cesspit of their own making.

Speech at seminar on AIDS, 11 Dec. 1986, in Guardian 12 Dec. 1986

1.39 Sir Norman Angell =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1872-1967

The great illusion.

Title of book (1910), first published as "Europe's optical illusion"

(1909), on the futility of war

1.40 Maya Angelou (Maya Johnson) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1928-

I know why the caged bird sings.

Title of book (1969), taken from the last line of "Sympathy" by Paul

Laurence Dunbar in Lyrics of Hearthside (1899). Cf. Oxford Dictionary of

Quotations (1979) 567:10

1.41 Paul Anka =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1941-

And now the end is near

And so I face the final curtain,

My friend, I'll say it clear,

I'll state my case of which I'm certain.

I've lived a life that's full, I've travelled each and ev'ry highway

And more, much more than this. I did it my way.

My Way (1969 song; music by Claude Fran�ois and Jacques Revaux)

1.42 Princess Anne (HRH the Princess Royal) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1950-

It could be said that the Aids pandemic is a classic own-goal scored by

the human race against itself.

In Daily Telegraph 27 Jan. 1988

1.43 Anonymous =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Access--your flexible friend.

Advertising slogan for Access credit cards, 1981 onwards, in Nigel Rees

Slogans (1982) p. 91

All the way with LBJ.

US Democratic Party campaign slogan, in Washington Post 4 June 1960

American Express?...That'll do nicely, sir.

Advertisement for American Express credit card, 1970s, in F. Jenkins

Advertising (1985) ch. 1

Arbeit macht frei.

Work liberates.

Words inscribed on the gates of Dachau concentration camp, 1933

Australians wouldn't give a XXXX for anything else.

Advertisement for Castlemaine lager, 1986 onwards, in Philip Kleinman The

Saatchi and Saatchi Story (1987) ch. 5

Ban the bomb.

US anti-nuclear slogan, 1953 onwards, adopted by the Campaign for Nuclear

Disarmament

A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end.

British pacifist slogan (1940)

The best defence against the atom bomb is not to be there when it goes

off.

Contributor to British Army Journal, in Observer 20 Feb. 1949

Better red than dead.

Slogan of nuclear disarmament campaigners, late 1950s

Bigamy is having one husband too many. Monogamy is the same.

In Erica Jong Fear of Flying (1973) ch. 1 (epigraph)

A bigger bang for a buck.

Description of Charles E. Wilson's defence policy, in Newsweek 22 Mar.

1954

Black is beautiful.

Slogan of American civil rights campaigners in the mid-1960s, cited in

Newsweek 11 July 1966

Burn, baby, burn.

Black extremist slogan used in Los Angeles riots, August 1965, in Los

Angeles Times 15 Aug 1965, p. 1

The butler did it!

In Nigel Rees Sayings of the Century (1984) p. 45 (as a solution for

detective stories. Rees cannot trace the origin of the phrase, but he

quotes a correspondent who recalls hearing it at a cinema circa 1916)

A camel is a horse designed by a committee.

In Financial Times 31 Jan. 1976

Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances.

Studio official's comment on Fred Astaire, in Bob Thomas Astaire (1985)

ch. 3

Can you tell Stork from butter?

Advertisement for Stork margarine, from circa 1956

Careless talk costs lives.

World War II publicity slogan, in J. Darracott and B. Loftus Second World

War Posters (1972) p. 28

Coughs and sneezes spread diseases. Trap the germs in your handkerchief.

1942 health slogan, in J. Darracott and B. Loftus Second World War

Posters (1972) p. 19

[Death is] nature's way of telling you to slow down.

Newsweek, 25 Apr. 1960, p. 70

Do not fold, spindle or mutilate in any way.

1950s instruction on punched cards, found in various forms circa 1935

onwards

Don't ask a man to drink and drive.

UK road safety slogan, from 1964

Don't die of ignorance.

Slogan used in AIDS publicity campaign, 1987: see The Times 9 and 13 Jan.

1987

Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein F�hrer.

One realm, one people, one leader.

Nazi Party slogan, early 1930s

Even your closest friends won't tell you.

US advertisement for Listerine mouthwash, in Woman's Home Companion Nov.

1923, p. 63

Every picture tells a story.

Advertisement for Doan's Backache Kidney Pills, in Daily Mail 26 Feb.

1904

Expletive deleted.

Submission of Recorded Presidential Conversations to the Committee on the

Judiciary of the House of Representatives by President Richard M. Nixon 30

Apr. 1974, app. 1, p. 2

Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to

leap tall buildings at a single bound! Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird!

It's a plane! It's Superman! Yes, it's Superman! Strange visitor from

another planet, who came to earth with powers and abilities far beyond

those of mortal men. Superman! Who can change the course of mighty rivers,

bend steel with his bare hands, and who--disguised as Clark Kent,

mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper--fights a never

ending battle for truth, justice and the American way!

Preamble to Superman, US radio show, 1940 onwards

The following is a copy of Orders issued by the German Emperor on August

19th: "It is my Royal and Imperial command that you concentrate your

energies for the immediate present upon one single purpose, and that is

that you address all your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to

exterminate first, the treacherous English, walk over General French's

contemptible little army...."

Annexe to B.E.F. [British Expeditionary Force] Routine Orders of 24

September 1914, in Arthur Ponsonby Falsehood in Wartime (1928) ch. 10

(although this is often attributed to Kaiser Wilhelm II, it was most

probably fabricated by the British)

Frankie and Albert were lovers, O Lordy, how they could love.

Swore to be true to each other, true as the stars above;

He was her man, but he done her wrong.

"Frankie and Albert" in John Huston Frankie and Johnny (1930) p. 95 (St

Louis ballad later better known as "Frankie and Johnny")

Full of Eastern promise.

Advertising slogan for Fry's Turkish Delight, 1950s onwards

God gave Noah the rainbow sign,

No more water, the fire next time.

Home in that Rock (Negro spiritual). Cf. James Baldwin 16:14

God is not dead but alive and working on a much less ambitious project.

Graffito quoted in Guardian 26 Nov. 1975

Gotcha!

Headline on the sinking of the General Belgrano, in Sun 4 May 1982

Go to work on an egg.

Advertising slogan for the British Egg Marketing Board, from 1957; perhaps

written by Fay Weldon or Mary Gowing: see Nigel Rees Slogans (1982) p. 133

The Governments of the States parties to this Constitution on behalf of

their peoples declare, that since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in

the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.

Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organisation (1945), in UK Parliamentary Papers 1945-6 vol. 26

The hands that do dishes can be soft as your face, with mild green Fairy

Liquid.

Advertising slogan for Procter & Gamble's washing-up liquid

Hark the herald angels sing

Mrs Simpson's pinched our king.

1936 children's rhyme quoted in letter from Clement Attlee, 26 Dec.

1938, in Kenneth Harris Attlee (1982) ch. 11

Have you heard? The Prime Minister [Lloyd George] has resigned and

Northcliffe has sent for the King.

1919 saying in Hamilton Fyfe Northcliffe, an Intimate Biography (1930)

ch. 16

Here we go, here we go, here we go.

Song sung by football supporters etc., 1980s

His [W. S. Gilbert's] foe was folly and his weapon wit.

Inscription on memorial to Gilbert on the Victoria Embankment, London,

1915

I don't like the family Stein!

There is Gert, there is Ep, there is Ein.

Gert's writings are punk,

Ep's statues are junk,

Nor can anyone understand Ein.

In R. Graves and A. Hodge The Long Weekend (1940) ch. 12 (rhyme current in

the USA in the 1920s)

If it moves, salute it; if it doesn't move, pick it up; and if you can't

pick it up, paint it.

1940s saying, in Paul Dickson The Official Rules (1978) p. 21

If you want to get ahead, get a hat.

Advertising slogan for the Hat Council, UK, 1965

Ils ne passeront pas.

They shall not pass.

Slogan used by French army at defence of Verdun in 1916 ; variously

attributed to Marshal P�tain and to General Robert Nivelle. Cf. Dolores

Ibarruri 109:18

I'm backing Britain.

Slogan coined by workers at the Colt factory, Surbiton, Surrey and

subsequently used in a national campaign, in The Times 1 Jan. 1968

I'm worried about Jim.

Frequent line in Mrs Dale's Diary, BBC radio series 1948-69: see Denis

Gifford The Golden Age of Radio (1985) p. 179 (where the line is given as

"I'm a little worried about Jim")

The iron lady.

In Sunday Times 25 Jan. 1976 (name given to Margaret Thatcher, then Leader

of the Opposition, by the Soviet defence ministry newspaper Red Star,

which accused her of trying to revive the cold war)

Is your journey really necessary?

1939 slogan (coined to discourage Civil Servants from going home for

Christmas), in Norman Longmate How We Lived Then (1971) ch. 25

It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.

Comment by unidentified United States Army Major in Associated Press

Report, New York Times 8 Feb. 1968 [the town referred to is Ben Tre,

Vietnam]

It's for you-hoo!

Slogan for British Telecom television advertisements, 1985 onwards

It's that man again...! At the head of a cavalcade of seven black motor

cars Hitler swept out of his Berlin Chancellery last night on a mystery

journey.

Headline in Daily Express 2 May 1939 [the abbreviation ITMA was used as

title of a BBC radio show from 19 Sept. 1939]

It will play in Peoria.

In New York Times 9 June 1973 (catch-phrase of the Nixon administration)

Je suis Marxiste--tendance Groucho.

I am a Marxist--of the Groucho tendency.

Slogan used at Nanterre in Paris, 1968

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.

Advertisement for Jaws 2 (1978 film)

Kentucky Fried Chicken...."It's finger lickin' good."

American Restaurant Magazine June 1958

King's Moll Reno'd in Wolsey's Home Town.

In Frances Donaldson Edward VIII (1974) ch. 7 (American newspaper headline

referring to Mrs Simpson's divorce proceedings in Ipswich)

Labour isn't working.

In Philip Kleinman The Saatchi and Saatchi Story (1987) ch. 2 (British

Conservative Party slogan, 1978-9, on poster showing a long queue outside

an unemployment office)

LBJ, LBJ, how many kids have you killed today?

In Jacquin Sanders The Draft and the Vietnam War (1966) ch. 3

(anti-Vietnam marching slogan)

Let's get out of these wet clothes and into a dry Martini.

Line coined in 1920s by press agent for Robert Benchley (and often

attributed to Benchley), in Howard Teichmann Smart Alec (1976) ch. 9. Cf.

Mae West 225:10

Let the train take the strain.

British Rail advertising slogan, 1970 onwards

Let your fingers do the walking.

1960s advertisement for Bell system Telephone Directory Yellow Pages, in

Harold S. Sharp Advertising Slogans of America (1984) p. 44

Liberty is always unfinished business.

Title of 36th Annual Report of the American Civil Liberties Union,

July 1955 -30 June 1956

Life is a sexually transmitted disease.

In D. J. Enright (ed.) Faber Book of Fevers and Frets (1989) (graffito in

the London Underground)

Life's better with the Conservatives. Don't let Labour ruin it.

In David Butler and Richard Rose British General Election of 1959 (1960)

ch. 3 (Conservative Party election slogan)

Lloyd George knows my father,