“Who thought he 'd won
The field as certain as a gun.”
Canto III, line 11
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)
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Samuel Butler (poet)81
poet and satirist 1612–1680Related quotes
“The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.”
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) British soldier and statesman
As quoted in The New York Times (26 December 1886), and in Words on Wellington (1889) by Sir William Fraser, this is almost certainly apocryphal. The first attributions of such a remark to Wellington were in De l'Avenir politique de l'Angleterre (1856) by Charles de Montalembert, Ch. 10, where it is stated that on returning to Eton in old age he had said: "C'est ici qu'a été gagnée la bataille de Waterloo." This was afterwards quoted in Self-Help (1859) by Samuel Smiles as "It was there that the Battle of Waterloo was won!" Later in Memoirs of Eminent Etonians (2nd Edition, 1876) by Sir Edward Creasy, he is quoted as saying as he passed groups playing cricket on the playing-fields: "There grows the stuff that won Waterloo."
Elizabeth Longford in Wellington — The Years of the Sword (1969) states he "probably never said or thought anything of the kind" and Gerald Wellesley, 7th Duke of Wellington in a letter published in The Times in 1972 is quoted as stating: "During his old age Wellington is recorded to have visited Eton on two occasions only and it is unlikely that he came more often. … Wellington's career at Eton was short and inglorious and, unlike his elder brother, he had no particular affection for the place. … Quite apart from the fact that the authority for attributing the words to Wellington is of the flimsiest description, to anyone who knows his turn of phrase they ring entirely false."
Misattributed
Snoop Dogg (1971) American rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor
Midnight Love, Death Row: Snoop Doggy Dogg at His Best (2001).
“Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won.”
Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines
1940s, Victory broadcast (1945)
Context: Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain with death — the seas bear only commerce — men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world lies quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed. And in reporting this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way.
Larry the Cable Guy (1963) American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist, voice artist
Source: Git-R-Done (book), p. 5
Charles Dibdin (1745–1814) British musician, songwriter, dramatist, novelist and actor
The Sailor’s Consolation. A song with this title, beginning, "One night came on a hurricane", was written by William Pitt, of Malta, who died in 1840.
Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird
Pt. 1, ch. 11
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)