The Figure in the Carpet http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/fgcpt10h.htm (1896).
William Jones (1746–1794) Anglo-Welsh philologist and scholar of ancient India
A Persian Song of Hafiz, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "'T was he that ranged the words at random flung, Pierced the fair pearls and them together strung", Eastwick: Anvari Suhaili. (Translated from Firdousi).
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
Source: Costly Grace, p. 45.
James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat
In a Copy of Omar Khayyam.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,
Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;
The diver Omar plucked them from their bed,
FitzGerald strung them on an English thread.
“Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.”
Joseph Hall (1574–1656) British bishop
Christian Moderation, introduction.
Michel Bréal (1832–1915) French philologist
Source: Essai de semantique, 1897, p. 9 ; as cited in: Schaff (1962:3).
“The man who invented the red carpet needed his head examined.”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921) member of the British Royal Family, consort to Queen Elizabeth II
About to disembark on state visit to Brazil (November 1968), as quoted in The Reality of Monarchy (1970) by Andrew Duncan
1960s
“With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls.”
Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter
Shipbuilding, written by Elvis Costello and Clive Langer
Song lyrics, Punch the Clock (1983)
Context: The boy said 'Dad they're going to take me to task
But I'll be back by Christmas'
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
Somebody said that someone got filled in
For saying that people get killed in
The result of this shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls.
Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) Historian
Source: Bernard Shaw in Twilight (1943), IV
Context: He never invested his whole moral capital in a man, a book, or a cause, but treasured up wisdom wherever it could be picked up, always with scrupulous acknowledgment … His eclecticism saving him from the cycle of hope-disillusion-despair, his highest effectiveness was as a skirmisher in the daily battle for light and justice, as a critic of new doctrine and a refurbisher of old, as a voice of warning and encouragement. That his action has not been in vain, we can measure by how little Shaw's iconoclasm stirs our blood; we no longer remember what he destroyed that was blocking our view.
