“The point is plain as a pike-staff.”

—  John Byrom

Epistle to a Friend as quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The point is plain as a pike-staff." by John Byrom?
John Byrom photo
John Byrom31
Poet, inventor of a shorthand system 1692–1763

Related quotes

Alain-René Lesage photo

“Plain as a pike-staff.”

Alain-René Lesage book Gil Blas

Book XII, ch. 7. Compare: "A flat case as plain as a pack-staff", Thomas Middleton, The Family of Love (1602-07), Act v, Scene 3.
Gil Blas (1715-1735)

Thomas Middleton photo

“A flat case as plain as a pack-staff.”

Thomas Middleton (1580–1627) English playwright and poet

Act v. Sc. 3. Compare: "Plain as a pike-staff", Terence in English (1641); Buckingham, Speech in the House of Lords, 1675; Gil Blas (Smollett’s translation), book xii. chap. viii. John Byrom, Epistle to a Friend.
The Family of Love (co-written with Thomas Dekker, 1602-7)

R. H. Tawney photo

“Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow.”

R. H. Tawney (1880–1962) English philosopher

in Equality (1931)
sometimes cited as an English proverb, sometimes also attributed to Isaiah Berlin
Disputed

Ted Hughes photo

“Pike, three inches long, perfect
Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold.
Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin.”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

"Pike", line 1
Lupercal (1960)

Robert Jordan photo

“The pike does not ask the frog’s permission before dining.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Lini
(15 October 1994)

Jerry Brown photo

“The governor is the worst administrator ever to come down the pike.”

Jerry Brown (1938) American politician/lawyer and current governor of California

Lou Papan, former State Assemblyman, The Sacramento Union, unspecified article/page, 26 December 1982.

“There's a point where plainness is no longer a virtue, when it becomes excessively bald, wrenched.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

Poetry and Craft (1965)

Aaro Hellaakoski photo

“From his hole so wet and drenching
a pike rose up to tree to sing

when through the greyish net of clouds
first gleam of day was seen
and at the lake the lapping waves
woke up with joyous mean
the pike rose to the spruce's crone
to take a bite at reddish cone”

Aaro Hellaakoski (1893–1952) Finnish writer, poet, geographer and teacher

Aaro Hellaakoski, "The Pike's Song," (1927), Leevi Lehto (transl.), in: Leevi Lehto. Leevi Lehto. Finnish poetry: then and now, January 2005. Published online at upenn.edu. Accessed 20-03-2013

“The informative phase refers to those things which authority should know in framing its decisions; the advisory, to the actual counsel based on such information; the supervisory, to both preceding phases as applied to all the details of execution. The point is that the line represents the authority of man; the staff, the authority of ideas. The staff is purely an auxiliary service. Its function is to be informative and advisory with respect to both plans and their execution. This is implicit in the word "staff" which is something to support or lean upon but without authority to decide or initiate.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 60

Charles de Gaulle photo

“France was built with swords. The fleur-de-lis, symbol of national unity, is only the image of a spear with three pikes.”

Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) eighteenth President of the French Republic

La France fut faite à coups d'épée. La fleur de lys, symbole d'unité nationale, n'est que l'image d'un javelot à trois lances.
in La France et son armée.
Writings

Related topics