Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Quoted in Beatrice Hatch, "Lewis Carroll", Strand Magazine (April 1898), p. 422
“I must decline your invitation owing to a subsequent engagement.”
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Oscar Wilde812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900Related quotes
“I must decline your offer with thanks, for the child might have my beauty and your brains.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
Anecdote presented in "Isadore Duncan : Dancer as Plaything of Fate" in A Century of Sundays : 100 years of Breaking News in the Sunday Papers (2006), by Nadine Dreyer, p. 65 http://books.google.com/books?id=5rFGX4z8-S8C&pg=PA65&dq=%22Love+is+an+illusion;+it+is+the+world's+greatest+mistake%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NPAkT7mJDJKy0AH5vcXkCA&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Love%20is%20an%20illusion%3B%20it%20is%20the%20world's%20greatest%20mistake%22&f=false; the anecdote provided here does not cite earlier sources, and though widely attributed to an exchange between Duncan and Shaw, the earliest form of it yet located is in 10,000 Jokes, Toasts & Stories (1939) by Lewis & Faye Copeland, which simply has an unidentified woman offering to have a child with Shaw, saying "think of the child with your brains and my beauty" and him replying "But what if he were to have your brains and my beauty?" <br class="br">Disputed <br class="br">Context: [Isadora Duncan] wrote to George Bernard Shaw: "Will you be the father of my next child? A combination of my beauty and your brains would startle the world," but he replied: "I must decline your offer with thanks, for the child might have my beauty and your brains."
“There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.”
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet
Solitude
Poetry quotes
Context: Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.
Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher
Life of Agesilaus II
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“The American standard of living must decline.”
Paul Volcker (1927–2019) American economist
As Chairman of the Federal Reserve under Carter and Reagan, October 1979. archive.is https://archive.is/lLeUg, New York Times, David McNally, "Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance", <br class="br">Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=ZRf9BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=Paul+Volcker,+%E2%80%9CThe+American+standard+of+living+must+decline,%E2%80%9D books.google.com
“There must be engagement: there must be protest.”
B. W. Powe (1955) Canadian writer
Interlude, p. 77
Towards a Canada of Light (2006)
J. M. Barrie book The Little White Bird
And if David asks why I decline, I explain that it is because I have no desire to meet the woman.
"Come this time, father," he urged lately, "for it is her birthday, and she is twenty-six," which is so great an age to David, that I think he fears she cannot last much longer.
Source: The Little White Bird (1902), Ch. 1
“I believe, and always have, that America must engage — not retreat — in the world.”
Chuck Hagel (1946) United States Secretary of Defense
Transcript: Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Nomination of Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/1368, submitted by Robert Naiman on February 1, 2013 at Justforeignpolicy.org, accessed February 10, 2013. <br class="br">2013
Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright
Letter declining the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for Arrowsmith