“The point is plain as a pike-staff.”
Epistle to a Friend as quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
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John Byrom 31
Poet, inventor of a shorthand system 1692–1763Related quotes

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

“Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow.”
in Equality (1931)
sometimes cited as an English proverb, sometimes also attributed to Isaiah Berlin
Disputed

“The pike does not ask the frog’s permission before dining.”
Lini
(15 October 1994)

“The governor is the worst administrator ever to come down the pike.”
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.”
Poetry and Craft (1965)

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

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