Speed the Plough (1798), Act IV, scene iii.
Like the latter, it seems to be tinged with a definite scepticism. It suggests a lack of faith in my vision. The impression I retain after hearing you shoot it at me a couple of times is that you consider me to be talking through the back of my neck, and that only a feudal sense of what is fitting restrains you from substituting for it the words 'Says you!'"
Source: Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)
Advice given to Dean John William Burgon, (29 November 1847), in response to the question: "Every studious man, in the course of a long and thoughtful life, has had occasion to experience the special value of some one axiom or precept. Would you mind giving me the benefit of such a word of advice?"; quoted in Lives of twelve good men, by John William Burgon, 1888, vol. 1 p. 73.
Letter to James Macpherson, 20 June 1778. (Quotation used as epigram to Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Dwa pojęcia poezji" ("Two Concepts of Poetry"), in Tatarkiewicz's book, Parerga, Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1978, pp. 20–38.)
Letters to and from Dr. Samuel Johnson
“I have never yet done a man to death by torture, but by God, sir, you tempt me!”
"Red Shadows" (1928)
“Your people, sir,—your people is a great beast!”
Memoir of Theophilus Parsons (1859), pp. 109-110
Attributed
Context: One gentleman, whose name I never heard, was an earnest “friend of the people,” and descanted with much enthusiasm upon the glorious future then opening upon this new-born nation, and predicted the perpetuity of our institutions, from the purity and intelligence of the people, their freedom from interest or prejudice, their enlightened love of liberty, &c, &c. Alexander Hamilton was among the guests; and, his patience being somewhat exhausted, he replied with much emphasis, striking his hand upon the table, “Your people, sir,—your people is a great beast!” I have this anecdote from a friend, to whom it was related by one who was a guest at the table. After-dinner utterances have little value, unless, perhaps, their very levity makes them good indicators of the wind. We do not know the qualifying words which may have followed, or the tone and manner of that which was, perhaps, in part or in the whole, a jest.
“Oons, sir! do you say that I am drunk? I say, sir, that I am as sober as a judge.”
Don Quixote in England (1731), Act III, scene xiv
