The Earthly Paradise (1868-70), The Lady of the Land
Context: From those thy words, I deem from some distress
By deeds of mine thy dear life I might save;
O then, delay not! if one ever gave
His life to any, mine I give to thee;
Come, tell me what the price of love must be?
Swift death, to be with thee a day and night
And with the earliest dawning to be slain?
Or better, a long year of great delight,
And many years of misery and pain?
Or worse, and this poor hour for all my gain?
A sorry merchant am I on this day,
E'en as thou willest so must I obey.
“I feel so sorry for those poor men sitting up there all day. They must be so cold.”
John Gielgud (1904–2000) English actor and theatre director
Quoted in Alec Guinness, Journals, February 1988. [Guinness: " John's grasp of public events was always rather tenuous. His heart however, was in the right place. [This remark] - he was pointing to the barrage balloons tethered over London."]
“I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet.”
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)
“Even in days of loss and sorry, beauty remains, and I am ever grateful.”
Friedrich Kellner (1885–1970) German Justice inspector
July 1968, of the Lennebergwald (Lenneberg Forest), Mainz, Germany.
Attributed
“O Lord! thou knowest how busy I must be this day: if I forget thee, do not thou forget me.”
Jacob Astley, 1st Baron Astley of Reading (1579–1652) British Royalist commander
Prayer before the Battle of Edgehill (1642), quoted by Sir Philip Warwick, Memoires, 1701. <br class="br">Source: * Hastings ** Max ** 1986 ** The Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes ** Oxford University Press ** United States ** 78-0-19-520528-2 ** 118 https://books.google.com/books?id=1_fwo9-URNEC&pg=PA118 citing C.V. Wedgwood
John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator
March 27, 1968, page 208.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council
John Angell James (1785–1859) British abolitionist
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 472.
“I am not a woman, so I don’t have bad days.”
Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister
CNBC.com http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/06/putin-i-am-not-a-woman-so-i-dont-have-bad-days.html (6 June 2017) <br class="br">2016 - 2018
“To-day we only smile, we laugh no more,
And e'en our very pleasures seem to bore.”
François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis (1715–1794) Catholic cardinal
On ne rit plus, on sourit aujourd'hui,
Et nos plaisirs sont voisins a l'eunui.
Réflexions sur les passions et sur les goûts (1741).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 170.
