Quotes about madam
A collection of quotes on the topic of madam, herring, doing, thinking.
Quotes about madam

“Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins”
Source: The Merchant of Venice

“Madam, I have come from a country where people are hanged if they talk.”
In Berlin, to the Queen Mother of Prussia, on his lack of conversation in his meeting with her, on his return from Russia; as quoted in Science in Russian Culture : A History to 1860 (1963) Alexander Vucinich
Variant: Madame... I have come from a country where one can be hanged for what one says.

Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing (1890)

"To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Lady's Brother and Sister, and a Child of the Name of Avis, aged one Year." st. 2, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)

Source: 1930s, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), Ch. 2: Leaders and Followers

In the Land of the Laughing Buddha – The Adventures of an American Barbarian in China, Upton Close, 2007, READ BOOKS, 354, 1-4067-1675-8, 2010-06-28 http://books.google.com/books?id=DpQa22PJutwC&pg=RA1-PA266&dq=ma+fu-hsiang&hl=en&ei=DnszTJc6wd-WB4uS7b4L&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCQQ6AEwADgU#v=snippet&q=In%20a%20year%20and%20a%20half%20China%20will%20be%20sufficiently%20reunited%20to%20allow%20me%20to%20take%20my%20trip%20around%20the%20world.&f=false,
In the Land of the Laughing Buddha – The Adventures of an American Barbarian in China, Upton Close, 2007, READ BOOKS, 355, 1-4067-1675-8, 2010-06-28 http://books.google.com/books?id=DpQa22PJutwC&pg=RA1-PA266&dq=ma+fu-hsiang&hl=en&ei=DnszTJc6wd-WB4uS7b4L&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCQQ6AEwADgU#v=onepage&q=country%20to%20instruct%20me%20in%20its%20governmental%20and%20industrial%20methods&f=false,

“Madam, I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody's damn business.”
To a temperance reformer.
Quoted in Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur, ch. 8, Thomas C. Reeves (1975).
1880s

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

“Madam President and friends.”
A Uachtaráin agus a chairde
State banquet in Ireland http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13450099, 18/5/2011

but adieu to this, till happier times, if I ever shall see them.
Letter to https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-06-02-0013#GEWN-02-06-02-0013-fn-0002 Mrs. George William Fairfax (Sally Cary Fairfax) (12 September 1758)
1750s

“To call that writing, madam, is an insult to quills and ink across the world.”
Source: To Catch an Heiress

“Madam, the commonest weakness of our race is our ability to rationalize our most selfish purposes.”
Source: The Star Beast (1954), Chapter 14, “Destiny? Fiddlesticks!” (p. 219)

Source: Lady Holland's Memoir (1855), p. 257: Let us swear an eternal friendship. Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. The Rovers

“The most terrible things men do, they do in the name of love."— Madame Dorothea”
Source: City of Bones

“Magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk.”
Source: The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

Non-Fiction, English Literature: A Survey for Students (1958, revised 1974)

“Reclaiming the Intellectual Life for Posterity,” Liberal Education, vol. 95, no. 2 http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-sp09/le-sp09_MyView.cfm

His retort to Indira Gandhi’s reply “Sir, the names are selected by the Speaker, and the names which are selected by the speaker are sent as delegation outside the country” in response to a Member’s question “Mr. Speaker, I have been a Member of Parliament for quite a long time; Prime Minister has never sent me in any delegation so far; those who lick her feet they are sent in the delegation outside the country in: Dr. Janak Raj Jai "Presidents of India, 1950-2003", p. 130

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A744914
Howerd introducing Mrs Vera Roper, his pianist, who was deaf.

To the Lady Margaret Ley http://www.bartleby.com/106/85.html

The Life of Mrs. Godolphin (London: William Pickering, 1847) pp. 20-21
Often misquoted as "Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world."

Source: Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States (1989), p. 126

Advice to a Confederate widow who expressed animosity towards the northern U.S. after the end of the American Civil War, as quoted in The Life and Campaigns of General Lee https://archive.org/stream/lifeandcampaign00chilgoog/lifeandcampaign00chilgoog_djvu.txt (1875) by Edward Lee Childe, p. 331. Also quoted in "Will Confederate Heritage Advocates Take Robert E. Lee’s Advice?" https://web.archive.org/web/20140918064605/http://cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/will-confederate-heritage-advocates-take-robert-e-lees-advice/ (July 2014), by Brooks D. Simpson, Crossroads, WordPress. This quote is sometimes paraphrased as: "Madam, do not train up your children in hostility to the government of the United States. Remember, we are all one country now. Dismiss from your mind all sectional feeling, and bring them up to be Americans."
How to... use a Library, Never Push When It Says Pull: Small Rules for Little Problems (2005).

That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw Ghetto could have been dismissed as militants.
Speech to the House of Commons, Jan 2009

Trump: Surviving at the Top (1990), p. 52
1990s

John Knox interview with Queen Mary I, History of the Reformation in Scotland http://www.reformation.org/john-knox-interview.html. (Edited by William Croft Dickinson, D.Lit.). Philosophical Library, New York, 1950

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

“George Bernard Shaw reopens capital punishment controversy”, Paramount British Pictures (March 5, 1931)
1930s

“Madame, everyone is Someone.”
From Monteux, Fifi (1962). Everyone is Someone. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy. OCLC 602036672, p. 17
Initially told by a hotel owner there were no rooms, she then said “Excuse me sir, I did not know that you were Someone. I think I can accommodate you”. Monteux replied: "Madame, everyone is Someone. Au revoir!" then left.

“I have seen their backs before, madam.”
This is attributed to Wellington as a statement to an unidentified woman at a reception in Vienna, who had apologized for the rudeness of some French officers who had turned their backs on him when he entered, as quoted in Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes (2000), edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard, p. 568
This is attributed to Wellington as a statement to King Louis XVIII at a ball in the spring of 1814, as quoted in "Anecdotes of Wellington" at The Wellington Society of Madrid http://www.wellsoc.org/Anecdotes.htm
Variant: 'Tis of no matter, your Highness, I have seen their backs before.
Source: https://books.google.cl/books?id=aarPgpKPA0oC&q=vienna+I%27ve+seen+their+backs+before,+madam&dq=vienna+I%27ve+seen+their+backs+before,+madam&hl=es-419&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiyz4SKk93sAhVyBtQKHZx7AjsQ6AEwAHoECAAQAg page 27

Recalling being invited to appear on French TV on what she described as “a terrifying serious program about books”. nydailynews.com http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/popular-irish-author-maeve-binchy-dies-72-article-1.1125516?localLinksEnabled=false

In response to Hannah More wondering why Milton could write Paradise Lost but only poor sonnets. June 13, 1784, p. 542
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Source: A New Zealand Dictionary of Political Quotations, p. 95.

Dorothy Parker "Madame Glyn Lectures on 'It', with Illustrations", in The New Yorker, November 26, 1927.
Criticism

“Yes, I am a fatal man, Madame Fribsbi. To inspire hopeless passion is my destiny.”
Source: The History of Pendennis (1848-1850), Ch. 23.

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Louis XIV

2000s, 2003, Hope and Conscience Will Not Be Silenced (July 2003)

Quote of Picabia in his 'Manifesto, 1921'; as cited in Manifesto: A Century of Isms, ed. Mary Ann Caws, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001, p 319
1920's

“Madame Chairman, I presume this is to sweep Britain clean of socialism”
Margaret Thatcher, at a Tory party conference, holding a brush. (date unknown)
Leader of the Opposition

"4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)"
Song lyrics, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (1973)

D.C. Seitz, Whistler Stories (1913)
posthumous published

Original French: Le Président Jacques Chirac et Madame Chirac entretiennent avec ma famille des relations de très grande affection et d’une réelle proximité
Interview with Le Figaro–September 2001 http://www.maroc.ma/fr/discours-royaux/interview-accord%C3%A9e-par-sa-majest%C3%A9-le-roi-mohammed-vi-au-quotidien-fran%C3%A7ais-%C2%AB-le

The South African Interview (August 8, 2011)

Quoted in David Remnick, The Bridgeː The Life and Rise of Barack Obama (2010), p. 185-6
On Barack Obama

Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize, st. 1.
The Bee (1759)

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-twilight-saga-new-moon-2009 of The Twilight Saga: New Moon (18 November 2009)
Reviews, One-star reviews

Idries Shah, The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin (1973), , p. 134

“Madame, I am the civilization they are fighting for.”
Supposedly said by Strachey in response to a woman who demanded he "fight for civilization" in World War One.
Misattributed

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Sketch of the Life, Character, and Writings of Baroness de Staël-Holstein (1820) by Albertine-Adrienne Necker de Saussure, p. 349; often misquoted as, "I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the Lord's Prayer."

“That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!”
Supposed response to a woman who called out to him: "Governor, you have the vote of every thinking person!" during one of his presidential campaigns. This quote has appeared with several variations in dozens of books and newspaper articles at least since the 1970s. One of the earlier references is in a book review article by Robert Sherrill in the New York Times, "Titles in the Running for 1972", February 13, 1972. No source closer to Stevenson has been found, in particular none that names a witness nor the date or location of the remark.
Disputed

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786
L'ex-femme de Claude Lelouch se livre dans Gala http://www.gala.fr/l_actu/on_ne_parle_que_de_ca/alessandra_martines_pourquoi_j_ai_divorce_186183#xtor=RSS-12, Gala.fr, August 2009.

As quoted in The Thundering Scot (1957) by Geddes MacGregor

On the Senate floor, during a debate on health care reform, December 7, 2009
Reid Compares Health Reform Bill with Slavery, Suffrage - George's Bottom Line, abcnews.com, December 7, 2009, 2009-12-08 http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/12/reid-compares-health-reform-bill-with-slavery-suffrage.html,

(1912) and the 'Seated Woman' (1914).
Source: The Life of a Painter - autobiography', 1946, Letters of the great artists', 1963, p. 248

John Banville on the birth of his dark twin, Benjamin Black (2011)

“I got you ten ways from Sunday, madam!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl4CngB5CVo&feature=related
Quotes from Judge Judy cases, Being cocky

As interviewed by Richard, Olive, "Our Women are Our Future": Sylvia Family Circle, (Aug 14, 1944) 14-17, 19 as quoted in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda", in Containing Wonder Woman: Fredric Wertham's Battle Against the Mighty Amazon by Craig This, p.32.

Similar remarks are also attributed to Winston Churchill, Groucho Marx and to Mark Twain
Disputed
“Writing, madam, is a mechanic part of wit. A gentleman should never go beyond a song or a billet.”
Act IV, sc. i
The Man of Mode (1676)

Madame George
Song lyrics, Astral Weeks (1969)