After a two-year and two-day gap, here is a new quotations quiz, which is supposed to mark my recent 49th birthday.
You are invited to identify the following quotations, preferably without the aid of a search engine (you are allowed to ask your friends, if you have any). Two of them were originally written in French: one of them I happened to read in translation, and so I have not attempted to translate it back into the original language. Otherwise, all are as originally written. As usual, interesting wrong guesses are appreciated at least as much as correct answers.
1. He took a quick glance at the distant goal, a short run forward, and his long limb swung through the air with tremendous force. There was a dead silence of suspense among the crowd as the ball described a lofty parabola. Down it came, down, down, as straight and true as an arrow, just grazing the cross-bar and pitching on the grass beyond, and the groans of a few afflicted patriots were drowned in the hearty cheers which hailed the English goal.
2. There is another Custom prevailing in Mahometan Countries, of such doubtful Advantage that we could not agree to conform to it without earnest Consideration; I mean, the Custom by which people are woken in the Morning by a Fellow bawling out from the Top of a Minaret, to the Effect (unless my Memory plays me false) that Allah is great. It will seem shocking to minds habituated by our Western Standards of Taste, that these Muezzins, as they are call'd, should give a Pronouncement so publick to so controversial a Statement. We should not allow it; for it would manifestly cause the most grievous Distress of Conscience to any Atheist or Agnostick who happened to be within Earshot. Yet is something to be said for the Practice in general Outline; who has not wished, as he turn'd over in bed at eight of the clock on a Sunday morning, that there were some less noisy means of awakening a few devout Women, than making a great Clanging of Bells, as if the whole city were afire? Would it not be well to introduce the Muezzin into our Church-towers, and at the same Time to see to it that his Announcement was both less provocative, and more appropriate; that he should either shout out, The early Bird catches the Worm, or if he were musical, even intone to some simple Anglican Chant the Words:
Early to Bed, and early to rise,
Makes a Man healthy, wealthy, and wise?
3. About five o' clock the carriage had emptied, and I was left alone as I had hoped. I got out at the next station, a little place whose name I scarcely noted, set right in the heart of a bog. It reminded me of one of those forgotten little stations in the Karroo.
4. Academics customarily possess such a gift for subtle reasoning and fine distinctions, such exquisite professional scrupulosity and verbal dexterity, that even an intelligent and shrewd observer may fail to perceive that much of the time their basic motivation is simple cynicism and self-interest. If you are in trouble, throw yourself on the mercy of the nearest peasant, publican or policeman, but never go to an academic: you will be dead long before he has finished formulating his attitude towards you and your problem.
5. ``Is there any chance,'' asked Victoria brusquely, ``of a post in Baghdad?''
``In Baghdad?'' said Mrs Spenser in lively astonishment.
Victoria saw she might as well have said in Kamchatka or at
the South Pole.
``I should very much like to get to Baghdad,'' said Victoria.
``I hardly think - in a secretary's post you mean?''
``Anyhow,'' said Victoria. ``As a nurse or a cook, or looking
after a lunatic. Any way at all.''
6. Allons, encore - Garçons, fillettes - Vos louis d'or - Vos roux de charette! Hola! Hola! Mais faites vos jeux - Qui perte fit Aux temps jadis Gagne aujourd'hui! Rien ne va plus! Tra, la, la, la! le double zéro! Vous perdez tout, mes nobles héros -
7. Don't you think there might be a link between maths and tragedy? I mean, they both originated in ancient Greece at about the same time, didn't they?
8. He would often complain that Algebra (though of great use) was too much admired, and so followed after, that it made men not contemplate and consider so much the nature and power of Lines, which was a great hindrance to the Growth of Geometrie; for that though algebra did rarely well and quickly, and easily in right lines, yet 'twould not bite in solid (I thinke) Geometry. Quod N.B.
9. You are familiar - if you are at all the sort of reader I like - with the sort of scientific paper I mean. It is a paper you cannot make head nor tail of, and at the end come five or six long folded diagrams that open out and show peculiar zigzag tracings, flashes of lightning overdone, or sinuous inexplicable things called `smoothed curves' set up on ordinates and rooting in abscissae - and things like that. You puzzle over the thing for a long time and end with the suspicion that not only do you not understand it but that the author does not understand it either. But really you know many of these scientific people understand the meaning of their own papers quite well, it is simply a defect of expression that raises the obstacle between us.
10. But it's as well to be a woman as a man," he said, frowning.
"Ha! Is it? Men have everything."
"I should think women ought to be as glad to be women as men are to be men," he answered.
"No!" - she shook her head - "no! Everything the men have."
"But what do you want?" he asked.
"I want to learn. Why should it be that I know nothing?"
"What! such as mathematics and French?"
"Why shouldn't I know mathematics? Yes!" she cried, her eye expanding in a kind of defiance.
"Well, you can learn as much as I know," he said. "I'll teach you, if you like."
Her eyes dilated. She mistrusted him as teacher.
"Would you?" he asked.
Her head had dropped, and she was sucking her finger broodingly.
"Yes," she said hesitatingly.
11. But great things spring from little:- Would you think, That in our youth, as dangerous a passion As e'er brought man and woman to the brink Of ruin, rose from such a slight occasion, As few would ever dream could form the link Of such a sentimental situation? You'll never guess, I'll bet you millions, milliards - It all sprung from a harmless game at billiards.
Jonathan Partington
28.3.04