Positive identifications of the below, together with any other unidentified quotations, can be E-mailed to me, Jonathan Partington. Comments and contributions below are mostly not due to me.
I have long admired the mock-headline:
"When you find you're in a hole, stop digging".
On searching with Google, one finds this saying variously attributed to Warren Buffet, Denis Healey and Will Rogers. Who said it first? And where is it documented?
Some music critic (can't remember who) said something to the effect that a composer achieves maturity when he stops calling his pieces "Crackle Clusters III" and "Electric time trousers" [not the phrases he used] and uses terms like "Symphony", "Concerto" and "Quartet". Can anyone pin it down?
Can you help me with a quote to the effect:
"We are all merely bones wrapped in skin hurtling through the vastness of black space".
I thought it might be Vonnegut .. but have been unable to find it.
I have been looking for the song that contains the line
"There are few who deny, what I do I am the best."
I am almost sure it came from a movie, but I can't remember which one.
It's Jack's Lament from "The nightmare before Christmas", and can be found
here.
It starts:
There are few who'd deny, at what I do I am the best
For my talents are renowned far and wide.
When it comes to surprises in the moonlit night
I excel without ever even trying.
With the slightest little effort of my ghostlike charms
I have seen grown men give out a shriek.
With the wave of my hand, and a well-placed moan
I have swept the very bravest off their feet.
"Whale meat again. Dinner where? Dinner when?"
This is an obvious pun on Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again", but who wrote it? Was it Spike Milligan on the Goons?
Helen Steiner Rice wrote a poem entitled, "I Do Not Go Alone", which in part reads:
I take Death's Hand without fear, For He who safely brought me here Will also take me safely backI cannot find the entire poem. Can you help?
It can be found here.
The poem begins as follows:
If Death should beckon me
With outstretched hand
And whisper softly of "An unknown land"...
I shall not be
Afraid to go
What song had the line: "I gave her my heart, but she took my soul" ?
It is from a Bob Dylan song: "Don't Think Twice; It's Alright." However, "I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul" is the correct wording.
"I wish I could find a good book to live in." Might be a song lyric?
It's from the song "What Have They Done To My Song Ma" by Melanie Safka (1970).
What is the source of the quote `home is the sacred refuge of our life' attributed to John Dryden?
Webster's Dictionary, 1913, attributes it to Dryden. Elsewhere on the web, I found a fuller version:
What can be sweeter than our native home! Thither for ease and soft repose we come: Home is the sacred refuge of our life: Secured from all approaches but a wife.
Again, it is not said where this originates.
Apparently, it's from Act 2 of Aureng-Zebe, and can be found here.
"This too shall pass" is the title of a poem by Helen Steiner Rice. Did she invent it, or is it a quotation?
The almost identical phrase: "And this, too, shall pass away" has been traced to Abraham Lincoln. Is there an earlier source?
It could just be a deliberate reference to the Bible: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." (Matthew 24:35 and elsewhere).
Apparently it was old Persian proverb and a Hebrew parable:
... written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: gimel, zayin, yud, which began the words "Gam zeh ya'avor" -- "This too shall pass."
I believe it originated with an old Persian king, who upon a hill after winning a battle and about to enter another in the vale below.... said, as he scanned the horizon, "And this too shall pass away."
This poem was in a book titled "Rules for lady riders". We would like to know who wrote it.
In going up hill, trot me not; in going down hill, gallop me not; on level ground, spare me not. In the stable, forget me not.
Who said (possibly in a mathematical paper): "I would like to thank Dr X for teaching me mistakes"? And who was X?
1. "She looks like an unmade bed"
2. "No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions"
3. "I do not say they cannot come, my lords. I only say they cannot come by sea"
4. "Those medals on your moth eaten chest / should be there for bungling / at which you are best"
1. was apparently said by Terry Wogan, of Toyah Wilcox. 2. Margaret Thatcher (from a sermon preached in Northern Ireland). 3. Sir John Jervis, Earl St. Vincent, First Lord of the Admiralty 1801-1804. 4. Dastardly and Mutley.
There are no roses on sailors' graves, Nor wreaths upon the storm tossed waves, No last post from the Royals band, So far away from their native land, No heartbroken words carved on stone, Just shipmates' bodies floating there alone, The only tributes are the seagulls' sweeps, And the teardrop when a loved one weeps.
This is quoted here, but unattributed.
The maritime museum in Jersey (C.I.) displays this poem above the following "adapted from a German naval song".
In life I've rung all changes through, Run every pleasure down, 'Midst each excess of folly too, And lived with half the town.
Quoted as an 'old song' by Trollope in "The way we live now", but unidentified by the Oxford University Press editor, John Sutherland.
Humility is not a virtue propitious to the artist. It is often pride, emulation, avarice, malice---all the odious qualities---which drive a man to complete, elaborate, refine, destroy, renew his work until he has made something that gratifies his pride and envy and greed. And in so doing he enriches the world more than the generous and good, though he may lose his own soul in the process. That is the paradox of artistic achievement.
Believed to be by Evelyn Waugh. Source unknown; quoted in a New Yorker review of a new volume of collected stories.
Graham Greene (according to a newspaper article) is supposed to have said:
"You can always tell a truly cruel man. He cries at the cinema."
But nobody seems to know a reference for it. The above quote is from memory, so the wording might not be exactly right, but it should be reasonably close.
"Time is that which is manufactured by clocks."
This page attributes this to Hermann Bondi.
Was it Erdös who said "a mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems"? If so, can it be found in print?
No, this site attributes it to another Hungarian, Alfréd Rényi. However, it would be nice to see something more than anedotal evidence.
"I would like to live in Manchester, England. The transition between Manchester and death would be unnoticeable."
The Sunday Telegraph attributed this to Mark Twain, but I cannot find it anywhere.
"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we each exchange these apples, then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas."
This may be by Shaw. If so, then the obvious play/preface to look in is "The Apple Cart". Since from what I can remember of the play it doesn't have much to do with apples so there must be some metaphor concerning them in it.
The following, played on the strings of an orchestra, is almost certainly by a Russian composer. It sounds like a funeral march. The chords are approximate but I believe I've represented the melody accurately.
Eb Gb F Ab Gb F Gb Eb Bb Ab Bb F Gb Bb Eb' Eb' Db Cb Ebm Abm Bb Ebm Abm Bb Ebm Abm pause Bb Cb Bb Eb' Ab Eb F Gb F Bb Eb Gb F Eb Gb F Eb Gb F Eb Eb7 Abm Bb7 Ebm Abm7 Bb7 Ebm
I tried putting this through Melodyhound, which identified it as Marc Isham, Rules of Engagement, but it does that for several pieces, including "A wandering minstrel I" and "I vow to thee, my country". Among its other improbable suggestions were Anatoli Liadov, op 58., cradle song, Prokofiev, 1st Violin Concerto, 2nd movement, and several non-Russian composers (Beethoven, Elgar, ...)
Where does "Hark, yon tree hath no leaves but they will out" come from?
I ask for the source of
"le dernier fils d'une race épuisee"
which occurs in "Sons and Lovers" but has never been traced. It is known not to be by any of the obvious people such as Racine and Chateaubriand. The suggestion of Rostand's "L'aiglon" also proved to be wrong. It is quite likely that the quotation is not accurately given by Lawrence.
Nearest I can think of is a line which goes (if memory serves) "Enfant [?déchu] d'une race superbe"; probably by Racine. Perhaps someone could identify this one too!
I've remembered the rest of this poem, but am still looking for an author. It's called, I think "Epitaph - Tuppence Coloured, Penny Plain" and goes something like this:
He worshipped at the altar of romance (Tried to seduce a woman half his age) And dared to stake his fortune on a chance (Gambled away his children's heritage). He valued only what the world held cheap (Refused to work, from laziness and pride): Dreams were his refuge and he longed for sleep (He failed in business, took to drink and died).
I ask if anyone hears or sees anything recognizable in the three quotations below. I have in vain consulted dozens of concordances as well as about a dozen dictionaries of quotations. Each quote would predate 1830.
(1) "a sylvan Huntress by his side" (before 1820);
(2) "Better have loved despair, and safer kissed her" (before 1820);
(3) the giants' rocks are "the naked bones of the world waiting to be clothed" (before 1830--could this be somewhere in Burnet's "Sacred Theory of the Earth"?
Wordsworth's poem, "Ruth: or the Influences of Nature" (in the "Golden Treasury" number 273) has the stanza
Sweet Ruth! and could you go with me My helpmate in the woods to be, Our shed at night to rear; Or run, my own adopted bride, A sylvan huntress at my side, And drive the flying deer!
Where does "Hand me down my silver trumpet, Gabriel" come from? It carries on, "Hand it down, send it down, any old way just get it down, hand me down my silver trumpet Lord." To a nice catchy tune.
It's an American spiritual. See here, for instance.
Nobody believed him, so out of politeness to his listeners he pretended to be joking.
I'm afraid that's all I've got, it's ringing bells like mad, but I can't think where it's from 8-(
This could be Jerome K. Jerome or maybe Saki.
Lord, forgive those who [ ... some heinous thing or other ... ] And Lord, forgive me, for I cannot forgive them.
Theorems are perhaps like poems. The profundity of the thought cannot be judged by the length of the result.
This doesn't seem to be from Hardy's "A Mathematician's Apology" but ought to be.
Lipa Bers (1914 - 1993), quoted in D. Albers, G. Alexanderson, C. Reid, "More Mathematical People", said the following, which is similar:
... mathematics is very much like poetry ... what makes a good poem -- a great poem -- is that there is a large amount of thought expressed in very few words. In this sense formulas like e^{\pi i}+1=0 or \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} e^{-x^2} \, dx = \sqrt{\pi} are poems.
I learnt the following poem at school, but can't remember the author's name, nor can I find it anywhere. Any ideas?
I wonder if, in Norfolk now, The woodland traveller knows how Exiles in Africa desire The sight of snow upon the bough. At homes the fields are thick with mire; The grey leaves form a sodden pyre And, after tramping through the snow, Men warm their bodies by the fire. But only those who lack them know What beauty cold dark evenings show To those who when the North winds blow Through Norfolk's winter woodlands go.
It sounds like A.E. Housman, but it isn't.
I'd like to know what, if anything, is the source of the following passage (it may be original):
Dusk. Out they come, shyly at first. Dusk deepens to dark and they grow bolder. No longer winking, unblinking. Constant.
From some sort of comic poem (about a shipwreck, I think):
If I've got to go down
I want to go down with you.
Someone has suggested that this may be from the A.A.Milne poem which starts:
James James Morrison Morrison Wetherby George Dupree Took great care of his mother, Though he was only three. James James said to his mother, "Mother," he said, said he, "You must never go down to the end of the town, if you don't go down with me."
Or it could be from Meatloaf "Bat out of Hell"
"I don't wanna be damned, but if I've gotta be damned, I wanna be
damned with you."
Could it possibly be Leonard Cohen?
Last updated on June 16th 2008 by Jonathan Partington