VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS……. [A]

VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS Compiled by

DR. BAMIDELE A. SOBOWALE

ISBN 978 2197 26 2

          978 2197 38 2 (Cased)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publishers.

AiKE BOOKS

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Syndicated Communications Ltd.,

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Ring Road,

Box 2846 GPO,

Dugbe,

Ibadan,

Oyo State,

Nigeria.

Telephone:  +234-803-323 4219

Email: aike@skannet.com

First published in Nigeria in 2007

© Bamidele A. Sobowale

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Dedication

Dedicated to Samson Ororo Amuka-Pemu, OON, founder and publisher of VANGUARD newspapers, to commemorate his 70th birthday, July 13.

“A king’s dog is a king among dogs”.

                                                                                  – Sam Amuka

Acknowledgments

A BOOK such as this results from the collaborative effort of several Individuals too numerous to mention. However, the first among those who collaborated with me on this project is unquestionably my senior colleague, Felix A. Adenaike, who edited and published the book. His professional touch has turned what would have remained a jumble of wards into a fine work of art. Next is my former secretary, Miss. Mojisola Awolumate, who painstakingly typed the manuscript, not once nor even twice, but several times. Her encouragement, especially when my zeal began to flag, was perhaps the major reason why this book has become a reality. My editor and friend at the VANGUARD newspapers, Gbenga Adefaye, who has written the Foreword, has, in the years since he be­came editor, taught me what a good leader could be even when re­sources are lean. His personal integrity and professional judgment kept the VANGUARD newspapers alive through its darkest hours.

Finally, I must extend my gratitude to all the people, whose contributions have found their way into this VANGUARD Book of Quotations. In virtually every aspect, they have provided useful and, sometimes, con­troversial insight into complex subjects and concepts.

Foreword

TWO contrasting quotes about journalists from the VANGUARD Book of Quotations by Bamidele Sobowale naturally catch my fancy. The first by Malvin Kalb, American journalist (1977) says:

“A journalist should be pursuing a fair rendition of truth without regard to popular moods; the journalist should be swayed by public opinion, only by the pursuit of truth, as close as he can get to it.” Absolutely right!

And the second quote from Julien Benda (1857-1952) is:

“Journalists say a thing that they know isn’t true in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough, it will be true.” False!

For me, there is no dilemma. As a journalist, I know that the quote by Malvin Kalb is the cardinal platform for the practice of the cherished profession of journalism. The quote from Benda, on the contrary, is simply put, about propaganda and not journalism. It is a false definition of journalism. Because in journalism, “facts are sacred, comments (based on facts) are free.” But that is the beauty and fullness of what you find in a book of quotations such as this. Nothing is really new under the Sun. Someone, somewhere, in time has articulated every thought and rendered same. It only takes the studious and imaginative person to discover such and deploy as appropriate for the mood of the moment.

Dr. Sobowale has done a yeoman’s job for a period of over 40 years to collate and put in a handy format, the apt thoughts, philosophical teachings, random musings of sages and fools, experts and charlatans, statesmen and commoners, artists, philosophers, scientists, poets, lawyers, etc., for our ready use, to guide our thoughts. In the VANGUARD Book of Quotations, you easily find the quotes you need to illustrate your points. In this collection, you have an insight into Sobowale’s deep search for knowledge and the depth from where he has drunk- from the West to the East, North to South, White, Black and Coloured, ancient to modem. Take a sample of listings: Edmund Burke, Francis Bacon, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, Lord Denning, William Shakespeare, Leo Tolstoy, John F Kennedy, Francois Marie Voltaire, Homer, Winston Churchill, Thomas Paine, Benito Mussolini, Albert Einstein, Lee Kuan Yew, Confucius, Saint Augustine, George Santayana, Bamidele Sobowale, etc. Subjects ranged from sex to succour, peace to war, wisdom to folly, justice, living, death and all that you may imagine. In this book of quotes, there is no barrier to knowledge. Though the VANGUARD Book of Quotations does not provide the context in which the thoughts were rendered on marble, it, however, challenges interested persons – students, scholars, etc. to further seek knowledge. For instance, I now know that the notorious fascist, Benito Mussolini, was a journalist!

Bamidele Sobowale, with a Ph D in Economics, is clearly a reader’s delight. In his years of writing for VANGUARD newspapers, Sobowale has pretended to the ordinary. He identifies with our luckless street urchins called Area Boys. But that is a facade. You may disagree with him, but not his logic. Not his style. A scourge of those in power, he, through his combative style, takes one to the deep with the rich fountain of quotes, and genuinely makes up for the cerebral weakness of many. With this book of quotes, we know better where he was coming from. It is utmost altruism that he is sharing his secrets with us and the upcoming generation by providing this handbook of quotes. Let us share of his gifts.

Gbenga Adefaye

Editor,

VANGUARD Newspapers Lagos,

Nigeria June 2007

Introduction

THE VANGUARD Book of Quotations began in the Summer of 1965. As an undergraduate on holidays, I had travelled to New York City in search of a part-time job. I lodged at the Young Men’s Christian Association Hostel, called the Y, near Time Square. Very soon, I found myself in the midst of half a dozen students also staying at the Y and the topic for discussion was war. Specifically, they were discussing the ’Wet Nam War in which America was engaged with the forces of the North Vietnamese led by their leader, Ho Chin Mihn.

As in all discussions among young men – for it was quickly established that they were all undergraduates in various universities in New York City – there were lots of deviations from the main topic. Everyone was trying to show off his knowledge of History, Philosophy, International Relations, most especially their knowledge of several wars in history; how they were won and lost; the heroes and the villians.

Among the young men was one Mark, whose last name I, regrettably, failed to ask for at the time. Without Mark this book might never have been written. More than all the others, Mark would start each remark with a quotation from some philosopher, famous warrior or even a leading professor. Most of the names dropped at the time were unfamiliar to me -Lenin, Chairman Mao, General Patton, General MacArthur, Plutarch, Edward Gibbons, Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, etc. A few were recognizable but they assumed a different stature in that playroom. Napoleon Bonaparte, Socrates, Plato, Horatio Nelson, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were transformed from what little I knew about them a: result of education which was deficient in History in our secondary school even in those glorious days. Mark kept on dropping one observation after another from these eminent men in history until the group was about to break up. I summoned the courage to ask him how he could recollect so much of what was said even 400 years before Christ Then he told me he was a final year student majoring in the History of Ideas. That was definitely a new one. In Nigerian universities in the 1960s and even now, I doubt if there was a university offering the History, of Ideas as a subject. He also told me to read a lot of History, Literature and Philosophy. Then he offered me the first entry into my notebook, which was hurriedly purchased; it was in response to another student’s claim regarding his being patriotic. Mark had replied: “Dr Samuel had warned all of us that: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”. What? All my life, up to that point, patriotism had been held up as something indisputably admirable. Yet here was a famous person calling that attribute into question. I decided to read more about Dr Samuel Johnson and the VANGUARD Book of Quotations contains a rich harvest of observations credited to the lexicographer from that endeavour.

But, it was not only Johnson that engaged my attention. I read anything and everything I could find time for in History, Philosophy, Literature, Economics, Management, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, and Religion. Each time I read with an eye towards finding one sentence at least that would capture the essence of the book. Of course, I was happy to collect whenever a book or writer or thinker offered more than one. All of them were kept in notebooks, exercise books, at the back of novels, even some were scribbled on my shirt sleeves because after a while it became a passion. But, it did not at first cross my mind to have the compilation published.

The first thought of publishing came after four years as a SUNDAY VANGUARD columnist, when my childhood friend Engineer Oluyomi Adeyemi-Wilson, former MOBIL/EXXON External Affairs Manager, one day casually remarked: “ Dele, why don’t you write a book?” Good question, but I could not think of the book to write. But, the idea got stuck in my mind. Earlier, on my first day at work in VANGUARD as a staffer, I had made a promise to myself that I would not leave VANGUARD without leaving a lasting legacy. What the contribution to VANGUARD would be I had no idea, but I was determined not to be just another former columnist or staffer.

Then one Monday, the VANGUARD publisher came in and informed me that he had enjoyed the Italian proverb: “Washing a donkey’s head is a waste of water”, which I had employed to dismiss the military government of the day. He obviously liked that approach. Now here is a man who had made several celebrities in the print media and who has a legendary eye for talent praising my work. So I was convinced there was merit in the pursuit. There and then, I started to search my houses in Lagos, Ibadan, and Kano for every quotation that had been stored away. Within four months, I had collected and re-written over 2,000.1 engaged a typist at Kakawa who worked on nothing else for those four months. Then I realised that 2,000 lines don’t amount to a decent book. There was need for more. So, I plunged again into reading new books, at the rate of four books a week; excluding magazines and newspapers. No student studying for an exam could have been more conscientious.

While thus engaged, it then struck me that I had not even decided the name of the book and to whom it would be dedicated. I could call it Sobowale Book of Quotations. But that to me would have amounted to “vanity upon vanity”. Then I read Joseph Conrad’s NOSTROMO, and came across the line: “ You have given me fame beyond compare, what more can I ask for? Deep gratitude has never been better expressed in fact or fiction. Then everything fell into place because up to the first day, Uncle Sam, the publisher of VANGUARD asked me to start writing for the SUNDAY VANGUARD, I had been living in well-deserved obscurity. Within two years I had fame; or notoriety if you like. VANGUARD and Uncle Sam have given me fame beyond the borders of Nigeria. I knew this when a friend sent me a letter two years after informing me that there is a fan club of my readers in Oklahoma, USA. And for that, VANGUARD and Uncle Sam, who are really Siamese twins and, therefore, inseparable, deserve the benefit of the greatest individual effort in my life. The matter of whom to dedicate it to was clear from that point. It had to be Mr. Samsom Amuka-Pemu, my boss, and benefactor.

The last issue to be decided was when to publish the book. I had hoped to get it published for Uncle Sam’s 70^th birthday. But, the ever self-effacing publisher of VANGUARD opted for a celebration devoid of noise. I was at a loss about how to proceed. Fortunately, a group of journalists had twisted Uncle Sam’s arms and they launched a book to mark the 70^th birthday. That gave me courage. At any rate, I was getting desperate, because time was running out for both of us. The day after the launching of the book, I went to Uncle Sam with the first draft of the VANGUARD Book of Quotations and received a grudging blessing. At least progress was being made. And, indeed, the book would have been launched earlier if I had my own funds for its production.

However, all my effort would have come to nothing without the encouragement and the support of an elder brother, a great journalist and himself a promoter of talent, Felix A. Adenaike. As if he was reading my mind, he had actually got in touch with me about the same time Engineer Adeyemi-Wilson planted the thought of a book in my mind asking to publish the collection of my SUNDAY VANGUARD columns. I had latched unto that offer to offer the VANGUARD Book of Quotations instead. And he had agreed. He had edited the book with unparalleled professionalism and I can never thank my elder brother enough.

Next to Mr Adenaike, whose contributions can never be over­emphasised, is my former secretary, Miss. Mojisola Awolumate. Before the scripts finally landed on Mr Adenaike’s desk, they had undergone four drafts. The young lady who worked like a galley slave throughout, never complaining, but she urging me on, especially when self-doubt about the merits of the book crept in. She confessed to me that she did not understand many of the quotations. Nevertheless, she was certain that it would be a land-mark contribution to VANGUARD and a great way to express appreciation to Uncle Sam. It was a great partnership; I went digging for more entries and she typed them as fast as I could get them. Furthermore, I must mention the role of the Editor of VANGUARD, Mr Gbenga Adefaye, who has kindly written the Foreword. I strongly believe that there is no single editor of a newspaper in Nigeria today who is more professional and who exhibits greater integrity. His leadership since he took over from equally professional Mr. Frank Aigbogun has been exemplary. I was deeply honoured when he agreed to assist with the Foreword. I am also delighted that as long as this book will remain on the shelves, people will always remember that Mr. Adefaye was also here. Finally, this introduction should not close without expressing deep gratitude to all my colleagues in VANGUARD. I am probably one of the most difficult persons to live and work with. But, they have indulged me perhaps because they know that most writers are crazy. VANGUARD, of all the places where I have worked, is the one place where the word family can be used to describe our associations. Yes, we occasionally disagree, even loudly but the sense of family exists all the time. The mutual regard has all been made possible because of the example of the publisher himself. Indeed, Uncle Sam has, by building such an organisation, confirmed that famous observation by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): “Every institution is the lengthened shadow of one man”.

I hope the user derives as much pleasure from this book as I have had in compiling it.

Bamidele A. Sobowale

VANGUARD Media Limited,

Kirikiri Canal,

Apapa,

Lagos, Nigeria.

June 2007

A

1. ABILITY

High level of ability …. lots of families had that, but the real stars, they might come from anywhere, they are just a gift of fate.

CP Snow

• ABILITY

Only the man who is below average in ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way.

Will and Ariel Durant in Rousseau and Revolution                                             c 1972

• ABSENCE

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Thomas H. Bayly                                                                                            1797-1839

• ABSENCE

Absence from whom we love is worse than death.

William Cowper                                                                                              1731-1800

• ABSENTEE

The absent are always in the wrong.

Phillips Destouches, French Writer                                                                 1680-1754

• ABUSE

Calumny and abuse are essential parts of triumph.

Edmund Burke                                                                                                            1729- 1797

• ABSURDITIES

Nothing so absurd can be said, that some philosopher has not said it.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman Statesman/Orator                                       106-43BC

• ACCEPTANCE

To be accepted by the mob doesn’t mean anything to me.

Henry Miller, American Writer                                                          1990s

• ACCIDENTS

Accidents will occur in the best-regulated families.

Charles Dickens                                                                             1812-1870

1. ACCOMPLISHMENT

No man can hope to accomplish anything great in this world until he throws his whole life, flings the force of his whole life into it.

Nellie Onwucheka, Nigerian Singer                                                                         1996

11.       ACCOUNTABILITY

When those in office regard the power vested in them as personal prerogative, they inevitably enrich themselves, promote their families, favour their friends. The fundamental structures of the modem state are eroded like the supporting beams of a house after termites have attacked them. Then the people have to pay dearly and long for the sins and crimes of their leaders.

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s Prime Minister                                                           c.1988

1. ACHIEVEMENTS

It is precisely the most difficult and exceptional achievements which give rise to the most intense jealousies and the most poisonous slanders.

Polybus, The Rise of The Roman Empire                                                   c.200-118BC

1. ACHIEVER

What are millions of men, who all their lives have not had a single hour like his (Napoleon) compared with this one man.

Wilhelm Heinse, German Philosopher                                                 1749-1803

1. ACQUAINTANCE

If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.

Dr. Samuel Johnson                                                                                        1709-1784

1. ACT

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou dost every act of thy life as if it were the last.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus                                                                         121-180AD

1. ACT

Remember this, that there is a proper value and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

1. ACT

Some act and think later, and they think more of excuses than consequences. Others think neither before nor after. The whole of life should be spent thinking about how to find the right course to follow. Thought and forethought give counsel both on living and on achieving success.

Professor John Kenneth Galbraith, American economist.                                    c.1964

1. ACTION

Action will furnish belief, but will that belief be the true one? This is the point.

Arthur Hugh Clough, English poet and publisher                                          1819-1861

1. ACTION

When the scope for action is greatest knowledge on which   to base such action is limited or ambiguous.            When knowledge is available, the ability to affect events is usually at a minimum.

Henry Kissinger, American Secretary of State                                                       1970s

• ACTION

It is a universal law – everyone who acts breeds both good and evil. With some it’s more good, with others more evil.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn                                                                                          c.1974

• ACTION

Action is transitory, a step, a blow. The motion of a muscle, this way or that suffering is permanent, obscure and dark. And shares the nature of infinity.

William Wordsworth                                                                                       1770-1850

• ACTIONS

In certain circumstances, it is not so much the kind of person a man is, as the kind of situation in which he is placed that determines his actions.

Stanley Milligram in Obedience to Authority                                                         1970s

• ACTIONS

All great and honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courage dangers are great but not desperate;…. difficulties are many but not invincible.

Pilgrims Landing in America.

• ACTIVIST

The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.

Ross Perot                                                                                                              c.1996

• ACTIVITY

For a particular activity to remain habitual, it must continue to be reinforced. Anonymous

• ACTS

A man who cherishes great ideas and has performed only small acts.

John Schiller                                                                                                   1759-1787

• ACTS

Familiar acts are beautiful through love

Percy B. Shelley                                                                                              1792 -1822

• ADAM

Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they escaped teething.

Mark Twain                                                                                                     1835-1910

• ADMINISTRATION

The art of wise administration consists in making certain concessions and granting that which will please the people while demanding in return obedience and cooperation which will benefit the whole community.

Plutarch, Greek historian                                                                                46-120AD

• ADAPTATION

It is not the strongest species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change.

Charles Darwin                                                                                              1809-1882

• ADMIRALTY

If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we’ve paid in full.

Rudyard Kipling                                                                                              1865-1936

• ADMIRATION

For fools admire, but men of sense approve

Alexander Pope                                                                                               1688-1744

• ADULTERY

What men call gallantry and gods call adultery is much more common where the climate’s sultry.

Lord Byron                                                                                                      1788-1824

• ADVANCE

To advance indeed requires courage and firmness, but to retreat is impossible and would be infamy.        

Noah Webster                                                                                                  1758-1843

• ADVANCEMENT

All that is human must be retrograde if it does not advance.

Edward Gibbon, English historian                                                                  1739-1794

• ADVANTAGE

It’s them that take advantage that get advantage in this world.

George Eliot (Mary Ann Cross) English writer                                              1819-1880

• ADVENTURE

Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life.

Charles Frohman, (last words before going down in the

wrecked ship, Lusitania)                                                                                 1860-1915

• ADVENTURERS

Most of the time we were solitary adventurers in a great land as fresh and new as a spring morning, and we were free and full of the zest of darers.

Charles Goodnight, American essayist

• ADVERSARY

Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.

Dr. Samuel Johnson, English writer and lexicographer                                  1709-1784

• ADVERSITY

Prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue. Francis Bacon, English philosopher                                                                              1561-1626

• ADVERSITY

Adversity will find that I am out of its reach.           

Napoleon Bonaparte  

• ADVERSITY

A gambler kills himself. A great man faces adversity.          

Napoleon Bonaparte

• ADVERSITY

Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous

yet a precious jewel in its head.

William Shakespeare                                                                                       1564

• ADVICE       

He that gives good advice builds with one hand. He that gives good

example builds with both hands. But he that gives good admonition

example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.

Francis Bacon, English philosopher

• ADVICE       

Advice is no commandment in my view.

Geoffrey Chaucer                                                                                            1342-1400.

• ADVICE

Do all things by advice, and then you’ll have no cause to repent.

Geoffrey Chaucer

• ADVICE

Who takes advice shall never fare the worse.

Geoffrey Chaucer

• ADVICE

Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always want it the least.

Earl of Chesterfield, British writer                                                                  1694-1773

• ADVICE

One gives nothing so freely as advice.

Due De La Rochefoucauld, French philosopher                                             1613-1680

• ADVICE

We may give advice, but we can never prompt behaviour Due De La Rochefoucauld, French philosopher

• ADVICE

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

Harry S. Truman, 33rd US President                                                             1884-1972

• AFFECTION

I am certain     of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affection.

John Keats                                                                                                      1795-1821

• AFFECTIONS

Alas! Our young affections run to waste or water but the desert.

Lord Byron                                                                                                                                           1788-1824

• AFFIRMATION

Everyone thrives on affirmation and praise.

Hans Finzel                                                                                                                                          1996

• AGE

Grow up as soon as you can.  It pays.  The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty.

Hervey Allen, English writer                                                                                                             1889-1949

• AGE

Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age.  More fortunate, alas, than we, which without hardness, will be sage and gay without frivolity.

Matthew Arnold                                                                                                                  1822-1888

• AGE

We will not be defied

Anonymous                                                                         

• AGE

Every age has its own pleasures, its own wits and customs.

Nicholas Boileau                                                                                                                                 1636-1711

• AGE

Grow old along with me.

The best is yet to be.

The last of life for which we (were) first made

Robert Browning                                                                                                                                1812-1889

• AGE

What is the worst of woes that wait on age?

What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?

To view each loved one blotted from life’s page

And be alone on earth as I am now.

Lord George Gordon Byron                                                                           1788-1824

• AGE

And almost every one when age, disease or sorrows strike, inclines to think there is a god; or something very like Him.

Arthur Hugh Clough                                                                                       1819-1861

• AGE

Ride ten thousand days and nights, till age snow white hairs on thee.

John Donne                                                                                                     1571-1631

• AGE

In every age and clime, two of a trade can ne’er agree

John Gay                                                                                                         1685-1732

• AGE

The obstinacy of age…overmasters its complaisance

Thomas Hardy                                                                                                1840-1928

• AGE

But a rascally child; that is pitiless age.

Jean De La Fontaine                                                                                      1621-16

• AGE

Time will run back and fetch the age of gold.

John Milton                                                                                                     1608-1674

• AGE

Age will bring all things, and everyone knows, Madame, that twenty is no age to be a prude.

JB Poquilin called Moliere, French writer                                                      1622-1673

• AGE

He was not of an age but for all time.

Ben Jonson                                                                                                      1573-1637

• AGE

For each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth.

Arthur O’ Shaughnessy                                                                                   1844-1881

• AGE

His helmet now shall make a hive for bees

And lovers sonnets turned to holy psalms

A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees

And feed on prayers which are age alms.

George Peele                                                                                            c1558-c.1596

• AGE

See how the world its veterans reward: a youth of frolics, an old age of cards.

Alexander Pope                                                                                               1688-1744

• AGE

A good old man, sir, he will be talking; as they say when age is in, the wit is out.

William Shakespeare                                                                                       1546-1616

• AGE

Age, I do abhor thee; youth I do adore thee.

William Shakespeare                                      

• AGE

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together, youth is full if pleasance, age is full of care.

William Shakespeare

• AGE

Though age from folly could not give me freedom, it does from childishness.

William Shakespeare

• AGE

Gather, therefore, the rose whilst yet in prime, for some comes age that shall her pride deflower

Edmund Spencer                                                                                                1522-1599

• AGE

In the days of my youth, I remembered my God and he has not forgotten my age. Robert Southey                                                                                                   1744-1843

• AGE

No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating. Oscar Wilde                                                                                                                        1854-1900

• AGE

For age with stealing steps, hath clawed me with clutch.

Lord Thomas Vaux                                                                                             1510-1556

• AGE

What shall I     do with this absurdity

O heart, 0 troubled heart, this caricature        *

Decrepit age has been tied to me As to a dog’s tail.

William Butler Yeats                                                                                             1865-1939

• AGING

To be seventy years young is sometimes far more hopeful than to be forty years old.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Snr. US jurist                                                                 1809-1994

• AGING

Fresh youth and beauty recede behind us, drouth and wrinkles ban amorous longing and the knack of easily falling asleep.

Horace                                                                                                              65-8BC

• AGREEMENT

Ah! don’t say you agree with me. When people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong.

Oscar Wilde                                                                                                       1854-1900

• AIRPLANES

Airplanes are interesting toys but they have no military value.

Marshal Ferdinand Foch

• ALE

Ale, man ale’s the stuff to drink, for fellows whom it hurts to think

AE Housman                                                                                                     1859-1936

• ALEHOUSE

It’s the preacher as empties th’ ale house

George Elliot                                                                                                      1819-1880

• ALLIANCES

Alliances are held together by fear not by love.

Harold Macmillan, British Prime Minister                                                          c.1964

• AMBASSADOR

An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.

Sir Henry Wolton, English writer                                                                        1568-1639

• AMBITION

….That we may be constant in pursuit of those virtues and excellences to which our ambition prompts us to aspire.

Anonymous American philosopher                                                             1789

• AMBITION

The human system is a machine, ambition the spring that puts it in motion. Anonymous American philosopher

• AMBITION

Ambitious spirits do far more harm than good in a state, unless they can keep aspiration within proper limits.

Plutarch                                                                                                            46-120AD

• AMBITION

How dost thou wear and weary out thy days, restless ambition, never at an end Samuel Daniel                                                                                                                    1562-1619

• AMBITION

A great man with a small ambition (description of Daniel Webster)

Ralph Waldo Emerson                                                                                         1803-1882

• AMBITION

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upwards on the miseries or credulities of mankind.

Joseph Conrad, English novelist                                                                        1857-1924

• AMBITION

Ambition first sprung from your blessed abodes, the glorious fault of angels and of gods.

Alexander Pope                                                                                                  1688-1744

• AMBITION

The soldier’s virtue.

William Shakespeare

• AMERICA

In all that goes to make a nation great materially, commercially, politically and morally, (America) has no peer.

William Hennings Bryan, US preacher                                                                 1.860-1925

• AMERICA

What is admirable in America is the government, not society.

Stendhal, French novelist

• AMERICA

The place where miracles not only happen but where they happen all the time. Thomas Wolfe, American essayist and critic                                                        c.1968

1. AMERICAN

I am willing to love all mankind except an American.

Dr. Samuel Johnson, English writer and philosopher                                     1709-1783

1. AMERICANS

When we Americans are done with the English language it will look as if it has been run over by a musical comedy.

Finley Peter Dunne, Americans humorist                                                       1867-1936

1. AMERICAN

American life is a powerful solvent.

George Santayana, Spanish-born US philosopher                                          1863-1952

1. ANCESTORS           

Ancestors don’t mean a thing in the human tribe; they’re as unrealiable as a political promise.

Will Rogers                                                                                                      1879-1935

1. ANCESTRY

The man who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors is like a potato, the only good belonging to him is underground.

Sir. Thomas Overbury, English writer                                                            1581-1613

1. ANGEL

A beautiful and ineffectual angel beating in this void his huminouse wing in vain. Matthew Arnold                                                                                               1822-1888

1. ANGEL

The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land: you may almost hear the beating of his wings.

John Bright                                                                                                     1811-1889

1. ANGEL

Whom but a dusk misfeatured messenger, no other than the angel of this life, Whose care is lest men see too much at once.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning                                                                            1806-1861

1. ANGEL

The Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast.

Lord George Gordon Byron                                                                           1788-1824

1. ANGEL

If an angel out of heaven

Brings you other things to drink

Thank him for his kind attentions

Go and pour them down the sink.

Earl of Chesterfield                                                                                         1694-1773

1. ANGEL

He raised a mortal to the skies

She drew an angel down.

John Dryden                                                                                                   1631-1700

1. ANGEL

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread Alexander Pope                         1688-1744

1. ANGEL

Now cracks a noble heart Good night sweet prince.

And flights of angels sing the to thy rest

William Shakespeare                                                                                       1546-1616

1. ANGER

Anger makes dull men witty but it keeps them poor.

Francis Bacon                                                                                                 1561-1626

1. ANGER

Anger is one of the sinners of the soul, he that wants it has a maimed mind. Thomas Fuller                                                                                                                       1608-1661

1. ANGER

It is hard to fight against anger, for whatever it wants, it will pay the price, even at the cost of life itself.

Heraclitus, Greek philosopher, founder of Metaphysics                                c.470 BC

1. ANGER

Anger is a brief madness.

Horace, Greek poet and dramatist                                                                 65-8BC

1. ANGER

What passing bells for those who die as cattle?

Only die monstrous anger of the guns

Only the stuttering rifle’s rapid rattle.

William Owen                                                                                                 1893-1918

1. ANGER

Anger supplies the arms.

Virgil, Roman poet                                                                                          70-19 BC

1. ANSWER

A good answer is like a mini-skirt It must be long enough to cover the subject and short enough to make it interesting.

Anonymous

1. ANSWER

When you have all the answers you haven’t asked all the questions.

Anonymous

1. APPEARANCE

It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.

Oscar Wilde                                                                                                    1854-1900

1. APPRENTICE

For an apprentice that’s a reveller

With music, riot, dice or paramour

Will surely cost his shop and master dear

Geoffrey Chaucer                                                                                            1342-1400

1. ARGUING

In arguing, the person owned his skill.

For e’en though vanquished, he could argue still

Oliver Goldsmith                                                                                             1728-1774

1. ARGUMENT

I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellect too.

Oliver Goldsmith

1. ARGUMENT

There is no good arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.

James Russell Lowell                                                                                      1819-1891

1. ARISE

Let us arise and like men And face with an undaunted tread

The long black passage          

Robert Louis Stevenson                                                                                   1850-1894

1. ARMIES

Gargantuan armies were glorious markets for the mass consumption of mass- produced goods; what client could be more desirable than one that promised to destroy the purchased goods at the earliest opportunity and order more.

Will and Ariel Durant, in Rousseau and Revolution.                                      1967

1. ARMOUR

I fear no foe in shinning armour.

Edward Oxenford                                                                                           1847-1929

1. ARMOUR

There’s no armour against fate Death lays his icy hands on kings

James Shirley                                                                                                  1596-1666

1. ARMS

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms; never, never, never.

William Pitt, Earl of Chathau                                                                          1708-1785

1. ARMS

The trumpets loud clangour; excites us to arms.

John Dryden                                                                                                   1631-1700

1. ARMS

It has been calculated by the ablest politicians, that no state, without becoming soon exhausted can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness

Edward Gibbon                                                                                              1737-1794

1. ARMS

The land of scholars and the nurse of arms Oliver Goldsmith

1. ARMS

Ran on embattled armies clad in iron and weaponless himself; made arms ridicu­lous.

John Milton                                                                                                     1608-1674

1. ARMS

Servant of God, well done, well hast thou fought

The better fight, who singly hast maintained

Against revolted multitudes a cause

Of truth in word mightier than they in arms.

John Milton    

1. ARMS

O! here will I set up my everlasting rest

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

From this world-wearied flesh

Eyes look your last

Arms take your last embrace

William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet                                                      1546-1616

1. ARMS

To be or not to be: that is the question.

Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing them? To die: to sleep

William Shakespeare in Hamlet

1. ARMS

O that ‘twere possible

After long grief and pain

To find the arms of my true love

Round me once again

Lord Alfred Tennyson                                                                                     1809-1892

1. ARMS

How blest beyond all blessings are farmers, if they but knew their happiness. Far from the clash of arms.

Virgil                                                                                                               70-19BC

1. ARMS

I sing of arms and of the hero who first came from the shores of troy, exiled by Fate to Italy and its Lavinian shore.

Virgil

1. ARMS

Those entrusted with arms should be persons of some substance and stake in

the country.

William Windham                                                                                            1750-1810

1. ARMY

An army marches on its stomach.

Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France                                                       1769-1821

1. ARMY

I have no army left, I have nothing but fugitives Napoleon Bonaparte

1. ARMY

The sight of a foreign flag always made the army rally round anyone ready to attack it.

Napoleon Bonaparte

1. ARMY

There’s lot of bad men in the army….. The army makes ‘cm wild, and they like nothing better than the job of leading a young feller….. as ain’t ever been away from home much…. an’ a-learning ‘em to drink and swear. Keep clear of them folks.       

Stephen Crane                                                                                                 1871-1900

1. ARMY

Without supplies no army is brave.

Frederick the Great, Emperor of Prussia                                                        1740-1786

1. ARMY

An army is a nation within a nation; it’s one of the vices of our age

Alfred De Vigny                                                                                              1797-1863

1. ARMY

Ours (our army) is composed of the scum of the earth.

Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, British soldier                             1769-1852

1. ARMY

Like an army defeated, the snow had retreated.

William Wordsworth                                                                                       1770-1850

1. ARREST

This fell sergeant (death) is strict in his arrest William Shakespeare in Hamlet

1. ARROGANCE

It is difficult to see how an arrogant, authoritarian, self-admiring egomaniac can be transformed into an effective leader.

Anonymous                                                                                                     c.1988

1. ARROGANCE

Lamenting arrogance is often just an expression of impotence.

Anonymous

1. ARROGANCE

The incredible arrogance in which the young are growing up will show its results in a few years in the greatest follies.

Johann Wolgand von Goethe                                                                          1749-1832

1. ART

France, famed in all great arts in none supreme

Matthew Arnold                                                                                              1822-1888

1. ART

It is the glory and the good of Art

That Art remains the one way possible

Of speaking the truth to minds like mine at least.

Robert Browning                                                                                             1812-1889

1. ART

Art is a changing of the actual proportions and order of things, so as to bring more forcibly….. that feature in them which appeals most strongly to the idiosyncrasy of the artist”.

Thomas Hardy, English writer, poet                                                               1840-1928

1. ART

Works done least rapidly Art cherishes.

Robert Browning                                                                                             1812-1889

1. ART

An art can only be learned in the workshop of those who are winning their bread by it.

Samuel Butler  1835 – 1902

1. ART

The history of Art is the history of revivals.

Samuel Butler                                                                                                  1835-1902

1. ART

By viewing Nature, Nature’s handmaid Art Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow.

John Dryden                                                                                                   1631-1700

1. ART

Art is a jealous mistress.

Ralph Waldo Emerson                                                                                         1803-1882

1. ART

Tis woman that seduces all mankind, by her we first were taught the wheedling art John Gay                                                                                                         1685-1732

1. ART

Art is not in pictures alone. Its place is in everything as much in one as in the other. It is up to the community as a whole, in conduct, business, government and play.

Robert Henri, American painter                                                             1865-1929

1. ART

No Art; no letter; no society; and worst of all continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man^ solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short

Thomas Hobbes                                                                                                 1588-1679

1. ART

Around his tombs let Art and Genius weep, but hear his death, ye blockheads, hear and sleep.

Dr. Samuel Johnson                                                                                            1709-1784

1. ART

Though, Art’s hid causes are not found, All is not sweet all is not sound.

Ben Jonson                                                                                                        1573-1637

1. ART

All Art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.

Walter Pater                                                                                                       1839-1894

1. ART

Art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments sake.

Walter Pater

1. ART

True ease in writing comes from Art not chance; as move easiest who have learned to dance.

Alexander Pope                                                                                                  1688-1744

1. ART

The secret of the arts is to correct nature.

Francois – Marie Voltaire                                                                          1694-1778

1. ART

All Art is quite useless.

Oscar Wilde                                                                                                       1854-1900

1. ART

Only an auctioneer can be enthusiastic about all forms of Art.

Oscar Wilde

1. ART

A work of Art is a comer of creation seen through a temperament.

Emile Zola                                                                                                         1840-1902

1. ARTILLERY

The artillery booming forward, rewarded, and on the flanks made jumble of ideas of direction.

Stephen Crane                                                                                                    1871-1900

1. ARTIST

Every artist writes his own autobiography

Henry Havelock Ellis                                                                                           1859-1939

1. ARTIST

We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his theme, our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it.

Henry James                                                                                                     1843-1916

1. ARTIST

The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.

George Bernard Shaw                                                                                         1856-1950

1. ARTISTS

Great artists have no country.

Alfred De Musset                                                                                     1810-1857

1. ASK

This was a good dinner enough; to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.

Dr. Samuel Johnson                                                                                            1709-1784

1. ASS

The greatest ass of the three is not the one you would think.

Jean De La Fontaine, French poet and fabulist                                                  1621-1695

1. ASSUMPTIONS

We tend to be blind to our own assumptions when we are locked inside them. One way of breaking out of this prison of perception is by contrasting our assump­tions with those of other cultures.

Richard T. Pascale and Anthony G Athos in The Art of

Japanese Management                                                                                        1981

1. ATHEISM

My attention, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fash­ioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.

George Santayana                                                                                              1863-1952

1. ATHEIST

A strict observer is one who would be an atheist under an atheistic king.

Jean De La Bruyere                                                                                            1645-1696

1. ATHEIST

By night an atheist half believes a God.

Edward Young                                                                                                            1683-1765

1. ATTACK

My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent; I shall attack. Marshall Foch                                                                                                    1851-1929

Our doubts are traitors and makes us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.

William Shakespeare

Though by whim, envy or resentment led They damn those authors whom they never read.

Charles Churchill                                                                                            1731-1764

1. AUTHOR

An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.

Benjamin Disraeli                                                                                           1804-1881

1. AUTHOR

Choose an author as you choose a friend.

Earl of Roscommon                                                                                        1637-1685

1. AUTHOR

Be sure that you go to an author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.

John Ruskin                                                                                                     1819-1900

The capacity to reach out from one self into the mind and emotions of other is a basic requirement for leaders. No one, for example, should have authority over others without a keen sense of tragedy. Tragedy, like a submerged reef, lies beneath the surface in all human experience. A leader must understand its impact and how it can be softened.

Douglas Brown, American Management Association                                    1968

1. AUTHORITY

Authority is the right to decide what should be done and the right to do it or to require someone else to do it.

Edwin Flippo in Personnel Management                                                        1975

1. AUTHORITY

No man now has the same authority which his father had except the goaler.

Dr. Samuel Johnson, English writer and lexicographer                                  1709-1784

Wrest once the law to your authority, to do a great right, do a little wrong. William Shakespeare

1. AUTHORITY

Authority forgets a dying king.

Lord Alfred Tennysm                                                                                      1809-1892

1. AUTOBIOGRAPHER

The autobiographer is expected to confess his faults but not to reveal his virtues. Johann Wofgang von Goethe                                                                         1749-1832

1. AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Speaking and still, more writing of Oneself is beyond all doubt the offspring of the great love one has for oneself.

Vittorio Alfieri, Italian philosopher                                                                  1749-1803

1. AVARICE

So, for a good gentlemanly vice I think, I must take up with avarice

Lord George Byron                                                                                         1788-1824

1. AVARICE

Avarice, the spur of industry.

David Hume                                                                                                    1711-1776

• AWAKE

Awake, my heart to be loved, awake, awake the darkness silvers away, the mom doth break.

Robert Bridges                                                                                                1844-1930

• AWAKE

At last awake from life that insane dream we take for waking now.

Robert Browning                                                                                             1812-1889

• AWAKE

Awake, arise or be forever fall’n

John Milton                                                                                                     1608- 1674

• AWFUL

Anything awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral.

Charles Lamb                                                                                                1775-1854

• AXIOM

It is an economic axiom as old as the hills that goods and services can only be paid for in goods and services.

A J Nock                                                                                                       1873-1945