• Spike Milligan

    Return to Sorrento (3rd class)

    I must go down to the sea again,
    To the lonely sea and the sky,
    I left my vest and socks there,
    I wonder if they’re dry ?

  • Stephen Leacock

    You know, many a man realizes late in life that if when he was a boy he had known what he knows now, instead of being what he is he might be what he won’t; but how few boys stop to think that if they knew what they don’t know instead of being what they will be, they wouldn’t be?

  • English Pronounciation

    14 different ways to pronounce “ough”

    Rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman John Gough strode through the streets of Loughborough; after falling into a slough on Coughlin road near the lough (dry due to drought), he coughed and hiccoughed, then checked his horse’s houghs and washed up in a trough.

    1. awe: thought, bought, fought, brought, ought, sought, nought, wrought
    2. uff: enough, rough, tough, slough, Clough, chough
    3. ooh: through, slough
    4. oh: though, although, dough, doughnut, broughm, Ough, furlough, Greenough, thorough
    5. off: cough, trough, slough
    6. ow: bough, plough, sough
    7. ou: drought, doughty, Stoughton
    8. uh: Scarborough, borough, thorough (alt), thoroughbred, Macdonough, Poughkeepsie
    9. up: hiccoughed
    10. oth: trough (alt)
    11. ock: lough, hough
    12. oc[h] (aspirated): lough
    13. ahf: Gough
    14. og: Coughlin

    Rough-coated(2), dough-faced(4), thoughtful(1) ploughman(6) John Gough(13) strode through(3) the streets of Loughborough(2+8); after falling into a slough(2 or 3 or 5) on Coughlin(14) road near the lough(12) (dry due to drought)(7), he coughed(5) and hiccoughed(9), then checked his horse’s houghs(11)and washed up in a trough(10).

  • Calvin Coolidge

    Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent.

  • Richard Hovey

    The Sea Gypsy

    I am fevered with the sunset,
    I am fretful with the bay,
    For the wander-thirst is on me
    And my soul is in Cathay.

    There ‘s a schooner in the offing,
    With her topsails shot with fire,
    And my heart has gone aboard her
    For the Islands of Desire.

    I must forth again to-morrow!
    With the sunset I must be
    Hull down on the trail of rapture
    In the wonder of the sea.

  • G K Chesterton

    The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.

  • Eric Hoffer

    You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.

  • Vachel Lindsay

    Euclid

    Old Euclid drew a circle
    On a sand-beach long ago.
    He bounded and enclosed it
    With angles thus and so.
    His set of solemn greybeards
    Nodded and argued much
    Of arc and circumference,
    Diameter and such.
    A silent child stood by them
    From morning until noon
    Because they drew such charming
    Round pictures of the moon.

  • Irish Blessing

    May the road rise to meet you.
    May the wind always be at your back.
    May the sun shine warm upon your face,
    the rains fall soft upon your fields
    and, until we meet again,
    may God hold you in the palm of his hand.

  • Wendy Cope

    Flowers

    Some men never think of it.
    You did. You’d come along
    And say you’d nearly brought me flowers
    But something had gone wrong.

    The shop was closed. Or you had doubts –
    The sort that minds like ours
    Dream up incessantly. You thought
    I might not want your flowers.

    It made me smile and hug you then.
    Now I can only smile.
    But look, the flowers you nearly brought
    Have lasted all this while.

  • Stephen Leacock

    The rushing of his spirit from its prison-house was as rapid as a hunted cat passing over a garden fence.

  • Rudyard Kipling

    ‘Tisn’t beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It’s just It. Some women’ll stay in a man’s memory if they once walked down the street.

  • Sarah Teasdale

    It Is Not a Word

    It is not a word spoken,
    Few words are said;
    Nor even a look of the eyes
    Nor a bend of the head,

    But only a hush of the heart
    That has too much to keep,
    Only memories waking
    That sleep so light a sleep.

  • George Herbert

    Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
    Guilty of dust and sin.
    But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
    From my first entrance in,
    Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
    If I lack’d anything.

    ‘A guest,’ I answer’d, ‘worthy to be here:’
    Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
    ‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
    I cannot look on Thee.’
    Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
    ‘Who made the eyes but I?’

    ‘Truth, Lord; but I have marr’d them: let my shame
    Go where it doth deserve.’
    ‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’
    ‘My dear, then I will serve.’
    ‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
    So I did sit and eat.

  • Alexander Pope

    Epitaph of Issac Newton

    Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night:
    God said, ‘Let Newton be!’ and all was light.

  • Lewis Carroll

    He thought he saw an Elephant,
    That practised on a fife:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A letter from his wife.
    ‘At length I realise,’ he said,
    The bitterness of Life!’

    He thought he saw a Buffalo
    Upon the chimney-piece:
    He looked again, and found it was
    His Sister’s Husband’s Niece.
    ‘Unless you leave this house,’ he said,
    ‘I’ll send for the Police!’

    He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
    That questioned him in Greek:
    He looked again, and found it was
    The Middle of Next Week.
    ‘The one thing I regret,’ he said,
    ‘Is that it cannot speak!’

    He thought he saw a Banker’s Clerk
    Descending from the bus:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A Hippopotamus.
    ‘If this should stay to dine,’ he said,
    ‘There won’t be much for us!’

    He thought he saw a Kangaroo
    That worked a coffee-mill:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A Vegetable-Pill.
    ‘Were I to swallow this,’ he said,
    ‘I should be very ill!’

    He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
    That stood beside his bed:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A Bear without a Head.
    ‘Poor thing,’ he said, ‘poor silly thing!
    It’s waiting to be fed!’

    He thought he saw an Albatross
    That fluttered round the lamp:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A Penny-Postage Stamp.
    ‘You’d best be getting home,’ he said:
    ‘The nights are very damp!’

    He thought he saw a Garden-Door
    That opened with a key:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A Double Rule of Three:
    ‘And all its mystery,’ he said,
    ‘Is clear as day to me!’

    He thought he saw a Argument
    That proved he was the Pope:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A Bar of Mottled Soap.
    ‘A fact so dread,’ he faintly said,
    ‘Extinguishes all hope!’

  • Robert Southey

    No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth.

  • Douglas Adams

    The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.

  • Sylvia Plath

    Mirror

    I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
    Whatever I see I swallow immediately
    Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
    I am not cruel, only truthful – The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
    Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
    It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
    I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
    Faces and darkness separate us over and over (…)

    Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
    Searching my reaches for what she really is.
    Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
    I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
    She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
    I am important to her. She comes and goes.
    Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
    In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
    Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

  • Milton Friedman

    There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government.

  • Confucius

    By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and Third, by experience, which is the bitterest.

  • Hilaire Belloc

    The Vulture

    The Vulture eats between his meals
    And that’s the reason why
    He very, very rarely feels
    As well as you and I.

    His eye is dull, his head is bald,
    His neck is growing thinner.
    Oh! what a lesson for us all
    To only eat at dinner!