• Eric Linklater

    of Sir Compton Mackenzie

    His clothes resembled the adjectives in a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins: chosen for their texture and colour, and often most arbitrarily joined

  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    Hiawatha’s Departure

    By the shore of Gitchie Gumee,
    By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
    At the doorway of his wigwam,
    In the pleasant Summer morning,
    Hiawatha stood and waited.
    All the air was full of freshness,
    All the earth was bright and joyous,
    And before him through the sunshine,
    Westward toward the neighboring forest
    Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo,
    Passed the bees, the honey-makers,
    Burning, singing in the sunshine.
    Bright above him shown the heavens,
    Level spread the lake before him;
    From its bosom leaped the sturgeon,
    Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine;
    On its margin the great forest
    Stood reflected in the water,
    Every tree-top had its shadow,
    Motionless beneath the water.
    From the brow of Hiawatha
    Gone was every trace of sorrow,
    As the fog from off the water,
    And the mist from off the meadow.
    With a smile of joy and triumph,
    With a look of exultation,
    As of one who in a vision
    Sees what is to be, but is not,
    Stood and waited Hiawatha.

  • Anthony Wilden

    The supreme value of remaining silent when you have nothing to say is not a recognized academic virtue.

  • Marcel Proust

    The fault I find with our journalism is that it forces us to take an interest in some fresh triviality or other every day, whereas only three or four books in a lifetime give us anything that is of real importance.

  • Boris Johnson

    The French looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to have dinner, the English looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to play ping-pong.

  • Emily Dickinson

    Tell all the Truth but tell it slant

    Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
    Success in Circuit lies
    Too bright for our infirm Delight
    The Truth’s superb surprise

    As Lightening to the Children eased
    With explanation kind
    The Truth must dazzle gradually
    Or every man be blind—

  • George Eliot

    “I like breakfast-time better than any other moment in the day,” said Mr. Irwine. “No dust has settled on one’s mind then, and it presents a clear mirror to the rays of things.

  • Eric Hoffer

    Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.

  • Charles Mackay

    Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

  • William Carlos Williams

    Iris

    a burst of iris so that
    come down for
    breakfast

    we searched through the
    rooms for
    that

    sweetest odor and at
    first could not
    find its

    source then a blue as
    of the sea
    struck

    startling us from among
    those trumpeting
    petals

  • William Hazlitt

    If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.

  • William G Childs

    Judge Tries to Unring Bell Hanging Around Neck of Horse Already Out of Barn Being Carried on Ship That Has Sailed.

  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    Tegner’s Drapa

    I heard a voice, that cried,
    “Balder the Beautiful
    Is dead, is dead!”
    And through the misty air
    Passed like the mournful cry
    Of sunward sailing cranes.

    I saw the pallid corpse
    Of the dead sun
    Borne through the Northern sky.
    Blasts from Niffelheim
    Lifted the sheeted mists
    Around him as he passed.

    And the voice forever cried,
    “Balder the Beautiful
    Is dead, is dead!”
    And died away
    Through the dreary night,
    In accents of despair.

    Balder the Beautiful,
    God of the summer sun,
    Fairest of all the Gods!
    Light from his forehead beamed,
    Runes were upon his tongue,
    As on the warrior’s sword.

    All things in earth and air
    Bound were by magic spell
    Never to do him harm;
    Even the plants and stones;
    All save the mistletoe,
    The sacred mistletoe!

    Hoeder, the blind old God,
    Whose feet are shod with silence,
    Pierced through that gentle breast
    With his sharp spear, by fraud
    Made of the mistletoe,
    The accursed mistletoe!

    They laid him in his ship,
    With horse and harness,
    As on a funeral pyre.
    Odin placed
    A ring upon his finger,
    And whispered in his ear.

    They launched the burning ship!
    It floated far away
    Over the misty sea,
    Till like the sun it seemed,
    Sinking beneath the waves.
    Balder returned no more!

    So perish the old Gods!
    But out of the sea of Time
    Rises a new land of song,
    Fairer than the old.
    Over its meadows green
    Walk the young bards and sing.

    Build it again,
    O ye bards,
    Fairer than before!
    Ye fathers of the new race,
    Feed upon morning dew,
    Sing the new Song of Love!

    The law of force is dead!
    The law of love prevails!
    Thor, the thunderer,
    Shall rule the earth no more,
    No more, with threats,
    Challenge the meek Christ.

    Sing no more,
    O ye bards of the North,
    Of Vikings and of Jarls!
    Of the days of Eld
    Preserve the freedom only,
    Not the deeds of blood!

  • Douglas Adams

    Solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect, which means there’s no point trying to look in that direction because it won’t be coming from there.

  • Jorge Luis Borges

    When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness. All men felt themselves to be the masters of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal or world problem whose eloquent solution did not exist in some hexagon.

    … As was natural, this inordinate hope was followed by an excessive depression. The certitude that some shelf in some hexagon held precious books and that these precious books were inaccessible, seemed almost intolerable.

  • Lou Reed

    Just a perfect day
    Drink sangria in the park
    Then later, when it gets dark, we go home
    Just a perfect day
    Feed animals in the zoo
    Then later a movie too, and then home
    Oh it’s such a perfect day
    I’m glad I spent it with you
    Oh such a perfect day
    You just keep me hanging on
    You just keep me hanging on
    Just a perfect day
    Problems all left alone
    Weekenders on our own, it’s such fun
    Just a perfect day
    You made me forget myself
    I thought I was someone else, someone good
    Oh it’s such a perfect day
    I’m glad I spent it with you
    Such a perfect day
    You just keep me hanging on
    You just keep me hanging on
    You’re going to reap just what you sow
    You’re going to reap just what you sow
    You’re going to reap just what you sow
    You’re going to reap just what you sow
    You’re going to reap just what you sow

  • Royal Institute of International Affairs

    Chatham House Rule

    When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.


    Chatham House is the home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs