• Henry Ward Beecher

    The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t.

  • Edward Thomas

    The Cherry Trees

    The cherry trees bend over and are shedding,
    On the old road where all that passed are dead,
    Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding
    This early May morn when there is none to wed.

  • Hegel

    Not curiosity, not vanity, not the consideration of expediency, not duty and conscientiousness, but an unquenchable, unhappy thirst that brooks no compromise leads us to truth.

  • A E Houseman

    Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out … and perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.

  • Oliver Cromwell

    It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

    Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

    Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil’d this sacred place, and turn’d the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d, are yourselves gone!
    So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!

  • H L Mencken

    The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse – that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support it.

  • A A Milne

    My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.

  • Anneliese Emmans Dean

    On The Role Of The Next Century’s Poet Laureate

    Poetry!
    Opium of the masses
    Feed their habit
    Feed their habit
    Poetry
    For the working classes
    Let ’em have it
    Let ’em have it
    Poetry
    Raise your champagne glasses
    Chitter chat it
    Chitter chat it
    Poetry
    For the lads and lasses
    Twitter chav it
    Twitter chav it
    Poetry
    With OAP bus passes
    Zimmer jab it
    Zimmer jab it
    Poetry!
    Opium of the masses
    Live it, gab it
    Give it, fab it
    Pitter-pat it
    Tit-for-tat it
    Skit it, scat it
    Brit it, bat it!

  • Anneliese Emmans Dean

    on the appointment of Carol Ann Duffy as Poet Laureate

    Where there is discord, may you bring euphony
    Where there is error, may you bring scansion
    Where there is doubt, may you bring rhyme
    And where there are royal weddings
    May you bring sonnets of sterling sincerity
    (Or, failing that, limericks.)