"Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death."

"Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold, A bitter God to follow, a beautiful God to behold?"

"Ah, ah, thy beauty! like a beast it bites, Stings like an adder, like an arrow smites."

"Superflux of pain."

"Wilt thou fear that, and fear not my desire?"

"For words divide and rend; But silence is most noble till the end."

"His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep."

"His speech is a burning fire."

"Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran, Pleasure with pain for leaven, Summer with flowers that fell, Remembrance fallen from heaven, And Madness risen from hell, Strength without hands to smite, Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And Life, the shadow of death."

"And soft as lips that laugh and hide The laughing leaves of the tree divide, And screen from seeing and leave in sight The god pursuing, the maiden hid."

"For winter’s rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins."

"When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nightingale amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus, For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, The tongueless vigil and all the pain."

"Maiden, and mistress of the months and stars Now folded in the flowerless fields of heaven."

"God by God flits past in thunder, till His glories turn to shades; God to God bears wondering witness how His gospel flames and fades. More was each of these, yet they were, than man their servant seemed: Dead are all of these, and man survives who made them while he dreamed."

"I can truly say with Shelley that I have been fortunate in friendships: that I have been no less fortunate in my enemies than in my friends."

"There was a bad poet named Clough, Whom his friends all united to puff. But the public, though dull, Has not quite such a skull As belongs to believers in Clough."

"Sweet Love, that art so bitter."

"The small dark body's Lesbian loveliness That held the fire eternal."

"Rhyme is the native condition of lyric verse in English; a rhymeless lyric is a maimed thing."

"Dream that the lips once breathless Might quicken if they would; Say that the soul is deathless; Dream that the gods are good; Say March may wed September, And time divorce regret; But not that you remember, And not that I forget."

"Today, the Princess Royal has been canonized as a secular saint, for her truly admirable international work on behalf of the Save the Children Fund. Her dedication and concern are beyond doubt, but she didn't catch them like measles."

"When I appear in public, people expect me to neigh, grind my teeth, paw the ground, and swish my tail, none of which is easy !"

"Bernard Levin, "Uneasy Lies the Head", The Times (23 January 1989)."

"We have a pretty witty king, Whose word no man relies on; He never said a foolish thing, Nor ever did a wise one."

"The Quakers suffered several persecutions under Charles II; not upon a religious account, but for refusing to pay the tithes, for "theeing" and "thouing" the magistrates, and for refusing to take the oaths enacted by the laws. At length Robert Barclay, a native of Scotland, presented to the king, in 1675, his "Apology for the Quakers"; a work as well drawn up as the subject could possibly admit. The dedication to Charles II., instead of being filled with mean, flattering encomiums, abounds with bold truths and the wisest counsels. "Thou hast tasted," says he to the king, at the close of his "Epistle Dedicatory," "of prosperity and adversity: thou hast been driven out of the country over which thou now reignest, and from the throne on which thou sittest: thou hast groaned beneath the yoke of oppression; therefore hast thou reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord, with all thy heart; but forget Him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give thyself up to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy guilt, and bitter thy condemnation. Instead of listening to the flatterers about thee, hearken only to the voice that is within thee, which never flatters. I am thy faithful friend and servant, Robert Barclay." The most surprising circumstance is that this letter, though written by an obscure person, was so happy in its effect as to put a stop to the persecution."

"If his Majesty is resolved to have my head, he may make a whistle of my arse if he pleases."

"The King feels so strongly that, no matter the crime committed by anyone on whom the VC has been conferred, the decoration should not be forfeited. Even were a VC to be sentenced to be hanged for murder, he should be allowed to wear his VC on the scaffold."

"For seventeen years, he did nothing at all but kill animals and stick in stamps."

"There can be no question that one outstanding reason for the high level of loyalty and patriotic effort which the people of this country maintained [during the First World War] was the attitude and conduct of King George V."

"Goddamn you!"

"Bugger Bognor."

"I pray God that my eldest son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne."

"They make me look like a stuffed monkey."

"It's the shortest one I know."

"What did you do about peeing?"

"My father was frightened of his mother. I was frightened of my father and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me."

"Golf always makes me so damned angry."

"Always go to the bathroom when you have a chance."

"You can't shake hands with a clenched fist."

"But, remember, I wish to have the best collection, not just one of the best collections in England."

"I may be uninspiring, but I'll be damned if I'm alien."

"You dress like a cad. You act like a cad. You are a cad."

"I look upon him as the greatest criminal known for having plunged the world into war."

"After you've met one hundred and fifty Lord Mayors, they all begin to look the same."

"How's the Empire?"

"After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months."

"I said to your predecessor: 'You know what they're all saying, no more coals to Newcastle, no more Hoares to Paris.' The fellow didn't even laugh."

"I appeal to all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and to forget, and to join in making for the land which they love a new era of peace, contentment, and good will... May this historic gathering be the prelude of a day in which the Irish people, North and South, under one Parliament or two, as those Parliaments may themselves decide, shall work together in common love for Ireland upon the sure foundation of mutual justice and respect."

"For centuries past Britain has led the world along the path of ordered freedom. Leadership may still be hers among the peoples who are seeking to follow that path. God grant to their efforts such wisdom and perseverance as shall ensure stability for the days to come! May good will and concord at home strengthen our influence for concord abroad. May the morning star of peace which is now rising over a war-worn world be here and everywhere the herald of a better day, in which the storms of strife shall have died down and the rays of an enduring peace be shed upon all the nations."

"In these years Britain and her traditions have come to mean more to us than they had ever meant before. It became a privilege to serve her in whatever way we could; and we were all drawn by the sacredness of the cause into a comradeship which fired our zeal and nerved our efforts. This is the spirit we must try to preserve. It is on a sense of brotherhood and mutual good will, on a common devotion to the common interests of the nation as a whole, that its future prosperity and strength must be built up. The sacrifices made, the sufferings endured, the memory of the heroes who have died that Britain may live, ought surely to ennoble our thoughts and attune our hearts to a higher sense of individual and national duty, and to a fuller realisation of what the English-speaking race, dwelling upon the shores of all the oceans, may yet accomplish for mankind."