The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

Cet animal est trés mèchant,
Quand on l’attaque il se dèfend.
This animal is very bad; when attacked it defends itself.
‘La Mènagerie’ by Thèodore P. K. (1828)
Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche.
Knight without fear and without blemish.
Description in contemporary chronicles of Pierre Bayard (1476-1524)
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Evil be to him who evil thinks [of it].
Motto of the Order of the Garter, originated by Edward III probably on 23 April of 1348 or 1349
Je suis Marxiste—tendance Groucho.
I am a Marxist—of the Groucho tendency.
Slogan found at Nanterre in Paris, 1968
Ils ne passeront pas.
They shall not pass.
Slogan used by the French army at the defence of Verdun in 1916; variously attributed to Marshal Pètain and
to General Robert Nivelle, and taken up by the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War in the form No pasaran!
Il y avait un jeune homme de Dijon,
Qui n’avait que peu de religion.
Il dit: ‘Quant á moi,
Je dèteste tous les trois,
Le Pére, et le Fils, et le Pigeon.’
There was a young man of Dijon,
Who had only a little religion,
he said: ‘As for me,
I detest all the three,
The Father, the son, and the pigeon.
‘The Norman Douglas Limerick Book’ (1969, first privately printed in 1928 as ‘Some Limericks’)
introduction
[Riddle:] Je suis le capitaine de vingt-quatre soldats, et sans moi Paris serait pris?
[Answer:] A.
[Riddle:] [Literally] I am the captain of twenty-four soldiers, and without me Paris would be
taken?
[Answer:] A [i.e. the letter ‘A’]
In Hugh Rowley ‘Puniana: or thoughts wise and otherwise a new collection of the best’ (1867) p. 42. The
saying ‘With twenty-six lead soldiers [the characters of the alphabet set up for printing] I can conquer the
world’ may derive from this riddle, but probably arose independently.
La grande phrase reçue, c’est qu’il ne faut pas être plus royaliste que le roi. Cette phrase n’est
pas du moment; elle fut inventèe sous Louis XVI: elle enchaîna les mains des fidéles, pour ne