The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

Tempers her words to trampling horses’ feet
More oft than to a chamber melody;
Now blessed you, bear onward blessed me
To her, where I my heart, safeliest, shall meet.
‘Astrophel and Stella’ (1591) sonnet 84
Leave me, O Love which reachest but to dust,
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things;
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust;
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings.
‘Certain Sonnets’ (written 1577-81; published 1598) no. 32
O fair! O sweet! When I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree,
Heart and soul do sing in me,
Just accord all music makes.
‘To the Tune of a Spanish Song’
With a tale forsooth he [the poet] cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from
play, and old men from the chimney corner.
‘The Defence of Poesie’ (1595)
Certainly I must confess mine own barbarousness, I never heard the old song of Percy and
Douglas, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet.
‘The Defence of Poesie’ (1595)
Philip of Macedon reckoned a horse-race won at Olympus among his three fearful felicities.
‘The Defence of Poesie’ (1595)
I will not wish unto you the ass’s ears of Midas, nor to be driven by a poet’s verses, as
Bubonax was, to hang himself, nor to be rhymed to death, as is said to be done in Ireland.
‘The Defence of Poesie’ (1595)
Thy necessity is yet greater than mine.
On giving his water-bottle to a dying soldier on the battle-field of Zutphen, 1586; in Sir Fulke Greville ‘The
Life of Sir Philip Sidney’ (1652) ch. 12 (‘necessity’ more often quoted ‘need’)
7.87 Emmanuel Joseph Sieyés 1748-1836
La mort, sans phrases.
Death, without rhetoric.
Attributed to Sieyés on voting in the French Convention for the death of Louis XVI, 19 January 1793, but
afterwards repudiated by him
J’ai vècu.
I survived.
When asked what he had done during the French Revolution. F. A. M. Mignet ‘Notice historique sur la vie et
les travaux de M. le Comte de Sieyès’ (1836)