The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

upon the poor and the ignorant in their humility, as well as upon the wealthy, and the philosopher
in all his pride of human learning?’ ‘What you imagine to be the new light of grace, (said his
master) I take to be a deceitful vapour, glimmering through a crack in your upper storey.’
‘The Expedition of Humphry Clinker’ (1771) vol. 2, letter from Jery Melford, 10 June
Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn
Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn.
‘The Tears of Scotland’ (1746)
7.119 C. P. Snow (Baron Snow of Leicester) 1905-80
The official world, the corridors of power.
‘Homecomings’ (1956) ch. 22
I believe the intellectual life of the whole of western society is increasingly being split into two
polar groups...Literary intellectuals at one pole—at the other scientists, and as the most
representative, the physical scientists. Between the two a gulf of mutual incomprehension.
‘The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution’ (1959 Rede Lecture) p. 3
7.120 Philip Snowden (Viscount Snowden) 1864-1937
This is not Socialism. It is Bolshevism run mad.
BBC radio election broadcast on the election programme of the Labour Party, 17 October 1931; in ‘The
Times’ 19 October 1931
7.121 Socrates 469-399 B.C.
How many things I can do without!
On looking at a multitude of wares exposed for sale, in Diogenes Laertius ‘Lives of the Eminent
Philosophers’ bk. 2, ch. 25
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
In Diogenes Laertius ‘Lives of Eminent Philosophers’ bk. 2, sect. 32
The unexamined life is not worth living.
In Plato ‘Apology’ 38a
But already it is time to depart, for me to die, for you to go on living; which of us takes the
better course, is concealed from anyone except God.
In Plato ‘Apology’ 42a
A man should feel confident concerning his soul, who has renounced those pleasures and
fineries that go with the body, as being alien to him, and considering them to result more in harm
than in good, but has pursued the pleasures that go with learning and made the soul fine with no
alien but rather its own proper refinements, moderation and justice and courage and freedom and
truth; thus it is ready for the journey to the world below.
In Plato ‘Phaedo’ 114d
‘What do you say about pouring a libation to some god from this cup? Is it allowed or not?’
‘We only prepare just the right amount to drink, Socrates,’ he [the jailor] said.
‘I understand,’ he went on; ‘but it is allowed and necessary to pray to the gods, that my moving