The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

But, thank God! the Thames is between me and the Duchess of Queensberry.
Letter to Conway, 8 June 1747, in ‘Letters’
Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold.
Letter to Montagu, 3 July 1752, in ‘Letters’
It has the true rust of the Barons’ Wars.
Letter to Bentley, September 1753, in ‘Letters’
At present, nothing is talked of, nothing admired, but what I cannot help calling a very insipid
and tedious performance: it is a kind of novel, called The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy;
the great humour of which consists in the whole narration always going backwards.
Letter to Dalrymple, 4 April 1760, in ‘Letters’
One of the greatest geniuses that ever existed, Shakespeare, undoubtedly wanted taste.
Letter to Wren, 9 August 1764, in ‘Letters’
The works of Richardson...which are pictures of high life as conceived by a bookseller, and
romances as they would be spiritualized by a Methodist preacher.
Letter to Mann, 20 December 1764, in ‘Letters’
At Madame du Deffand’s, an old blind dèbauchèe of wit.
Letter to Conway, 6 October 1765, in ‘Letters’
What has one to do, when one grows tired of the world, as we both do, but to draw nearer and
nearer, and gently waste the remains of life with friends with whom one began it?
Letter to Montagu, 21 November 1765, in ‘Letters’
It is charming to totter into vogue.
Letter to Selwyn, 2 December 1765, in ‘Letters’
Yes, like Queen Eleanor in the ballad, I sunk at Charing Cross, and have risen in the Faubourg
St Germain.
Letter to Gray, 25 January 1766, in ‘Letters’
The best sun we have is made of Newcastle coal.
Letter to Montagu, 15 June 1768, in ‘Letters’
Everybody talks of the constitution, but all sides forget that the constitution is extremely well,
and would do very well, if they would but let it alone.
Letter to Mann, 18-19 January 1770, in ‘Letters’
It was easier to conquer it [the East] than to know what to do with it.
Letter to Mann, 27 March 1772, in ‘Letters’
The way to ensure summer in England is to have it framed and glazed in a comfortable room.
Letter to Cole, 28 May 1774, in ‘Letters’
The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a
Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton
at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the
ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.
Letter to Mann, 24 November 1774, in ‘Letters’.
By the waters of Babylon we sit down and weep, when we think of thee, O America!