The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
‘The Soldier’ (1914)
2.206 Anita Brookner 1938—
And what is the most potent myth of all?...The tortoise and the hare...In real life, of course, it is
the hare who wins. Every time...You could argue that the hare might be affected by the tortoise
lobby’s propaganda, might become more prudent, circumspect, slower, in fact. But the hare is
always convinced of his own superiority; he simply does not recognize the tortoise as a worthy
adversary. That is why the hare wins.
‘Hotel du Lac’ (1984) ch. 2
Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women
never take the blame for anything.
‘Hotel du Lac’ (1984) ch. 7
2.207 Thomas Brooks 1608-80
For (magna est veritas et praevalebit) great is truth, and shall prevail.
‘The Crown and Glory of Christianity’ (1662) p. 407.
2.208 Robert Barnabas Brough 1828-60
My Lord Tomnoddy is thirty-four;
The Earl can last but a few years more.
My Lord in the Peers will take his place:
Her Majesty’s councils his words will grace.
Office he’ll hold and patronage sway;
Fortunes and lives he will vote away;
And what are his qualifications?—one!
He’s the Earl of Fitzdotterel’s eldest son.