The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

2.215 Thomas Brown 1663-1704
A little before you made a leap into the dark.
‘Letters from the Dead to the Living’ (1702) ‘Answer to Mr Joseph Haines’.
I do not love thee, Dr Fell.
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this alone I know full well,
I do not love thee, Dr Fell.
Written while an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford.
2.216 T. E. Brown (Thomas Edward Brown) 1830-97
A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!
‘My Garden’ (1893)
O blackbird, what a boy you are!
How you do go it!
‘Vespers’ (1900)
2.217 Cecil Browne 1932—
But not so odd
As those who choose
A Jewish God,
But spurn the Jews.
Reply to verse by William Norman Ewer.
2.218 Coral Browne 1913-91
Listen, dear, you couldn’t write fuck on a dusty venetian blind.
To a Hollywood script-writer who had presumed to criticise the ‘writing’ in Alan Bennett’s An Englishman
Abroad, in ‘Guardian’ 31 May 1991, obituary notice
2.219 Sir Thomas Browne 1605-82
Oblivion is a kind of Annihilation.
‘Christian Morals’ (1716) pt. 1, sect. 21
He who discommendeth others obliquely commendeth himself.
‘Christian Morals’ (1716) pt. 1, sect. 34
As for that famous network of Vulcan, which enclosed Mars and Venus, and caused that
unextinguishable laugh in heaven, since the gods themselves could not discern it, we shall not pry
into it.
‘The Garden of Cyrus’ (1658) ch. 2
Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living. All
things fall under this name. The sun itself is but the dark simulacrum, and light but the shadow of
God.