The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

3.6 James M. Cain 1892-1977
The postman always rings twice.
Title of novel (1934) and play (1936)
3.7 Sir Joseph Cairns 1920—
The betrayal of Ulster, the cynical and entirely undemocratic banishment of its properly elected
Parliament and a relegation to the status of a fuzzy wuzzy colony is, I hope, a last betrayal
contemplated by Downing Street because it is the last that Ulster will countenance.
Speech on retiring as Lord Mayor of Belfast, 31 May 1972, in ‘Daily Telegraph’ 1 June 1972
3.8 Pedro Calderón de La Barca 1600-81
Aun en sueños
no se pierde el hacer bien.
Even in dreams good works are not wasted.
‘La Vida es Sueño’ (1636) ‘Segunda Jornada’ l. 2146
Què es la vida? Un frenesí.
Què es la vida? Una ilusión,
una sombra, una ficción,
y el mayor bien es pequeño;
que toda la vida es sueño,
y los sueños, sueños son.
What is life? a frenzy. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a fiction. And the greatest good is
of slight worth, as all life is a dream, and dreams are dreams.
‘La Vida es Sueño’ (1636) ‘Segunda Jornada’ l. 2183.
3.9 Caligula (Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus) A.D. 12-41
Utinam populus Romanus unam cervicem haberet!
Would that the Roman people had but one neck!
In Suetonius ‘Lives of the Caesars’ ‘Gaius Caligula’ sect. 30
3.10 James Callaghan (Baron Callaghan of Cardiff) 1912—
A lie can be half-way around the world before truth has got his boots on.
‘Hansard’ 1 November 1976, col. 976
3.11 Callimachus c.305-c.240 B.C.
I abhor, too, the roaming lover, nor do I drink from every well; I loathe all things held in
common.
Epigram 28 in R. Pfeiffer (ed.) ‘Callimachus’ (1949-53)
A great book is like great evil.
Fragment 465 in R. Pfeiffer (ed.) ‘Callimachus’ (1949-53); proverbially reduced to ‘Great book, great evil’