The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

3.55 Constantine Cavafy 1863-1933
When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long.
‘Ithaka’ (translated by E. Keeley and P. Sherrard)
Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
‘Ithaka’ (translated by E. Keeley and P. Sherrard)
Ithaka gave you the splendid jouney.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn’t anything else to give you.
‘Ithaka’ (translated by E. Keeley and P. Sherrard)
What are we all waiting for, gathered together like this on the public square?
The Barbarians are coming today.
(Waiting for the Barbarians, 1904)
And now, what will become of us without the barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.
‘Waiting for the Barbarians’ (translated by E. Keeley and P. Sherrard)
You will find no new places, no other seas,
The town will follow you.
(The Town, 1911)
3.56 Edith Cavell 1865-1915
Standing, as I do, in view of God and eternity, I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must
have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.
Words spoken in prison the night before her execution, in ‘The Times’ 23 October 1915
3.57 Margaret Cavendish (Duchess of Newcastle) c.1624-74
Greek, Latin poets, I could never read,
Nor their historians, but our English Speed;
I could not steal their wit, nor plots out take;
All my plays’ plots, my own poor brain did make.
‘Plays’ (1662) ‘To the Readers’
Marriage is the grave or tomb of wit.
‘Plays’ (1662) p. 525
If Nature had not befriended us with beauty, and other good graces, to help us to insinuate our
selves into men’s affections, we should have been more enslaved than any other of Nature’s
creatures she hath made.
‘Sociable Letters’ (1664) p. 27
But for the most part, women are not educated as they should be, I mean those of quality; oft
their education is only to dance, sing, and fiddle, to write complimental letters, to read romances,