The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

Men are never so good or so bad as their opinions.
‘Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy’ (1830) sect. 6 ‘Jeremy Bentham’
The Commons, faithful to their system, remained in a wise and masterly inactivity.
‘Vindiciae Gallicae’ (1791) sect. 1
1.26 Alexander Maclaren 1826-1910
‘The Church is an anvil which has worn out many hammers’, and the story of the first collision
is, in essentials, the story of all.
‘Expositions of Holy Scripture: Acts of the Apostles’ (1907) ch. 4
1.27 Archibald MacLeish 1892-1982
A Poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds
‘Ars Poetica’ (1926)
A poem should not mean
But be.
‘Ars Poetica’ (1926)
1.28 Murdoch McLennanfl. 1715
There’s some say that we wan, some say that they wan,
Some say that nane wan at a’, man;
But one thing I’m sure, that at Sheriffmuir
A battle there was which I saw, man:
And we ran, and they ran, and they ran, and we ran,
And we ran; and they ran awa’, man!
‘Sheriffmuir’ in J. Woodfall Ebsworth (ed.) ‘Roxburghe Ballads’ vol. 6 (1889). In James Hogg ‘The Jacobite
Relics of Scotland’ (1821) vol. 2, the last line reads: ‘But Florence ran fastest of a’, man’ (Florence being the
Marquis of Huntley’s horse)
1.29 Fiona McLeod 1855-1905
My heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.
‘The Lonely Hunter’ (1896)
1.30 Marshall McLuhan 1911-80
The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.