The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

God be in my eyes,
And in my looking;
God be in my mouth,
And in my speaking;
God be in my heart,
And in my thinking;
God be at my end,
And at my departing.
‘Sarum Missal’
God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
No more water, the fire next time.
‘Home in that Rock’ (Negro spiritual)
God is not dead but alive and working on a much less ambitious project.
Graffito quoted in ‘Guardian’ 26 November 1975
Gotcha!
Headline on the sinking of the General Belgrano, in ‘Sun’ 4 May 1982
Great Chatham with his sabre drawn
Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strachan;
Sir Richard, longing to be at ’em,
Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham.
‘At Walcheren, 1809’; attributed to Joseph Jekyll (1753-1837)
Greensleeves was all my joy,
Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but Lady Greensleeves?
‘A new Courtly Sonnet of the Lady Greensleeves, to the new tune of “Greensleeves’‘, from ‘A Handful of
Pleasant Delites’ (1584)
Happy is that city which in time of peace thinks of war.
Inscription found in the armoury of Venice, in Robert Burton ‘The Anatomy of Melancholy’ (1621-51) pt. 2,
sect. 3, member 6.
Hark the herald angels sing
Mrs Simpson’s pinched our king.
1936 children’s rhyme quoted in letter from Clement Attlee, 26 December 1938, in Kenneth Harris
‘Attlee’ (1982) ch. 11
Have you heard? The Prime Minister has resigned and Northcliffe has sent for the King.
Joke circulating in 1919, on Lord Northcliffe succeeding Lloyd George as Prime Minister, in Hamilton Fyfe
‘Northcliffe, an Intimate Biography’ (1930) ch. 16
Here lies a poor woman who always was tired,
For she lived in a place where help wasn’t hired.
Her last words on earth were, Dear friends I am going