blade quotes

O he's a ranting roving blade! O he's a brisk and a bonnie lad! Betide what may, my heart isglad To see my lad wi' his white cockade.

-Anonymous
c 'The White Cockade'.

His blade struck the watera full second before any other†until, as the boats began to near the winning post his ownwas dipping inthe water twiceas fast as anyother.

- F T Desmond Coke
  Sandford of Merton, ch.12. Often misquoted as'All rowed fast but none so fast as stroke'.

Jolly boating weather And a hay-harvest breeze, Blade on the feather, Shade off the trees; Swing, swing together, With your body between your knees.

-William originally  WilliamJohnson Cory
  'Eton Boat Song'.

To fight for the right, to abhor the imperfect, the unjust, or the mean, to swerve neither to the right hand nor the left, to care nothing for flattery or applause or odium or abuseit is so easy to have any of them in Indianever to let your enthusiasm be soured or your courage grow dim but to remember that the Almighty has placed your hand on the greatest of his ploughs, in whose furrow the nations of the future are germinating and taking shape, to drive the blade a little forward in your time and to feel that somewhere among those millions you have left, a little justice, or happiness or prosperity, a sense of manliness or moral dignity, a springof patriotism, a dawn of intellectual enlightenmentora stirringofduty whereit did not exist beforethat is enough, that is the Englishman's justification in India.

- Lord George Nathaniel Curzon (of Kedleston)
  Farewell speech on departing from Bombay as Viceroy of India.

Puisque ceux qui avaient le devoir de manier l'e  pe  e de la France l'ont laisse  e tomber brise  e, moi, j'ai ramasse   le tron c° on du glaive. Since those whose duty it was to wield the sword of Francehave let it fall shattered totheground,Ihavetaken up the broken blade.

- Charles de Gaulle
  Speech,13  Jul.

La famille des Bourbons est un poignard que l'e  tranger en1814 a laisse   dans le c½ur de la France: changez le manche comme il vous plaira, dorez la lame si vous voulez, le poignard reste poignard. The Bourbon family is a dagger whichthe foreigner left in the heart of France in1814: changethe haft if you please, gild the blade if you will, the dagger remains a dagger.

- Edgar Quinet
  ¼uvres, vol.3, p.267.