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house quotes

  • The old house carried an assurance, typically 2 Portuguese, that nothing was urgent.

    - Dean Gooderham Acheson
    On the US Embassy residence in Lisbon. Sketches from Life of Men I Have Known.

  • A House is not a Home.

    - Polly Adler
      Title of a book.

  • O this is no myain house, I ken by the biggin o't.

    -Anonymous
    c 'This is no my ain house'.

  • The House of Lords is like a glass of champagne that has stood for five days.

    -1st Earl
    Attributed.

  • Marriage is not a house or even a tent it is before that, and colder.

    - Margaret Eleanor Atwood
      Procedures from Underground,'Habitation'.

  • Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.

    -W(ystan) H(ugh) Auden
      'Sir, No Man's Enemy'.

  • It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set a house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs.

    - Francis,Viscount St Albans Bacon
      Essays, no.23,'Of  Wisdom for a Man's Self'.

  • A great many persons are able to become Members of this House without losing their insignificance.

    - Sir Beverley (Arthur) Baxter
      Speech, House of Commons.

  • And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there wasnot a house wherethere wasnot one dead.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Exodus12:30.

  • Choose you this day whom ye will serve† but as for me and my house, we will serve the L.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDJoshua 24:15.

  • And Samson said,Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slewat his death were more than they which he slew in his life.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Judges16:30.

  •    And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and gat him home to his house, to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Samuel17:23.

  •   But if ye shall at all turn from following me† Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and thishouse, which Ihavehallowed formy name, will Icast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Kings 9:6^7.

  •    The L ismy shepherd; Ishall not want.He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.Yea, though I walk through the valleyof theshadow of death,I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the L for ever.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORDPsalms 23:1^6.

  •    Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.One thing have I desired of the L, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the L all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the L, and to inquire in his temple.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORDORDPsalms 27:3^4.

  • How amiable are thy tabernacles,O L of hosts! 96 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the L: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Yea, thesparrow hath found anhouse, and theswallowa nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars,O L of hosts, my King, and my God.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORDORDPsalms 84:1^3.

  • Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the L: we have blessed you out of the house of the L.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORDPsalms118:26.

  • I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the L.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDPsalms122:1.

  • Except the L build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the L keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORDPsalms127:1^2.

  • Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs 9:1.

  • It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, thanwith a brawling woman in a wide house.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs 21:9.

  •   In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the L of hosts: the whole earth isfull of hisglory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDIsaiah 6:1^4.

  • Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Jeremiah 7:11.

  • Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built hishouseupona rock: And theraindescended, and thefloodscame, and thewindsblew, and beat uponthat house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 7:24^7.

  • And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, whenye departoutofthat house orcity, shake off the dust of your feet.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew10:14.

  • When the unclean spirit isgone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew12:43^5.

  • Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 24:42^3.

  • And intowhatsoeverhouseye enter, first say,Peacebeto this house. And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it: if not, it shall turn to you again. And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Luke10:5^7.

  •    Inmy Father'shousearemanymansions: if it werenot so, Iwould havetold you.Igotopreparea placefor you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St  John14:2^3.

  • For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Corinthians 5:1.

  • Nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum, in vanum laboraverunt qui aedificant eam. Nisi Dominus custodierit civitatem, frustra vigilat qui custodit eam. Unless the Lord has built the house, its builders have laboured in vain.Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman watches in vain.

    -Bible (Vulgate)
    Psalm126:1 (Psalm127:1  Authorized Version).

  • Peace be to this house.

    -Book of Common Prayer
    Visitation of the Sick.

  • Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

    - Edmund Burke
      Reflections on the Revolution in France.

  • Laws themselves, political Constitutions, are not our Life; but only the house wherein our Life is led.

    -Thomas Carlyle
      Critical and Miscellaneous Essays,'History'.

  • A man's house is his castle.

    - Sir Edward Coke
      The Third Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, ch.73.

  • Oh, to have a little house! To own the hearth and stool and all! The heaped-up sods upon the fire, The pile of turf against the wall! To have a clock with weights and chains And pendulum swinging up and down, A dresser filled with shining delph, Speckled and white and blue and brown!

    - Padraic Colum
    c.1907  'An Old Woman of the Roads'.

  • I want to be something so muchworthier thanthe doll in the doll's house.

    - CharlesJohn Huffam Dickens
    ^5  Bella. Our Mutual Friend, bk.4, ch.5.

  • One need not be a Chamberto be Haunted One need not be a House The brain has Corridorssurpassing Material Place

    - Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
    c.1863  Complete Poems, no.670 (first published1891).

  • If a traveller were informed that such a man was Leader of the House of Commons, he may well begin to comprehend how the Egyptians came to worship an insect.

    - Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield Disraeli
      Of Lord John Russell.  Attributed.

  • And seeing the snail, which everywhere doth roam, Carrying his own house still, still is at home, Follow (for he is easy paced) this snail, Be thine own palace, or the world's thy gaol.

    -John Donne
    ^8  'To Sir Henry Wotton'.

  • The great house of our humanity No longer stands.

    -William Dunbar
      Ground Work: Before the War,'Bring It Up from the Dark'.

  • Tenants of the house, Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.

    -T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
      'Gerontion'.

  • The House of Lords is a model of how to care for the elderly.

    - Frank Field
      In the Observer, 24 May.

  • Worst damnfool mistake I ever made was letting myself be elected Vice-President of the United States. Should have stuck†as Speaker of the House† Gave up the second most important job in Government foreight long years as Roosevelt's spare tire.

    -John Nance Garner
      In the Saturday Evening Post, 2 Nov.

  • A man†is so in the way in the house!

    - Mrs Elizabeth Cleghorn ne  e Stevenson Gaskell
    ^3  Cranford, ch.1.

  • The House of Peers, throughout the war, Did nothing in particular, And did it very well: Yet Britain set the world ablaze In good King George's glorious days!

    - Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert
      Lord Mountarat's song, Iolanthe, act 2.

  • The labor of women inthehouse, certainly, enables men to produce more wealth than they otherwise could; and in this way [they] are economic factors in society. But so are horses.

    -Gilman and Charlotte Perkins Stetson
      Women and Economics:  A Study of the Economic Relation between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution, ch.1.

  • I acted so tragic the house rose like magic, The audience yelled,'You're sublime'. They made me a present of Mornington Crescent, They threw it a brick at a time.

    -W F Hargreaves
    'The Night I Appeared as Macbeth' (song).

  • We at no time stand so highly in our estate royal as in the time of Parliament, wherein we as head, and you as members, are conjoined and knit together into one body politic, so as whatsoever offence or injury is offered to the meanest member of the House is to be judged as done against our person and the whole Court of Parliament.

    -Henry VIII
       Address to a deputation from the House of Commons, 31 Mar.

  •    My God, I heard this day, That none doth build a stately habitation, But that he means to dwell therein. What house more stately hath there been, Or can be, than is Man? to whose creation All things are in decay.

    - George Herbert
    'Man', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

  • I remember, I remember, The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn; He never came a wink too soon, Nor brought too long a day, But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away!

    -Honorius of Autun
      'I Remember'.

  • I want a house that has got over all its troubles; I don't want to spend the rest of my life bringing up a young and inexperienced house.

    -Jerome K(lapka) Jerome
      They and I, ch.11.

  • He that tries to recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered hishousetosale, carried a brick inhis pocket as a specimen.

    - Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
      Of Shakespeare. Plays of  William Shakespeare, preface.

  • All my house, But now, steamed like a bath with her thick breath. A lawyer could not have been heard; nor scarce Another woman, such a hail of words She has let fall.

    - Ben Jonson
      Of Lady Politic Would-be. Volpone, act 3, sc.5.

  • If the husband be a man with whom you have lived on a friendly footing before marriage,if you did not come inonthewife'sside,if youdid not sneak intothehouse in her train, but were an old friend in first habits of intimacy before their courtship was so much as thought on,look about you† Every long friendship, every old authentic intimacy, must be brought into their office to be new stamped with their currency, as a sovereign Prince calls in the good old money that was coined in some reign before he was born or thought of, to be new marked and minted with the stamp of his authority, before he will let it pass current in the world.

    - Charles Lamb
      Essays of Elia,'A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People'.

  • Go out on the front porch of the house, turn the Washington Post over with your big toe, and if your name's above the fold, you know you're not going to have a good day.

    - Bert Lance
      Of the Bert Lance Toe Test which he devised for his nine months in the Carter administration. In the Washington Post, 6 Oct. US  newspaper  columnist  and 'agony  aunt',  who  offered  advice and information on  topics  such  as  family  life,  marriage,  social issues and health.

  • A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognised, and robed as destinies.

    - Philip Arthur Larkin
      'Church Going'.

  • I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars To earn you Freedom, the seven pillared worthy house, that your eyes might be shining for me When we came.

    -Arabia
      Seven Pillars of  Wisdom, dedication.

  • The day consists of twenty-four hours only. This regulates the size of the house and the ro"  le it has to fulfil. For the twenty-four hour day is short, and our acts and thoughts are spurred on by time. If we were taught to regard the hand of the clock as a beneficent but implacable god, we should order our lives more rationally.

    -Le Corbusier pseudonym of  Charles EŁ  douard Jeanneret
      'Twentieth-century living and twentieth-century building'. Collected in Dennis Sharp (ed)  The Rationalists: Theory and Design in the Modern Movement (1978).

  •    May it please your Majesty, I have neither eye to see nor tonguetospeak inthisplace, but asthis Houseispleased to direct me, whose servant I am.

    -William Lenthall
       To Charles I, on his arrival in the Chamber to arrest five Members, House of Commons, 4  Jan.

  • Pergo Park knew me, and Clavering, and Havering- atte-Bower, Stanford Rivers lost me in osier-beds, Stapleford Abbots sent me safe home on the dark road after Simeon-quiet evensong, Wanstead drew me over and over into its basic poetry, in its serpentine lake I saw bass-viols among the golden dead leaves, through its trees the ghost of a great house.

    - Denise Levertov
    The Jacob's Ladder, 'A Map of the Western Part of the County of Essex in England'.

  • 'A house divided against itself cannot stand': I believe that this Government cannot endure permanently half- slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fallbut I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

    - Abraham Lincoln
      Speech, Springfield,16  Jun.

  • All I've got against it is that it takes you so far from the club house.

    - Eric Robert Linklater
      Of golf. Poet's Pub, ch.3.

  •    Every man has a House of Lords in his own head. Fears, prejudices, misconceptionsthose are the peers, and theyare hereditary.

    - David, 1st Earl Lloyd George (of Dwyfor)
      Speech, Cambridge.

  • The chickens are coming home to roost, and you happen to have just moved into the chicken house.

    - Douglas MacArthur
    Comment to John F Kennedy on the presidentialcrisis. Kennedy enjoyed the remark and often quoted it. Quoted in Theodore C Sorensen Kennedy (1965).

  • What a wonderful sight, a full housemy mother would have loved it!

    -James Macarthur
      Speaking at the memorial service at NewYork's Shubert's Theater for his mother, Helen Hayes. Reported in the NewYork Times,19  Jun.

  • There is onlyone cure for the evilswhichnewlyacquired freedom produces; and that is freedom† The blaze of truth and liberty mayat first dazzle and bewilder nations which have become half blind in the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it.

    -1st Baron
      'Milton', in the Edinburgh Review,  Aug.

  • Lars Porsena of Clusium By the nine gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin Should suffer wrong no more.

    -1st Baron
      Lays of  Ancient Rome,'Horatius', stanza1.

  •    The labor of keeping house is labor in its most naked state, for labor istoil that never finishes, toil that hastobe begun again the moment it is completed, toil that is destroyed and consumed by the life process.

    -Joseph R(aymond) McCarthy
      'Vita  Activa', in the NewYorker,18 Oct.

  • I'll hae nae hauf-way hoose, buyaye be whaur Extremes meetit's the only way I ken To dodge the curst conceit o' bein'richt That damns the vast majority o'men.

    -Grieve
      A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, l.141^4.

  • It would be inaccurate to say that Churchill and I conversed. Like Gladstone speaking toVictoria, he addressed me as though I were a one-man House of Commons.

    -William Raymond Manchester
      The Last Lion.

  • The opera†is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.

    - H(enry) L(ouis) Mencken
     Letter to Isaac Goldberg.

  • He is a man who sits in the outer office of the White House hoping to hear the President sneeze.

    - H(enry) L(ouis) Mencken
    Of the Vice-President. Recalled on his death, 29  Jan1956.

  • Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. Thereremainno legalslaves,exceptthemistress ofevery house.

    -John Stuart Mill
      The Subjection of  Women, ch.4.

  • Spare me! You forget nothin'and forgive nothin'. Learn charity, woman. I have gonetiptoe in this house all seven month since she isgone. I have not moved from there to there without I think to please you, and still an everlasting funeral marches around your heart.

    - Arthur Miller
      Proctor to Elizabeth. The Crucible, act 2.

  • 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

    - Clement Moore
      The Night Before Christmas.

  • Nor was he insincere in saying,'Make my house your inn.' Inns are not residencies.

    - Marianne Craig Moore
      Observations,'Silence'.

  • Is not this house as nigh heaven as my own?

    - SirThomas More
    c.1534  Of the Tower of London.  Attributed in William Roper Life of Sir Thomas More (ed E  V Hitchcock,1935).

  • We all three got up on our elephant which brought us hither. For my own part I found [it] very uneasy riding, being badly seated and not accustomed (he had such a shuffling, jogging justling pace), sitting hindermost on the ridge of his monstrous massy chine bones, and nothing at all under me (nor they neither) that I wished myselfonfoot and would havelet myselffall off butthat it was somewhat too high. In fine, we alighted off from his back into the upper galleries of the house and saved the labour going upstairs.

    - Peter Mundy
    c.1620  On riding on an elephant. Travels (pubished c.1650).

  • Country manners. Even if somebody phones up to tell you your house is burning down, they ask first how you are.

    - Alice ne  e Laidlaw Munro
      The Progress of Love,'The Progress of Love'.

  • Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroysmy property, and kills or threatenstokill me or those that are in it, and to'bind me in all cases whatsoever'to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?

    -Thomas Paine
      The Crisis, introduction, Dec.

  • And it is that word 'hummy', my darlings, that marks the first place in'The House at Pooh Corner'at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.

    - Dorothy ne  e Rothschild Parker
      Book review in the NewYorker, 20 Oct.

  • House Beautiful is play lousy.

    - Dorothy ne  e Rothschild Parker
      Review in the NewYorker. Quoted in P Hartnoll Plays and Players (1984).

  • When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must show him on the roadside when you meet him; you must show him in the streets of the town; you must show him in the fair and the market place; and even in the house of worship, by leaving him severely aloneby putting him into a moral Coventry, by isolating himfromhiskindasif hewerea leperofold.You must show himyourdetestationofthe crimesthat hehas committed.

    - Charles Stewart Parnell
      Speech that established the practice of boycotting, Ennis, 19 Sep.

  • After dinner to the Duke's house, and there sawTwelfth Night acted well, though it be but a silly play.

    - Samuel Pepys
      Diary entry, 6 Jan.

  • Hardly one lighter or boat in three that had the goods of a house in, but there was a pair of virginalls in it.

    - Samuel Pepys
      Describing the chaos on theThames as people attempted to rescue their possessions from the flames. Diary entry, 2 Sep.

  • There was no impropriety whatsoever in my acquaintanceship with Miss Keeler† I shall not hesitate to issue writs for libel and slander if scandalous allegations are made or repeated outside the House.

    -John Dennis Profumo
      House of Commons, Mar.

  • When Winter scourged the meadow and the hill And in the withered leafage worked his will, Then water shrank, and shuddered, and stood still, Then built himself a magic house of glass, Irised with memories of flowers and grass, Wherein to sit and watch the fury pass.

    - Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
      'Ice'.

  • What,Mr Speaker! and sowearetobeggarourselvesfor fear of vexing posterity! Now, I would ask the honourable gentleman, and still more honourable House, why should we put ourselves out of our way to doanything for posterity; for what has posterity done for us? SeeAddison 7:40.

    - Sir Boyle Roche
    Debate in Irish House of Commons, quoted in SirJonah Barrington Personal Sketches and Recollections of his ownTimes (1827).

  • His Majesty entered the House, and as he passed up towards the Chair, he cast his eye on the right hand near Ruskin the Bar of the House where Mr Pym used to sit; but His Majesty, not seeing him there (knowing him well) went up to the Chair and said,'By your leave, Mr Speaker, I must borrow your chair a little.'

    -John Rushworth
      His account of the attempt made by Charles I to arrest five Members of Parliament on 4 Jan.

  • Themost beautiful house intheworld isthe onethat you build for yourself.

    -Witold Marian Rybczynski
    Quoted by PamelaYoung in Maclean's,19 Jun1989.

  • It's weel wi' you gentles, that can sit in the house wi' handkerchers at your een when ye lose a friend; but the like o'us maun to our wark again, if our hearts were beating as hard as my hammer. 724

    - Sir Walter Scott
      Saunders Mucklebackit to Oldbuck.TheAntiquary, ch.34.

  • The Rev St John Froude put the phone down thoughtfully. The notion that he was sharing the house with a disembodied and recently murdered woman was not one that he had wanted to put to his caller. His reputation for eccentricity was already sufficiently widespread without adding to it.

    -Tom (Thomas Ridley) Sharpe
      Wilt, ch.19.

  • A moderately honest man with a moderately faithful wife, moderate drinkers both, in a moderately healthy house: that is the true middle-class unit.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Man and Superman,'Maxims for Revolutionists: Moderation'.

  • Give me the liberty of the Press, and I will give the Minister a venal House of Peers, I will give him a corrupt and servile House of Commons†armedwiththeliberty of the Press, I will go forth to meet him undismayed.

    - Richard Brinsley Sheridan
      Speech, House of Commons.

  • The dialogue between client and architect is about as intimate as any conversation you can have because, when you're talking about building a house, you're talking about dreams.

    - Rod Sterling
      'TheTrend-SettingTraditionalism of Architecture', in the NewYorkTimes,13 Jan.

  • The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscriberesponsibility without power, the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages. See Baldwin 54:46.

    - SirTom originally Tom Straussler Stoppard
     Lord Malquist and Mr Moon, pt.6.

  • I have heard of a man who had a mind to sell his house, and therefore carried a piece of brick in his pocket, which he shewed as a pattern to encourage purchasers.

    -Jonathan Swift
      Drapier's Letters, no.2.

  • Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 7, l.1^4.

  • There should be less talk; a preaching point is not a meeting point.What do you do then? Take a broom and clean someone's house. That says enough.

    -Bojaxhiu
      A Gift for God,'Carriers of Christ's Love'.

  • Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs Aboutthelilting houseand happyasthegrasswasgreen.

    - Dylan Marlais Thomas
      'Fern Hill'.

  • Looking around the House, one realizes that we are all minorities now. See Shawcross 782:4.

    - (John) Jeremy Thorpe
      On the absence of a clear party majority, House of Commons, 6 Mar.

  • They lead, as a matter of fact, an existence of jumpiness and apprehension. They sit on the edge of the chair of Literature. In the house of Life they have the feeling that they have never taken off their overcoats.

    -James Grover Thurber
      On humorists. My Life and HardTimes, preface.

  • Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.

    -James Grover Thurber
      My Life and HardTimes, ch.2.

  • I was seized by the stern hand of Compulsion, that dark, unseasonable Urgethat impelswomento cleanhouse in the middle of the night.

    -James Grover Thurber
      Alarms and Diversions,'There's A Time For Flags'.

  • Please understand that there is no one depressed in this house.Wearenot interestedinthepossibilities ofdefeat; they do not exist.

    -Victoria in full  Alexandrina Victoria
      On the 2nd BoerWar. Comment to the Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour, Dec. Quoted in Lady Gwendolen Cecil Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury (1931), vol.3, ch.6.

  • I have lived long enough in the world to know that the safety of a Minister lies in his having the approbation of this House.Former Ministers neglected that and thereforethey fell; I have always made it my first study to obtain it, and therefore I hope to stand.

    - Sir Robert, 1st Earl of Orford Walpole
      Speech, House of Commons, 21 Nov.

  • 'I will not stand for being called a woman in my own house,'she said.

    - Evelyn Arthur StJohn Waugh
      Scoop, bk.2, ch.1.

  • Our course in the House of Lords ought to be very firm and uncompromising but moderate†an example of what has since been called the politics of the extreme centre.

    - Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
      Conduct of Opposition speech, Dec.

  •    In this House, which is termed a place of free speech, there is nothing so necessary for the preservation of the Prince and State as free speech; and without it, it is a scorn and a mockery to call it a Parliament House, for in truth it is none but a very school of flatteryand dissimulation, and so fit a place to serve the devil and his angels in, and not to glorify God and benefit the Commonwealth.

    - Peter Wentworth
      House of Commons, 8 Feb.

  • Shewould imprisonthe child inherhouseby theforceof love.

    - Patrick Victor Martindale White
      TheTree of Man, ch.7.

  • We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to lookout of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.

    -TennesseeThomas Lanier Williams
      Chris.The MilkTrain Doesn't Stop HereAnymore, sc.6.

  • From Bauhaus to Our House.

    -Tom (Thomas Kennerley) Wolfe
      Title of book.

  • Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer.

    - (Adeline) Virginia ne  e Stephen Woolf
      'Professions forWomen', lecture to the National Society for Women's Service, 21Jan.Woolf's solutionwas to throw the inkpot at theAngel (the embodiment of stereotypedVictorian femininity) whenever she appeared.

  • John Bull has gone to India And all must pay him heed For histories are there to prove That none of another breed Has had a like inheritance, Or sucked such milk as he, And there's no luck about a house If it lacks honesty. The ghost of Roger Casement Is beating on the door.

    -W(illiam) B(utler) Yeats
      'The Ghost of Roger Casement', stanza 3. Collected in New Poems (1938).

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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