last quotes

  Ne supra crepidam sutor iudicaret. Let the cobbler stick to his last.

-Apelles   4c
Quoted in Pliny Naturalis Historia, 35.36.85.  A cobbler who had criticized  Apelles' way of rendering a sandal in one of his paintings, proceeded to criticize the rest of the painting as well. The expression became proverbial.

But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.

-Bible (NewTestament)
St Matthew19:30.

Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

-Bible (NewTestament)
St Matthew 20:15^16.

And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of duetime.For I amthe least of theapostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Corinthians15:8^9.

You have a row of dominoes set up.You knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last isthat it will go over very quickly.

- Dwight D(avid) Eisenhower
  Explaining the domino theory in relation to SE  Asia,7  Apr.

The silver swan, who living had no note, When death approached, unlocked her silent throat; Leaning her breast against the reedy shore, Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more: 'Farewell, all joys; Oh death, come close mine eyes; More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.'

- Orlando Gibbons
  TheFirst Set of Madrigals and Motets of Five Parts,'The Silver Swan'.

   When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. Theyare all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.

- Ernest Millar Hemingway
  Winner Take Nothing,'Fathers and Sons'.

   The great thing isto last and get your workdone, and see and hear and understand and write when there is something that you know and not before and not too damn much after.

- Ernest Millar Hemingway
  Death in the Afternoon, ch.16.

They call her a young country, but they lie: She is the last of lands, the emptiest, A woman beyond her change of life, a breast Still tender but within the womb is dry.

- A(lec) D(erwent) Hope
'Australia', in Collected Poems1930^1970 (1972).

Science says the first word on everything and the last word on nothing.

-Victor Marie Hugo
Attributed.

So here it is at last, the distinguished thing!

- Henry James
Quoted in Edith Wharton  A Backward Glance (1934), ch.14, section 3.  According to Wharton, these were  James's last words.

In Words, as Fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike Fantastic, if too New, or Old; Be not the first by whom the Neware try'd, Nor the last to lay the Old aside.

- Alexander Pope
An Essay on Criticism, l.333^6.

My soul; sit thou a patient looker-on; Judge not the play before the play is done: Her plot hath many changes, every day Speaks a new scene; the last act crowns the play.

- Francis Quarles
  Epigram, Respice Finem.

I should be the last person to say anything against temptation, naturally, but we have a proverb down here 'in baiting a mouse-trap with cheese, always leave room for the mouse'.

-Saki pseudonym of  Hector Hugh Munro
The Square Egg,'The Infernal Parliament' (published1924).

The way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old; His withered cheek, and tresses grey, Seemed to have known a better day; The harp, his sole remaining joy, Was carried byan orphan boy, The last of all the Bards was he, Who sung of Border chivalry.

- Sir Walter Scott
  The Lay of the Last Minstrel, introduction.

My name is Death: the last best friend am I.

- Robert Southey
  'The Lay of the Laureate', stanza 87.

One of the last†of the great narrating English virgins.

-John Hoyer Updike
Of Mildred Lathbury, protagonist of Barbara Pym's Excellent Women (1978). Attributed.