offence quotes

Ithink it iswellalsofor themaninthestreettorealizethat there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed.Whatever people will tell him, the bomber will always get through.The only defence is in offence, which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly thanthe enemy if you want to save yourselves.

- Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin (of Bewdley)
  Speech in the House of Commons,10 Nov.

To Hunt an'assault'on the mountain merely meant a concerted, military-style operation; whereas to Shipton 'assault'sounded more like a criminal offence.

- Ingrid Cranfield
  Of the contrast in approach to the climbing of Mt Everest between Eric Shipton, originally appointed as leader of the1953 expedition, and John Hunt, who replaced him. In Expedition, vol.8, no.4,  Jul.

She hugged the offender, and forgave the offence.

-John Dryden
  Cymon and Iphigenia, l.367.

My wealth is health and perfect ease; My conscience clear my chief defence; I neither seek by bribes to please, Nor by deceit to breed offence. Thus do I live; thus will I die. Would all did so well as I!

- Sir Edward Dyer
  'In Praise of a Contented Mind'.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence.

- Robert Lee Frost
  North of Boston,'Mending Wall'.

The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it.

-William Hazlitt
Sketches and Essays (published1839),'On Cant and Hypocrisy'.

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.

Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, After offence returning, to regain Love once possessed.

-John Milton
Samson  Agonistes, l.1003^5.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

- Alexander Pope
An Essay on Criticism, l.362^5.

What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things.

- Alexander Pope
  The Rape of the Lock, canto1, l.1^2.

Mr Speaker,Ithink thenoble young manhas no business to make anyapology. He is a gentleman, and none such should be asked to make an apology, because no gentleman could mean to give offence.

- Sir Boyle Roche
c.1796  Debate on motion to expel Lord Edward Fitzgerald from Irish House of Commons, quoted in SirJonah Barrington Personal Sketches and Recollections of his ownTimes (1827).

Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any.

-Jonathan Swift
  ATale of aTub,'Author's Preface'.