reply quotes

But as to risings, I can tell you why. It is on contradiction that they grow. It seemed the best thing to be up and go. Up was the heartening and the strong reply. The heart of standing is we cannot fly.

- Sir William Empson
  'Aubade'.

   Methinks I hear in accents low The sportive kind reply: Poor moralist! and what art thou? A solitary fly!

-Thomas Gray
  Ode on the Spring, l.41^4.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!' Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew In Memoriam A.H.H. Some one had blundered: Their's not to make reply, Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volleyed and thundered.

-Tennyson
  'The Charge of the Light Brigade', l.9^21.