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trade quotes

  • The most conservative man in the world is the British trade unionist, when you want to change him.

    - Ernest Bevin
      Speech to Trade Union Congress, 8 Sep.

  • A man must serve his time to every trade Save censurecritics all are ready made. Take hackneyed jokes from Miller, got by rote, With just enough of learning to misquote.

    -Rochdale
      English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, l.63^6.

  • Here is a pleasant situation, and yet nothing pleasant to be seen. Here is a harbour without ships, a port without trade, a fishery without nets, a people without business; and, that which is worse than all, they do not seem to desire business, much less do they understand it.

    - Daniel Defoe
    ^7  Of Kirkcudbright, Scotland.  A  Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, letter12.

  • What a finething capital punishment is! Dead mennever repent; dead men never bring awkward stories to light. Ah, it's a finething for thetrade! Five of 'emstrung up ina row; and none left to play booty, or turn white-livered!

    - CharlesJohn Huffam Dickens
    ^9  Fagin. Oliver Twist, ch.9.

  •    The walls of spiders' legs are made, Well mortised and finely laid; He was the master of his trade It curiously builded; The windows of the eyes of cats, And for the roof, instead of slats, Is covered with the skins of bats, With moonshine that are gilded.

    - Michael Drayton
      Nymphidia, the Court of Fairy.

  • So poetry, which is in Oxford made An art, in London only is a trade.

    -John Dryden
      'Prologue to the University of Oxon†at the  Acting of  The Silent Woman'.

  • War is the trade of kings.

    -John Dryden
    King  Arthur, act 2, sc.2.

  • The Catholics, bad harvests, and the mysterious fluctuations of tradethree evils mankind had to fear.

    - George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans Eliot
      The Mill on the Floss, bk.1, ch.12.

  • The effect of trade and commerce with respect to most civilized states is to send out of their countries what the poor, that is, the great mass of mankind, have occasion for, and to bring back, in return, what is consumed almost wholly bya small part of those nations, viz. the rich. Hence it appears that the greater part of manufactures, trade and commerce is highly injurious to the poor as being the chief means of depriving them of the necessaries of life.

    - Charles Hall
      The Effects of Civilization on the People in European States.

  • It is a commercial paper, a paper of business, and it is conducted on principles of trade and business. It floats with the tide: it sails with the stream. It has no other principle.

    -William Hazlitt
      Of  The Times. In the Edinburgh Review, May.

  • We are the trade union for pensioners and children; the tradeunionfor the disabledand thesick; thetradeunion for the nation as a whole.

    -William Randolph Hearst
      Election campaign speech, 20 Feb.

  • Dieu me pardonnera. C'est son me  tier. God will forgive me. It is His trade.

    - Heinrich Heine
       Attributed, on his deathbed.

  • The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out like shining from shook foil† Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wearsman'ssmudgeand sharesman'ssmell: thesoil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

    -Gerard Manley Hopkins
      'God's Grandeur'.

  • All classes of society are trade unionists at heart, and differ chiefly in the boldness, ability, and secrecy with which they pursue their respective interests.

    -William Stanley Jevons
      The State in Relation to Labour, introduction.

  • Trade could not be managed by those who manage it, if it had much difficulty.

    - Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
      Letter to Hester Thrale,16 Nov.

  •    There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake, Or the way of a man with a maid; But the sweetest way to me is a ship's upon the sea In the heel of the North-East Trade.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      'The Long Trail'.

  • C'est un me  tier que de faire un livre, comme de faire une pendule; il faut plus que de l'esprit pour e"  tre auteur. It is as much a trade to write a book as it is to make a watch; it takes more than wit to make an author.

    -Jean de La Bruye'  re
      Les Caracte'  res ou les m½urs de ce sie'  cle,'Des ouvrages de l'esprit', no.3.

  • A small, compact core, consisting of reliable, experienced and hardened workers, with responsible agents†connected byall therules of strict secrecy with the organisations of revolutionists, can, with the wide support of the masses and without an elaborate set of rules, perform all the functions of a trade union.

    -Vladimir Ilyich originally Vladimir IlyichUlyanov Lenin
      What Is to be Done?

  • Thisisthetrustymastiffthat istowatchoverourinterests, but which runs awayat the first snarl of the trade unions. A mastiff? It is the right honourable gentleman's poodle. It fetches and carries for him. It barks for him. It bites anybody that he sets it on.

    - David, 1st Earl Lloyd George (of Dwyfor)
      Speech to the House of Commons, 21 Dec, referring to the obstructive Conservative majority in the House of Lords BC BC exploited by the then Tory leader,  A  J Balfour.

  • The root of Evil, Avarice That damn'd ill-natur'd, baneful Vice, Was Slave to Prodigality, That noble Sin; whilst Luxury Employed a Million of the Poor, And odious Pride a Million more; Envy itself, and Vanity, Were Ministers of Industry; Their darling Folly, Fickleness, In Diet, Furniture and Dress That strange ridic'lous Vice, was made That very Wheel that turned theTrade.

    - Bernard Mandeville
      The Fable of the Bees, or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits (2nd edn.).

  • Thus methinks should men of judgement frame Their means of traffic from the vulgar trade, And as their wealth increaseth, so enclose Infinite riches in a little room.

    - Christopher Marlowe
    c.1589  The Jew of Malta (published1633), act1, sc.1.

  • Alas! What boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely slighted Shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless muse; Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life.

    -John Milton
      Lycidas, l.64^76.

  • Mon mestier et mon art, c'est vivre. My trade and art is to live.

    - Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
      Essais, bk.2, ch.6 (translated by Charles Cotton).

  • We consider ourselves to be free because no one in our society is allowed unlimited powerno leader, faction, party or 'class', no majority, no government, church, corporation, trade, or professional association or trade union. The secret of its freedom is that it is composed of a multitude of organisations in the constitution of the best of which is reproduced that diffusion of power which is characteristic of the whole.

    - Michael Joseph Oakeshott
      Rationalism in Politics.

  • Any daily journalist will tell you that one of the most important secrets of his trade is the trick of making it appear that there is news when there is no news.

    - George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair Orwell
      In the Tribune, 21  Apr.

  • I am sure that the immediate abolition of the slave trade is the first, the principal, the most indispensable act of policy, of dutyand of justice the legislature of this country has to take, if it is indeed their wish to secure those important objects† For we continue to this hour a barbarous traffic in slaves, we continue it even yet, in spite of all our great and undeniable pretensions as civilisation.

    -William known as  theYounger Pitt
      Speech to the House of Commons, 2 Apr.The House did not abolish slavery until1806.

  • 'The firm'a proud Victorian word.It evokes the lost sense of Victorian regard for the pride of people in their daily trade.

    - Sir V(ictor) S(awdon) Pritchett
    'Betjeman', in the NewYorker, 24 Jun.

  • Men don't and can't live by exchanging articles, but by producing them. They don't live by trade, but by work. Give up that foolish and vain title of Trades Unions; and take that of Labourers' Unions.

    -John Ruskin
      Open letter to EnglishTrades Unions, 29 Sep.

  • What is virtue but theTrade Unionism of the married?

    - George Bernard Shaw
      DonJuan to AnnWhitefield. Man and Superman, act 3.

  • People ofthesametradeseldommeettogether, evenfor merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracyagainst the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

    - Adam Smith
      An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, bk.1, ch.10, pt.2.

  • Every individual†intends only his own gain, and he is in this as in many other cases led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention† By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the publick good.

    - Adam Smith
      An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, bk.4, ch.3.

  •    The moving accident is not my trade; To freeze the blood I have no ready arts: 'Tis my delight, alone in summer shade, To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts.

    -William Wordsworth
      'Hart-LeapWell', part 2, l.97^100.

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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