Page:Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922).djvu/464

LAMB

1

Mary had a little lamb
Its fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.

Mrs. Sarah J. Hale—Mary's Little Lamb. First pub. in her Poems for our Children, 1830. Claimed for John Roulston by Mary Sawyer Tyler. Disproved by Mrs. Hale's son, in Letter to Boston Transcript, April 10, 1889. Mrs. Hale definitely asserted her claim to authorship before her death.

LANGUAGE

(See also Linguist, Speech, Words)

2

Well languag'd Danyel.

William Browne—Britannia's Pastorals. Bk. II. Song 2. L. 303.

3

Pedantry consists in the use of words unsuitable to the time, place, and company.

Coleridge—Biographia Literaria. Ch. X.

4

And who in time knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue? To what strange
shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent,
T' enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in th' yet unformed Occident
May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?

Sam. Daniel—Musophilus. Last lines.

5

Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows
Where noun, and verb, and participle grows.

Dryden—Sixth Satire of Juvenal. L. 583.

6

Language is fossil poetry.

Emerson—Essays. The Poet.

7

Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.

Emerson—Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.

8

And don't confound the language of the nation
With long-tailed words in osity and ation.

J. Hookham Frere—King Arthur and his Round Table. Introduction. St. 6.

9

Language is the only instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.

Samuel Johnson—Preface to his English Dictionary.

10

L'accent du pays ou Ton est n6 demeure dans
l'esprit et dans le cceur comme dans le langage.

The accent of one's country dwells in the
mind and in the heart as much as in the language.

La Rochefoucauld—Maximes. 342.

11

Writ in the climate of heaven, in the language
spoken by angels.

Longfellow—The Children of the Lord's Supper. L. 262.

12

La grammaire, qui sait regenter jusqu'aux rois, Et les fait, la main haute, obfiir i ses lois.
 | trans = Grammar, which knows how to lord it over kings, and with high hands makes them obey its laws.

Moliere—Les Femmes Savantes. II. 6.

13

Une louange en grec est d'une merveilleuse efhcace a la tete d'un livre.

A laudation in Greek is of marvellous efficacy on the title-page of a book.

Molière—Preface. Les Precieuses Ridicules.

14

L'accent est l'ame du discours, il lui donne le sentiment et la verity.

Accent is the soul of a language; it gives the feeling and truth to it.

Rousseau—Emile. I.

15

Syllables govern the world.

John Selden—Table Talk. Power.

16

He has strangled
His language in his tears.

Henry VIII.—Act V. Sc. 1. L. 158.

17

Thou whoreson Zed! thou unnecessary letter!

King Lear.—Act II. Sc. 2. L. 66.

18

You taught me language; and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!

Tempest Act I. Sc. 2. L. 363.

19

 Fie, fie upon her!
There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.

Troilus and Cressida. Act IV. Sc. 5. L. 55.

20

There was speech in their dumbness, language
in their very gesture.

Winter's Tale. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 12.

21

Ego sum rex Romanus, et supra grammaticam.

I am the King of Rome, and above grammar.

Sigismund. At the Council of Constance. (1414) To a prelate who objected to his grammar.

(See also Molière)

22

Don Chaucer, well of English undefyled
On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.

Spenser—Faerie Queene. IV. 2. 32.

(See also Whtttter)

23

Language is the expression of ideas, and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas they cannot retain an identity of language.

Noah Webster—Preface to Dictionary. Ed. of 1828.

24

From purest wells of English undented
None deeper drank than he, the New World's
Child,
Who in the language of their farm field spoke
The wit and wisdom of New England folk.

Whither—James Russell Lowell.

(See also Spenser)

25

Oft on the dappled turf at ease
I sit, and play with similes,
Loose type of things through all degrees.

Wordsworth—To the Daisy.