Top 100 Sir William Quotes
#1. Sir William said he never spoke of 'madness'; he called it not having a sense of proportion.
Virginia Woolf
#2. [About John Evershed] There is much in our medallist's career which is a reminder of the scientific life of Sir William Huggins. They come from the same English neighbourhood and began as amateurs of the best kind. They both possess the same kind of scientific aptitude.
Hugh Newall
#3. Were I to prescribe a rule for drinking, it should be formed upon a saying quoted by Sir William Temple: the first glass for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the fourth for mine enemies.
Joseph Addison
#4. If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty languages, could not read the simplest peasant's face in its profounder and more subtle meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awful Chaldee of the Sperm Whale's brow? I but put that brow before you. Read it if you can.
Herman Melville
#5. Sir William Thomson, also known as Lord Kelvin, was an ingenious physicist and engineer, and he said that when you can measure something and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you can't measure it or express it numbers, your knowledge is lacking.
Michael Matthews
#6. In 1580, when William was sixteen, Campion passed through Warwickshire on his way to the more safely Catholic north. He stayed with a distant relative of Shakespeare's, Sir William Catesby, whose son Robert would later be a ringleader of the Gunpowder Plot.
Bill Bryson
#7. For Lady Elaine, from her brother, Sir William,
Eli Easton
#8. By 1803, therefore, Mrs Bennet could be regarded as a happy woman so far as her nature allowed and had even been known to sit through a four-course dinner in the presence of Sir William and Lady Lucas without once referring to the iniquity of the entail.
P.D. James
#9. Evelyn Waugh: How do you get your main pleasure in life, Sir William?
Sir William Beveridge: I get mine trying to leave the world a better place than I found it.
Waugh: I get mine spreading alarm and despondency and I get more satisfaction than you do.
Evelyn Waugh
#10. My bravery however was the effect of assurance for could I have believed the current report, I should have fled as fast as any man, no man can possibly have a greater reluctance to an intimacy with Sir William Howe than my Self.
Henry Laurens
#11. But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account, for in general, you know, they visit no newcomers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for us to visit him if you do not.
Jane Austen
#12. If it hadn't been for Bill Macdonald's book 'The True Intrepid,' I might never have found out about the women who went down to work in secret in New York for our own spymaster Sir William Stephenson in the Second World War.
Susanna Kearsley
#13. Why may the crinoline be justly regarded as a social invention? Because it enables us to see more of our friends." Sir William Hardman
Patricia Anderson
#15. There are three classes of human beings: men, women, and women physicians. - SIR WILLIAM OSLER
Sidney Sheldon
#16. Nothing has shown more fully the prodigious ignorance of human ideas and their littleness, than the discovery of [Sir William] Herschell, that what used to be called the Milky Way is a portion of perhaps an infinite multitude of worlds!
Horace Walpole
#17. Sir William had only stayed in our company for two nights before leaving during a spectacularly blustery storm. As I watched him leave I evilly hoped that the wind would blow him straight off his horse.
M.L. LeGette
#18. Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent should suffer. - Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1766)
Anonymous
#19. The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.
- Sir William Henry Bragg
William Henry Bragg
#20. Sir William meditated. "Do you recall the name of the saint who was a regular rip before he got religion?" he asked. "I think that applies to most of them," said Fosdike.
Edward J. O'Brien
#21. Sir, there is no Christian nation, thus free to choose as we are, which would establish slavery.
William H. Seward
#22. There is a distinction, but no opposition, between theory and practice. Each to a certain extent supposes the other. Theory is dependent on practice; practice must have preceded theory.
Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet
#23. Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me: yet,
if you be out, sir, I can mend you.
William Shakespeare
#24. Sir, this young fellow's mother could: whereupon
she grew round-wombed, and had, indeed, sir, a son
for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed.
Do you smell a fault?
William Shakespeare
#25. Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat.
William Shakespeare
#26. How much the fiction of Sir Walter Scott owes to Froissart, and to Philip de Comines after Froissart, those only can understand who have read both the old chronicles and the modern romances. It was one of the congenial labors of
William Cleaver Wilkinson
#27. Marry, sir, she's the kitchen wench and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light.
William Shakespeare
#28. I see, sir, you are liberal in offers. You taught me first to beg, and now methinks You teach me how a beggar should be answered.
William Shakespeare
#29. A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind;
Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.
William Shakespeare
#30. William Shakespeare: I have a wife, yes, and I cannot marry the daughter of Sir Robert De Lesseps. You needed no wife come from Stratford to tell you that, and yet, you let me come to your bed.
Viola De Lesseps: Calf-love. I loved the writer and gave up the prize for a sonnet.
Marc Norman
#31. Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the toothache; but a man that were to sleep your sleep, and a hangman to help him to bed, I think he would change places with his officer; for look you, sir, you know not which way you shall go.
William Shakespeare
#33. Lucentio: I read that I profess, the Art of Love.
Bianca: And may you prove, sir, master of your art!
Lucentio: While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart!
William Shakespeare
#34. But, indeed, words are very rascals, since bonds [vows] disgraced them."
Viola: "Thy reason, man?"
Feste: "Troth [Truthfully], sir, I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false, I am loathe to prove reason with them.
William Shakespeare
#35. Indeed, sir, if your metaphor stink, I will stop up my nose, or against any man's metaphor.
William Shakespeare
#37. A heretic, my dear sir, is a fellow who disagrees with you regarding something neither of you knows anything about.
William Cowper
#39. As long as I live under the capitalistic system I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp. This, sir, is my resignation.
William Faulkner
#40. ABRAHAM: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMPSON [Aside to Gregory]: Is the law of our side, if I say ay?
GREGORY [Aside to Sampson]: No.
SAMPSON: No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.
William Shakespeare
#41. Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits?"
Malvolio: "Fool, there was never a man so notoriously abused. I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art."
Feste: "But as well? Then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in you wits than a fool.
William Shakespeare
#42. Stick me in a confessional and ask the question: Sir, if you had the authority, would you forbid smoking in America? You'd get a solemn and contrite, Yes.
William F. Buckley Jr.
#44. With purpose to be dressed in an opinion of wisdom gravity profound conceit as who should say 'I am Sir Oracle and when I ope my lips let no dog bark.' 1.1
William Shakespeare
#45. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes. It provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance. Therefore,
William Shakespeare
#46. O sir, you are old; nature in you stands on the very verge of her confine; you should be ruled and led by some discretion, that discerns your fate better than you yourself.
William Shakespeare
#48. Sir, I am a true laborer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other men's good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck. (As You Like It, Act 3, Sc. 2.)
William Shakespeare
#49. There are two sorts of ignorance: we philosophize to escape ignorance; we start from the one, we repose in the other; they are the goals from which and to which we tend; and the pursuit of knowledge is but a course between two ignorances, as human life is only a traveling from grave to grave.
Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet
#50. First of all, the Captain rates the honorific 'sir.' You will render that honorific or I will plant my foot in your ass.
William C. Dietz
#51. There are a sort of men, whose visages
Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond;
And do a willful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dressed in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity profound conceit;
As who should say, I am sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
William Shakespeare
#52. I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking; so full of valor that they smote the air, for breathing in their faces, beat the ground for kissing of their feet.
William Shakespeare
#53. William gave the gallerist a grim look. In my experience, he said, crooks are usually the least dishonest of the bunch. It's not in their interest to deceive you, sir. This is how they make their living. Be patient.
Steven Price
#55. I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much
How to forget that learning; but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service.
William Shakespeare
#56. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, when he was British Foreign Secretary, said he received the following telegram from an irate citizen: "To hell with you. Offensive letter follows."
William Safire
#57. When they get done sending you to Parchman you'll have plenty of time between working cotton and corn you aint going to get no third and fourth of even, to study it." They looked at one another.
"Yes sir," George said. 'Especially wid you there to help me worry hit out.
William Faulkner
#58. I hold my peace, sir? no;
No, I will speak as liberal as the north;
Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,
All, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak.
William Shakespeare
#60. The Life of Sir Thomas Munro, by the Rev. G. R. Gleig, in two volumes, a new edition (London, 1831), vol. ii, p. 175.
William Sleeman
#61. ROMEO: Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit
did I give you?
MERCUTIO: The slip, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?
William Shakespeare
#62. An thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst/ never draw sword again.
William Shakespeare
#63. Marry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me, now my foes tell me plainly I am an ass. So that by my foes, sir I profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends, I am abused. So
William Shakespeare
#64. Lord Bacon told Sir Edward Coke when he was boasting, The less you speak of your greatness, the more shall I think of it.
William Shakespeare
#65. Famous Quotes on: Honesty, Wisdom, Thomas Jefferson
Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl in a foul oyster.
William Shakespeare
#66. O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted. I will give out divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be inventoried, and every particle and utensil labeled to my will: as, item, two lips indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth.
William Shakespeare
#67. Logic is the science of the laws of thought, as thought,
that is of the necessary conditions to which thought considered in itself is a subject.
Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet
#68. When Sir Joshua Reynolds died
All Nature was degraded;
The King dropped a tear in the Queen's ear,
And all his pictures faded.
William Blake
#69. That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack, when it begins to rain,
And leave thee in a storm.
William Shakespeare
#70. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.
William Shakespeare
#71. A good old man, sir. He will be talking. As they say, when the age is in, the wit is out.
William Shakespeare
#73. Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere.
William Shakespeare
#74. It is strongly suspected that a NEWTON or SHAKESPEARE excels other mortals only by a more ample development of the anterior cerebral lobes, by having an extra inch of brain in the right place.
Sir William Lawrence, 1st Baronet
#75. Sir, you have tasted two whole worms; you have hissed all my mystery lectures and been caught fighting a liar in the quad; you will leave by the next town drain.
William Archibald Spooner
#76. Why, there's no remedy; 'tis the curse of service, Preferment goes by letter and affection, And not by old gradation, where each second Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge yourself Whether I in any just term am affin'd To love the Moor.
William Shakespeare
#77. I, sir, am Dromio; command him away. I, sir, am Dromio; pray, let me stay.
William Shakespeare
#78. Speak, what trade art thou?
Why, sir, a carpenter.
Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?
What does thou with thy best apparel on?
William Shakespeare
#79. Herschel removed the speckled tent-roof from the world and exposed the immeasurable deeps of space, dim-flecked with fleets of colossal suns sailing their billion-leagued remoteness.
Mark Twain
#80. Come, sir, come,
I'll wrestle with you in my strength of love.
Look, here I have you, thus I let you go,
And give you to the gods.
William Shakespeare
#81. I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter
and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.(IAGO,ActI,SceneI)
William Shakespeare
#82. An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not.
William Shakespeare
#84. Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word:
If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire
Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st
Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!
William Shakespeare
#85. William: "I'm sure we can all pull together, sir."
Vetinari: "Oh, I do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.
Terry Pratchett
#86. GLOUCESTER
Now, good sir, what are you?
EDGAR
A most poor man made tame to fortune's blows,
Who by the art of known and feeling sorrows
Am pregnant to good pity.
William Shakespeare
#87. Sir Toby Belch: "Dost think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?" (Twelfth Night)
William Shakespeare
#88. One has to seek Beauty and Truth, Sir! As I always say to my pupils, you have to work to the finish. There's only one kind of painting. It is the painting that presents the eye with perfection, the kind of beautiful and impeccable enamel you find in Veronese and Titian.
William-Adolphe Bouguereau
#89. Why, sir, there is every probability that you will soon be able to tax it!
Said to William Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he asked about the practical worth of electricity.
Michael Faraday
#90. There's no remedy; 'tis the curse of service, Preferment goes by letter and affection, And not by old gradation, where each second Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge yourself Whether I in any just term
William Shakespeare
#91. Sir, the year growing ancient,
Not yet on summer's death nor on the birth
Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' th' season
Are our carnations and streaked gillyvors,
Which some call nature's bastards.
William Shakespeare
#92. What pleasure, sir, find we in life to lock it / From action and adventure?
William Shakespeare
#93. Slanders, sir, for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging think amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams.
William Shakespeare
#95. Lysimachus: Did you go to 't so young? Were you a gamester at five or at seven?
Marina: Earlier too, sir, if now I be one.
William Shakespeare
#96. Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love. We cannot call her winds and waters sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report: this cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove.
William Shakespeare
#99. Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek: I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the strangest mind i' the world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether (He's an oddity in that he enjoys having fun)
William Shakespeare
#100. The following Discourse [on art, by Sir Joshua Reynolds] is particularly Interesting to Blockheads as it endeavours to prove that There is No such thing as Inspiration & that any Man of a plain Understanding may by Thieving from Others become a Mich Angelo.
William Blake
