Quotations

People love to talk and when they say something memorable we call it a quotation.

Here’s a select list of phrases which have entered the language that were first said by particular individuals - complete with details on how, when and why they originated.

A picture paints a thousand words - Frederick R. Barnard

A riddle wrapped up in an enigma - Winston Churchill

Absolute power corrupts absolutely - Lord Acton

Blood, sweat and tears - Winston Churchill

Bugger Bognor! - King George V

Cogito ergo sum - René Descartes

Darling buds of May - William Shakespeare

Et tu, Brute - William Shakespeare

Excuse me while I kiss this guy - Jimi Hendrix

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears - William Shakespeare

From sea to shining sea - Katharine Lee Bates

Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration - Thomas Edison

History is bunk - Henry Ford

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child - William Shakespeare

I have nothing to offer but blood toil tears and sweat - Winston Churchill

I have nothing to declare but my genius - Oscar Wilde

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips - William Shakespeare

If music be the food of love, play on - William Shakespeare

Less is more - Robert Browning

Let not poor Nelly starve - King Charles II

Let’s roll - Todd Beamer

Life’s not all beer and skittles - Thomas Hughes

Like being savaged by a dead sheep - Dennis Healey

Many a true word is spoken in jest - Geoffrey Chaucer

May you live in interesting times - Frederic Coudert

Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water - William Shakespeare

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows - William Shakespeare

More light! - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nasty, brutish and short - Thomas Hobbes

Necessity is the mother of invention - Richard Franck

Never give a sucker an even break - W.C.Fields

No man is an island - John Donne

Nothing is certain but death and taxes - Daniel Defoe

One small step for man - Neil Armstrong

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely - Lord Acton

Say goodnight Gracie - George Burns

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em - William Shakespeare

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men, have mediocrity thrust upon them - Joseph Heller

Spare the rod and spoil the child - Samuel Butler

Standing on the shoulders of giants - Robert Hooke

The best laid schemes of mice and men - Robert Burns

The female of the species is more deadly then the male - Rudyard Kipling

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive - Robert Louis Stevenson

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated - Mark Twain

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things - Dan Quayle

We are a grandmother - Margaret Thatcher

We are not amused - Queen Victoria

You can lead a w**** to culture but you can’t make her think - Dorothy Parker.

You’ve never had it so good - Harold Macmillan

See also, our collection of quotations from Lincoln, Einstein and Marilyn Monroe.

…and, of course, a list of quotations wouldn’t be complete without a link to famous misquotations.