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.