The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

Every quotation a nineteenth-century speaker or writer might want, grouped under its subject, with the author, the date and the source given as exactly as Hoyt could manage.

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Occupations-Military: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

To things of sale a seller's praise belongs.— Shakespeare — Love's Labour's Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 240.
Traffic's thy god; and thy god confound thee!— Shakespeare — Timon of Athens. Act I. Sc. I. L. 246.
To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers.— ADAM SMITH — Wealth of Nations. Vol. II. Bk. IV. Ch. VII. Pt. III.
And what is true of a shopkeeper, is true of a shopkeeping nation. TUCKER (Dean of Gloucester)- Tract, 1766. That which is everybody's business, is nobody's business. S.— IZAAK WALTON — Compleat Angler. Pt. I. Ch. II.
Military. An Austrian army awfully arrayed.— ANONYMOUS — Quoted in Wheeler's
Magazine. Winchester, Eng. 1828. All quiet along the Potomac they say Except now and then a stray picket Is shot as he walks on his beat, to and fro, By a rifleman hid in the thicket.— ETHEL LYNN BEERS — The Picket Guard.
Ay me! what perils do environ The man that meddles with cold iron!— BUTLER — Hudibras. Pt. I. Canto III. L. 1.
Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopylæ!— BYRON — Don Juan. Canto III. St. 86.
His breast with wounds unnumber'd riven, His back to earth, his face to heaven.— BYRON — The Giaour. L. 675.
X. For the army is a school in which the miser becomes generous, and the generous prodigal; miserly soldiers are like monsters, but very rarely seen.— CERVANTES — Don Quixote. Ch. XXXIX.
O Chryste, it is a grief for me to telle, How manie a noble erle and valrous knyghte In fyghtynge for Kynge Harrold noblie fell, Al sleyne on Hastyng's field in bloudie fyghte.— CHATTERTON — Battle of Hastings.
He stands erect; his slouch becomes a walk; He steps right onward, martial in his air, His form and movement.— COWPER — The Task. Bk. IV. L. 638.
Terrible he rode alone, With his yemen sword for aid; Ornament it carried none But the notches on the blade. The Death Feud. An Arab War Song. St. 14. Tait's Edinburgh Magazine. July, 1850. Mouths without hands; maintained at vast expense, In peace a charge, in war a weak defense: Stout once a month they march, a blustering band, And ever, but in times of need, at hand. C.— DRYDEN — Cymon and Iphigenia. L. 401.
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay; Sat by his fire, and talked the night away, Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won.— GOLDSMITH — The Deserted Village. L. 155.
Wake, soldier wake, thy war-horse waits To bear thee to the battle back ;- Thou slumberest at a foeman's gates, - Thy dog would break thy bivouac; Thy plume is trailing in the dust, And thy red falchion gathering rust.— T. K. HERVEY — The Dead Trumpeter.
He slept an iron sleep,- Slain fighting for his country.— HOMER — Iliad. Bk. XI. L. 285.
Bryant's trans. Take thou thy arms and come with me, For we must quit ourselves like men, and strive To aid our cause, although we be but two. Great is the strength of feeble arms combined, And we can combat even with the brave.— HOMER — Πiad. Bk. XIII. L. 289.
Bryant's trans. The sex is ever to a soldier kind.— HOMER — Odyssey. Bk. XIV. L. 246.
Pope's trans. Ben Battle was a soldier bold, And used to war's alarms; But a cannon-ball took off his legs, So he laid down his arms.— HOOD — Faithless Nellie Gray.
As we pledge the health of our general, who fares as rough as we, What can daunt us, what can turn us, led to death by such as he?— CHARLES KINGSLEY — A March.
OCCUPATIONS-MILITARY. 443 "What are the bugles blowin' for?" said Files-on-Parade. "To turn you out, to turn you out," the Colour Sergeant said. "What makes you look so white, so white?" said Files-on-Parade. "I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch," the Colour-Sergeant said. "For they're hangin' Danny Deever, you can hear the dead march play. The regiment's in 'ollow square-They're hangin' him to-day; They're taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away. And they're hangin' Danny Deever in the morning."— RUDYARD KIPLING — Danny Deever.
And, though the warrior's sun has set, Its light shall linger round us yet, Bright, radiant, blest.— DON JORGE MANRIQUE — Coplas De Manrique. Last Lines. Trans. by
Longfellow. "Companions," said he [Saturninus], "you have lost a good captain, to make of him a bad general."— MONTAIGNE — Essays. Of Vanity.
He came and spoke to Ossian. "King of spears!" he said, "my son has not fallen without his fame. The young warrior did not fly; but met death as he went forward in his strength. Happy are they who die in youth, when their renown is heard!"— OSSIAN — Croma. Last Stanza.
Although too much of a soldier among sovereigns, no one could claim with better right to be a sovereign among soldiers.— SCOTT — Life of Napoleon.
And the stern joy which warriors feel In foemen worthy of their steel.— SCOTT — Lady of the Lake. Canto V. St. 10.
Hail to the chief who in triumph advances. ScoTT-Lady of the Lake. Canto II. St. 19. Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er, Dream of fighting fields no more: Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Morn of toil, nor night of waking.— SCOTT — Lady of the Lake. Canto I. St. 31.
Warriors! and where are warriors found, If not on martial Britain's ground? And who, when waked with note of fire, Love more than they the British lyre?— S. SCOTT — Lord of the Isles. Canto IV. St. 20.
Yet what can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that it runs back to a successful soldier?— SCOTT — Woodstock. Ch. XXXVII.
A braver soldier never couched lance, A gentler heart did never sway in court.— Shakespeare — Henry VI. Pt. I. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 134.
away. Drummer, strike up, and let us march— Shakespeare — Henry VI. Pt. III. Act IV. Sc. 7. L. 50.
Fie, my Lord, fie! a soldier, and afear'd?— Shakespeare — Macbeth. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 41.
Give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils.— Shakespeare — Henry V. Act III. Sc. 7. L. 161.
God's soldier be he! Had I as many sons as I have hairs, I would not wish them to a fairer death: And so his knell is knoll'd.— Shakespeare — Macbeth. Act V. Sc. 8. L. 47.
He is a soldier fit to stand by Cæsar And give direction.— Shakespeare — Othello. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 127.
I am a soldier and unapt to weep Or to exclaim on fortune's fickleness.— Shakespeare — Henry VI. Pt. I. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 134.
I said an elder soldier, not a better. Did I say, better? Julius Cæsar. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 56. May that soldier a mere recreant prove That means not, hath not, or is not in love!— Shakespeare — Troilus and Cressida. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 287.
Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth.— Shakespeare — As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 7. L. 149.
The painful warrior famoused for fight, After a thousand victories once foiled, Is from the book of honour razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toiled.— Shakespeare — Sonnet XXV.
'Tis the soldier's life To have their balmy slumbers wak'd with strife.— Shakespeare — Othello. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 257.
Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.— Shakespeare — All's Well That Ends Well. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 61.
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