Isle Quotes

• T is liberty crowns Britannia's Isle,
  And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.

  Joseph Addison

  Rocks, Liberty, Mountain

  Joseph Addison (1854). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison”, p.37

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• Ireland still remains the Holy Isle whose aspirations must on no account be mixed with the profane class-struggles of the rest of the sinful world ... the Irish peasant must not on any account know that the Socialist workers are his sole allies in Europe.

  Friedrich Engels

  Struggle, Europe, Class

  Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels (1942). “Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: selected correspondence, 1846-1895: with explanatory notes”

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• Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Lonely, Loneliness, Discovery

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.282, Penguin

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• This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-Paradise.

  William Shakespeare

  Kings, Precious Stones, Paradise On Earth

  'Richard II' (1595) act 2, sc. 1, l. 40

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• There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom you lay the firmest foundations both of loyalty and order.

  William E. Gladstone

  Loyalty, Freedom, Order

  1879 Speech, West Calder, 27 Nov.

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• At the Isle of Wight, the sound went out and kind of kept on going. And I wasn't... when I came off stage I was kind of unhappy about how we had played. But now, I listen back to those recordings and it's not bad.

  Keith Emerson

  Unhappy, Sound, Kind

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• I vowed I would do everything I could to stop the Isle of Man counting towards the World Championship. And it was stopped, so they love me in the Isle of Man.

  Barry Sheene

  Men, World, Championship

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• At age 10 or 12 he's going to boarding school in the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight is, of course, down at the bottom of England just off South Hampton.

  Jeremy Irons

  School, Age, England

  "Oscar, Tony, and Emmy Award-Winning Actor". Academy of Achievemnt Interview, www.achievement.org. October 27, 2000.

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• In 1973 we moved to the British Isle of Man, and I put my first band together for one year, named Melody Fair.

  Andy Gibb

  Men, Years, Together

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• This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

  William Shakespeare

  Blessed, Precious Stones, Paradise On Earth

  1595 John of Gaunt. Richard II, act 2, sc.1, l.40-50.

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• ...and then, in dreaming, / The clouds methought would open and show riches / Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked / I cried to dream again.

  William Shakespeare

  Dream, Clouds, Riches

  'The Tempest' (1611) act 3, sc. 2, l. [152]

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• This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,--This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

  William Shakespeare

  Kings, Wall, War

  'Richard II' (1595) act 2, sc. 1, l. 40

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• Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises.

  William Shakespeare

  Noise, Tempest, Caliban

  'The Tempest' (1611) act 3, sc. 2, l. [147]

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• Willows whiten, aspens quiver, little breezes dusk and shiver, thro' the wave that runs forever by the island in the river, flowing down to Camelot. Four gray walls and four gray towers, overlook a space of flowers, and the silent isle imbowers, the Lady of Shalott.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Running, Wall, Flower

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Professor Norman Page (2013). “Tennyson: Selected Poetry”, p.20, Routledge

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• The mother-women seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.

  Kate Chopin

  Summer, Mother, Husband

  Kate Chopin (1899). “The Awakening”, p.19

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• We came by night to the Fortunate Isles, And lay like fish Under the net of our kisses.

  Pablo Neruda

  Love, Kissing, Night

  Pablo Neruda, “Drunk As Drunk”

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• O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down
  Thro' the clear windows of the morning, turn
  Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
  Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!
  
  The hills tell each other, and the listening
  Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned
  Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth,
  And let thy holy feet visit our clime.
  
  Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds
  Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste
  Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
  Upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee.

  William Blake

  Morning, Spring, Eye

  William Blake (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of William Blake (Illustrated)”, p.18, Delphi Classics

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• I should know, for I am Morgaine le Fay, priestess of the Isle of Avalon, where the ancient religion of the Mother Goddess is born.

  Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Mother, Avalon, Ancient

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• The sigh of all the seas breaking in measure round the isles soothed them; the night wrapped them; nothing broke their sleep, until, the birds beginning and the dawn weaving their thin voices in to its whiteness

  Virginia Woolf

  Sleep, Night, Sea

  Virginia Woolf (2015). “To the Lighthouse”, p.112, Virginia Woolf

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• And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Regret, Sunset, Dragons

  Ursula K. Le Guin (2012). “The Farthest Shore”, p.37, Simon and Schuster

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• You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

  Pablo Neruda

  Autumn, Moon, Fire

  Pablo Neruda (2009). “The Captain's Verses/Los Versos Del Capitan”, p.77, New Directions Publishing

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• We are now the proud owners of a white boy. Now we have to shop in the caucasian isle and get sunscreen, mayonaise and mild salsa because the other ones really hawt!

  George Lopez

  Funny, Humor, Boys

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• And so, perhaps, the truth winds somewhere between the road to Glastonbury, Isle of the Priests, and the road to Avalon, lost forever in the mists of the Summer Sea.

  Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Summer, Wind, Sea

  Marion Zimmer Bradley (2001). “The Mists of Avalon”, p.11, Ballantine Books

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• Remember laughter. You'll need it even in the blessed isles of Ever After.

  James Thurber

  Laughter, Blessed, Needs

  James Thurber (1996). “Writings and Drawings”, Library of America

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• There is not any haunt of prophecy,
  Nor any old chimera of the grave,
  Neither the golden underground, nor isle
  Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
  Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
  Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
  As April's green endures; or will endure
  Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
  Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
  By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

  Wallace Stevens

  Spring, Home, June

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play”, p.22, Vintage

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