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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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 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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• 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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• 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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• Life was so much simpler in pre-video days when everyone refused invitations because the 'Forsyte Saga' was on. Now we all just have a long list of unwatched shows, all of which, it seems, our friends are raving about. I feel as outdated as if I wore a Fair Isle sweater, ate Pot Noodle and had a two-bar electric fire in the sitting room.

  Simon Hoggart

  Fire, Two, Sweaters

  "Simon Hoggart's week: TV guilt and swanupmanship at Vintners' dinner" by Simon Hoggart, www.theguardian.com. May 24, 2013.

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• Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle. I breathe, and lo! the chattel becomes a man.

  Frederick Douglass

  Men, Fog, Blue

  Frederick Douglass (2013). “The Complete Autobiographies of Frederick Douglass”, p.262, Simon and Schuster

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• Shakespeare was an intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the shores of thought; within which were all the tides and waves of destiny and will; over which swept all the storms of fate, ambition and revenge; upon which fell the gloom and darkness of despair and death and all the sunlight of content and love, and within which was the inverted sky lit with the eternal stars -- an intellectual ocean -- toward which all rivers ran, and from which now the isles and continents of thought receive their dew and rain.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Stars, Revenge, Rain

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.616, Library of Alexandria

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• I was off the scene for a while during the ska period and when I returned and joined the Treasure Isle studio, I came there with a different mood. The musicians picked up on that and we kept on going in that direction. The music became slower, which gave the bass player the time to play more notes. In 1965 I named it rocksteady. The first rocksteady song was 'Girl I've Got A Date'. That one was still a bit up-tempo, leaning towards ska. It turned the tide and made Treasure Isle the number one studio.

  Alton Ellis

  Girl, Song, Player

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• It also occurred to him that throughout history, humankind has told two stories: the story of a lost ship sailing the Mediterranean seas in quest of a beloved isle, and the story of a god who allows himself to be crucified on Golgotha.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Sea, Two, Sailing

  Jorge Luis Borges (2000). “Brodie's report: including the prose fiction from In praise of darkness”

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• Around my house, I won't even speak to my family unless they first address me by my official Berzerker name, Godred Crovan, Victor of Sky-Hill and Ruler of Man and the Isles. And now that I think of it, that's probably why nobody speaks to me unless it's time to feed the dogs or take out the garbage.

  Zakk Wylde

  Dog, Men, Thinking

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• The sight of the first woman in the minimal two-piece was as explosive as the detonation of the atomic bomb by the U.S. at Bikini Island in the Marshall Isles, hence the naming of the bikini.

  Tom Waits

  Islands, Sight, Two

  "Tom Waits Interviews Tom Waits". www.npr.org. May 20, 2008.

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• I believe if I should die,
  And you should kiss my eyelids where I lie
  Cold, dead, and dumb to all the world contains,
  The folded orbs would open at thy breath,
  And from its exile in the Isles of Death
  Life would come gladly back along my veins.

  Mary Ashley Townsend

  Death, Lying, Believe

  Mary Ashley Townsend, Ralph Lee Woodward (2001). “Here and There in Mexico: The Travel Writings of Mary Ashley Townsend”, p.9, University of Alabama Press

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• Each section of the British Isles has its own way of laughing, except Wales, which doesn't.

  Stephen Leacock

  Laughing, Way, Economy

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• I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand; I saw from out the wave of her structure's rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying Glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged Lion's marble pines, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.

  Lord Byron

  Land, Bridges, Wings

  Lord Byron (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Lord Byron (Illustrated)”, p.264, Delphi Classics

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