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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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 make a habit of setting aside some time each evening to take out my knitting and work quietly on it, happily relaxing. I believe that it prepares me for sleep and washes away the cares of my day.I will consider that intarsia, or Fair Isle with three or more colors in a row, prepares nobody for sleep and cursing loudly while flinging knitting around the living room is about as far away from soothing as you can get.

  Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

  Believe, Sleep, Knitting

  Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (2012). “At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much”, p.156, Storey Publishing

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• 'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, and makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile... 'Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate, and hold in balance each contending state, To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war, and answer her afflicted neighbours' prayer... Soon as her fleets appear their terrors cease.

  Joseph Addison

  Kings, Prayer, War

  Joseph Addison, “A Letter From Italy”

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• From the sprinkled isles, Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea.

  Robert Browning

  Islands, Sea, Lilies

  Robert Browning, John Woolford, Daniel Karlin (1991). “The Poems of Browning: 1826-1840”, p.46, Pearson Education

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• It is not surprising that only one medieval state, Venice, long possessed anything clearly identifiavble as a navy in this sense. We shall see that no state in the British Isles attained attained this level of sophistication before the 16th century, and no history of the Royal Navy, in any exact sense of the words, could legitimately begin much before then. This book, which does, is not an institutional history of the Royal Navy, but a history of naval warfare as an aspect of national history. All and any methods of fighting at sea, or using the sea for warlike purposes, are its concern.

  Nicholas Rodger

  Book, Fighting, Sea

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• Its subject is the slow and erratic process by which the peoples of the British Isles learnt - and then for long periods forgot - about the 'Safeguard of the Sea', as the 15th century phrase had it, meaning the use of the sea for national defence, and the defence of those who used the sea.

  Nicholas Rodger

  Sea, Long, Phrases

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• When thou cam'st first, Thou strok'st me and made much of me; wouldst give me Water with berries in't; and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night; and then I loved thee And showed thee all the qualities o' th' isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile.

  William Shakespeare

  Spring, Night, Light

  William Shakespeare (1998). “Four Late Plays”, p.357, Wordsworth Editions

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• Sprinkled along the waste of years Full many a soft green isle appears: Pause where we may upon the desert road, Some shelter is in sight, some sacred safe abode.

  John Keble

  Islands, Sight, Years

  John Keble (1858). “The Christian year, thoughts in verse for the Sundays and holydays throughout the year [by J. Keble]. [Another]”, p.9

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• A shining isle in a stormy sea, We seek it ever with smiles and sighs; To-day is sad. In the bland To-be, Serene and lovely To-morrow lies.

  Mary C. Ames

  Lying, Sea, Shining

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