Old English Quotes

• Most of us would be upset if we were accused of being "silly." But the word "silly" comes from the old English word "selig," and its literal definition is "to be blessed, happy, healthy and prosperous."

  Zig Ziglar

  Happiness, Meaningful, Silly

  Zig Ziglar (1997). “Over the Top: Moving from Survival to Stability, from Stability to Success, from Success to Significance”, p.63, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• There is a word in Old English which belongs wholly to that civilization - "dustsceawung," meaning contemplation of dust. It is a true image of the Anglo-Saxon mind, or at least an echo of that consciousness which considered transcience and loss to be part of the human estate; it was a world in which life was uncertain and the principal diety was fate or destiny or "wyrd."

  Peter Ackroyd

  Fate, Loss, Destiny

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• The word heaven means harmony. The word hell is from the old English hell, meaning to build a wall around, to separate; to be helled was to be shut off from. Now if there is such a thing as harmony there must be that something one can be in right relations with; for to be in right relations with anything is to be in harmony with it. Again, if there is such a thing as being helled, shut off, separated from, there must be that something from which one is held, shut off, or separated.

  Ralph Waldo Trine

  Wall, Mean, Heaven

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• I've always used Old English in certain songs.

  Erik Rutan

  Song, Used, Certain

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• All these relics gave... Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine to memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night's repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old-English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings, all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Memories, Flower, Mean

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.90, Penguin

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• We are always giving foreign names to very native things. If there is a thing that reeks of the glorious tradition of the old English tavern, it is toasted cheese. But for some wild reason we call it Welsh rarebit. I believe that what we call Irish stew might more properly be called English stew, and that it is not particularly familiar in Ireland.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Food, Believe, Names

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• Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

  John Heywood

  Birthday, Gratitude, Horse

  John Heywood (1562). “The Proverbs, Epigrams, and Miscellanies of John Heywood ...”, p.391

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• It's kind of a cross between, I think. It's not, you know, over the top Old English, like Lord of the Rings would be or something like that, but there is a very sophisticated air about the Asgardians[?], you know, in their dialogue, and - hold on. Okay. Um, and I'm doing an English accent in the movie.

  Jaimie Alexander

  Thinking, Air, Would Be

  Source: collider.com

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• In Old English they don't say I had a dream, but there's another usage of the word - "life is but a dream," to be corny about it. It's implied with eyes wide open, rather than asleep. But I'm not a philosopher to explain myself. I wish I could. Maybe that's why I'm a musician.

  Tom Verlaine

  Dream, Eye, Wish

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• The Roman rule was, to teach a boy nothing that he could not learn standing. The old English rule was, "All summer in the field, and all winter in the study." And it seems as if a man should learn to plant, or to fish, or to hunt, that he might secure his subsistence at all events, and not be painful to his friends and fellow men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Summer, Education, Winter

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1523, Delphi Classics

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• I fell even more deeply in love with Tolkiens legendarium after studying Old English literature at uni, as I got a sense of the historical events and cultures that Tolkien used to create his world. My favourite of his imaginary locations is Lothlorien.

  Samantha Shannon

  Historical, Events, Culture

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• What Rob Brezsny does with words is grammarye, the Old English term for magic. With his strange brew of macho feminism and poetic rationalism, Brezsny weaves a yarn crazy enough to be true and real enough to subvert the literalist virus of cynicism now immobilizing the collective mindscape.

  Antero Alli

  Crazy, Real, Yarn

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• A lot of men who have accepted - or had imposed upon them in boyhood - the old English public school styles of careful modesty in speech, with much understatement, have behind their masks an appalling and impregnable conceit of themselves.

  J. B. Priestley

  School, Men, Style

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• I studied English literature in the honors program, which means that you had to take courses in various centuries. You had to start with Old English, Middle English, and work your way toward the modern. I figured if I did that it would force me to read some of the things I might not read on my own.

  Jeffrey Eugenides

  Mean, Honor, Literature

  "Interview: Jeffrey Eugenides on writing in C major". Interview with Carolyn Kellogg, latimesblogs.latimes.com. October 29, 2011.

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• Sometimes, looking at the many books I have at home, I feel I shall die before I come to the end of them, yet I cannot resist the temptation of buying new books. Whenever I walk into a bookstore and find a book on one of my hobbies — for example, Old English or Old Norse poetry — I say to myself, “What a pity I can’t buy that book, for I already have a copy at home.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Book, Home, Temptation

  Jorge Luis Borges, Calin Andrei Mihailescu (2000). “This Craft of Verse”, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press

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• How do you write? You write, man, you write, that's how, and you do it the way the old English walnut tree puts forth leaf and fruit every year by the thousands. . . . If you practice an art faithfully, it will make you wise, and most writers can use a little wising up.

  William Saroyan

  Wise, Art, Writing

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• It's funny how a film about a murderous old English toff can help you.

  Jim Broadbent

  Helping, Film

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• When the student has her voice under complete control, it is safe to take up the lyric repertoire of Mendelssohn, Old English Songs, etc. How simple and charming they are!

  Alma Gluck

  Song, Simple, Voice

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• Of the Black Prince [his son] at Crécy, 1345: Let the boy win his spurs. [Old English] Also say to them, that they suffre hym this day to wynne his spurres, for if god be pleased, I woll this iourney be his, and the honoure therof.

  Edward III of England

  Son, Winning, Boys

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• My favorite pudding is good old English apple pie.

  Jeremy Bulloch

  Apples, Pie, Pudding

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• The word coach comes from the old English word coach, which was a vehicle, a carriage that took royalty or very important people from where they were to where they wanted to go. That's really what a coach is. He or she tries to create a vehicle that will help you get where you're going, not where the coach wants you to go.

  Timothy Gallwey

  Leadership, Sports, People

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• My old English buddy, John Rackham, wrote and told me what made science fiction different from all other kinds of literature - science fiction is written according to the science fiction method.

  Frederik Pohl

  Different, Fiction, Literature

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• The Tories in England had long imagined that they were enthusiastic about the monarchy, the church and beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about rent.

  Karl Marx

  Long, Society, Church

  "By Appointment With the Future Queen" by Farzana Versey, www.counterpunch.org. April 28, 2011.

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• I do tend to be an analyzer. I'm an old English major from way back, so I do have fun tearing apart texts and trying to find the hidden secrets and the subtexts in there.

  Cynthia Nixon

  Fun, Secret, Trying

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