Thames Quotes

• If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn't swim.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Interesting, Swim, Saws

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• This strange disease of modern life,
  With its sick hurry, its divided aims.

  Matthew Arnold

  Life, Sick, Disease

  'The Scholar-Gipsy' (1853) l. 201

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• Below us the Thames grew lighter, and all around below were the shadows - the dark shadows of buildings and bridges that formed the base of this dreadful masterpiece.

  Ernie Pyle

  Dark, Bridges, Shadow

  Ernie Pyle, David Nichols (1987). “Ernie's war: the best of Ernie Pyle's World War II dispatches”, Touchstone

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• The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Differences, Would Be, Politics

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• The Thames is liquid history.

  John Burns

  History, Liquid

  To an American who had compared the Thames disparagingly with the Mississippi, in 'Daily Mail' 25 January 1943

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• Someday when peace has returned to this odd world I want to come to London again and stand on a certain balcony on a moonlit night and look down upon the peaceful silver curve of the Thames with its dark bridges.

  Ernie Pyle

  Dark, Night, Curves

  Ernie Pyle, David Nichols (1987). “Ernie's war: the best of Ernie Pyle's World War II dispatches”, Touchstone

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• I long ago suggested the hypothesis, that in the basin of the Thames there are indications of a meeting in the Pleistocene period of a northern and southern fauna.

  Charles Lyell

  Long Ago, Southern, Periods

  Charles Lyell (1873). “The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man with an Outline of Glacial and Post-tertiary Geology and Remarks on the Origin of Species with Special Reference to Mans First Appearance on the Earth by Charles Lyell”, p.202

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• Twenty bridges from Tower to Kew — (Twenty bridges or twenty two) — Wanted to know what the River knew, For they were young, and the Thames was old And this is the tale that River told.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Bridges, Two, Rivers

  "Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling".

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• And there is London!--England's heart and soul. By the proud flowing of her famous Thames, She circulates through countless lands and isles Her greatness; gloriously she rules, At once the awe and sceptre of the world.

  Robert Montgomery

  Heart, Greatness, Land

  Robert Montgomery (1836). “Selections from the Poetical Works: With Introductory Remarks, and an Appendix Containing Extracts from Satires, Notes, &c”, p.125

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• In every cry of every man,
  In every infant's cry of fear,
  In every voice, in every ban,
  The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.

  William Blake

  Men, Voice, Mind

  William Blake, Andrew Lincoln (1991). “Songs of Innocence and of Experience”, p.193, Princeton University Press

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• I've just swum the length of the Thames. I feel quite tired.

  David Walliams

  Tired, Length, Feels

  "David Walliams swim in river Thames makes a million for charity" by Caroline Davies, www.theguardian.com. September 12, 2011.

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• The Thames was all gold. God it was beautiful, so fine that I began working a frenzy, following the sun and its reflections on the water.

  Claude Monet

  Beautiful, Reflection, Water

  Claude Monet (2014). “Monet by Himself: Paintings, Drawings, Pastels, Letters”, Chartwell

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• Everything I loved had been dead for two centuries - or, as in the case of Graeco-Roman classicism, for two milenniums. I am never a part of anything around me - in everything I am an outsider. Should I find it possible to crawl backward through the Halls of Time to that age which is nearest my own fancy, I should doubtless be bawled out of the coffee-houses for heresy in religion, or else lampooned by John Dennis till I found refuge in the deep, silent Thames, that covers many another unfortunate.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Coffee, Two, House

  Letter to "The Keicomolo" - Kleiner, Cole, and Moe (October 1916), in "Selected Letters I, 1911-1924" edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, (p. 27), 1964.

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• The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind, Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind, Whole nations enter with each swelling tide, And seas but join the regions they divide; Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold, And the new world launch forth to seek the old.

  Alexander Pope

  Wind, Sea, World

  Alexander Pope (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Alexander Pope (Illustrated)”, p.139, Delphi Classics

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• Because of the Thames I have always loved inland waterways - water in general, water sounds - there's music in water. Brooks babbling, fountains splashing. Weirs, waterfalls; tumbling, gushing.

  Julie Andrews

  Water, Splashing, Sound

  Julie Andrews (2008). “Home: a memoir of my early years”

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• But if people want to swim in the Thames, if they want to take their lives into their own hands, then they should be able to do so with all the freedom and exhilaration of our woad-painted ancestors.

  Boris Johnson

  Hands, People, Swim

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• There is a hill beside the silver Thames, Shady with birch and beech and odorous pine; And brilliant underfoot with thousand gems, Steeply the thickets to his floods decline.

  Robert Bridges

  Brilliant, Hills, Silver

  Robert Bridges (1912). “Poetical Works Of Robert Brides Excluding The Eight Dramas”

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• The silver Thames takes some part of this county in its journey to Oxford.

  John Aubrey

  Journey, Oxford, Silver

  John Aubrey (1969). “Natural history of Wiltshire”

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• No, the last thing she cared about was whether people were staring at the boy and girl kissing by the river, as London, it's cities and towers and churches and bridges and streets, circled all about them like the memory of a dream. And if the Thames that ran beside them, sure and silver in the afternoon light, recalled a night long ago when the moon shone as brightly as a shilling on this same boy and girl, or if the stones of Blackfriars knew the tread of their feet and thought to themselves: At last, the wheel comes to a full circle, they kept their silence.

  Cassandra Clare

  Girl, Dream, Memories

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• Lord Maccon, being Lord Maccon and good at such things, then changed, right there in the Thames, from dog-paddling wolf to large man treading water. He did so flawlessly, so that his head never went under the water. Professor Lyall suspected him of practicing such maneuvers in the bathtub.

  Gail Carriger

  Dog, Men, Water

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• Kinship among nations is not determined in such measurements as proximity of size and age. Rather we should turn to those inner things - call them what you will - I mean those intangibles that are the real treasures free men possess. To preserve his freedom of worship, his equality before law, his liberty to speak and act as he sees fit, subject only to provisions that he trespass not upon similar rights of others - a Londoner will fight. So will a citizen of Abilene. When we consider these things, then the valley of the Thames draws closer to the farms of Kansas and the plains of Texas.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Real, Mean, Fighting

  "At ease: stories I tell to friends" by Dwight David Eisenhower, (p. 389), 1967.

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• If you go to London now, not everything is beautiful, but it's amazingly better than it was. And the Thames is certainly a lot better: There are fish in the Thames.

  Freeman Dyson

  Beautiful, London, Fishes

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, uk.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

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• They have poisoned the Thames and killed the fish in the river. A little further development of the same wisdom and science will complete the poisoning of the air, and kill the dwellers on the banks. I almost think it is the destiny of science to exterminate the human race.

  Thomas Love Peacock

  Science, Destiny, Thinking

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• My depth of purse is not so great
  Nor yet my bibliophilic greed,
  That merely buying doth elate:
  The books I buy I like to read:
  Still e'en when dawdling in a mead,
  Beneath a cloudless summer sky,
  By bank of Thames, or Tyne, or Tweed,
  The books I read — I like to buy.

  A. Edward Newton

  Summer, Book, Sky

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• The funny thing is, London is an incredibly interesting city. It's very sexy and it's very different, with the Thames winding through it like a snake.

  Mel Smith

  Sexy, Funny Things, Snakes

  4 Copy quote