Sir Henry Quotes & Sayings

Sir, I do firmly believe that domestic slavery, regulated as ours is, produces the highest toned, the purest, best organization of society that has ever existed on the face of the earth. — James Henry Hammond

My bravery however was the effect of assurance for could I have believed the current report, I should have fled as fast as any man, no man can possibly have a greater reluctance to an intimacy with Sir William Howe than my Self. — Henry Laurens

Mr. Clinton," he had said, when Henry ventured to inquire about a particularly ambiguous examination, "you may write until doomsday for all I care, but if your answers do not coincide with my answers they are wrong. Wrong, sir. — Harper Lee

No economy ever stands still. — Sir Henry Roy Forbes Harrod

I have the highest veneration of those Gentleman,
but, Sir, give me leave to demand, what right had they to say, We, the People? My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the People, instead of We, the States? States are the characteristics, and the soul of the confederation. If the States be not the agents of this compact, it must be one of great consolidated National Government of the people of all the States. — Patrick Henry

The most basic law of economics?that one cannot get something for nothing. — Sir Henry Roy Forbes Harrod

Sir, money, money, the most charming of all things; money, which will say more in one moment than the most elegant lover can in years. Perhaps you will say a man is not young; I answer he is rich. He is not genteel, handsome, witty, brave, good-humored, but he is rich, rich, rich, rich, rich -that one word contradicts everything you can say against him. — Henry Fielding

It is the glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset." "You are a strange man," said Sir Henry, when he had ceased. Umbopa laughed. "It seems to me that we are much alike, Incubu. Perhaps I seek a brother over the mountains. — H. Rider Haggard

I am not, sir, in favor of cherishing the passion of conquest. I am permitted ... to indulge the hope of seeing, ere long, the new United States, (if you will allow me the expression,) embracing not only the old ... — Henry Clay

But the curator said nothing mattered so long as it looked all right to the ignorant." [Lady Brace]
"Sort of government motto. I see." [Sir Henry Merrivale] — Carter Dickson

The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.
- Sir William Henry Bragg — William Henry Bragg

She only modelled for him once,' Max said stubbornly, leaning the canvases back against the wall and replacing the sheet.
'Once, twice or umpteen times, it's proof she knew Spataro ... how shall we put it? ... on terms a man who loved her might resent.'
'There are lots of artists in Montparnasse, Appelby, and lots of artists' models.'
'I wouldn't like it. And I bet Sir Henry didn't like it either.'
'There was nothing between Corinne and Spataro.'
'That's the problem, isn't it?' Appelby pointed with the stem of his pipe at the shrouded paintings. 'There may have been *literally* nothing between them. — Robert Goddard

Henry sailed from England in July of 1776. The stated objectives of Cook's third expedition were twofold. The first was to sail to Tahiti, to return Sir Joseph Banks's pet - the man named Omai - to his homeland. Omai had grown tired of court life and now longed to return home. He had become sulky and fat and difficult, and Banks had grown tired of his pet. The second task was to then sail north, all the way up the Pacific coast of the Americas, in search of a Northwest Passage. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The King saw them with no common satisfaction, expressing his desire in no particular to have yt Stellar fish engraven and printed. We wish very much, Sir, yt you could procure for us a particular description of yesd Fish, viz. whether it be common there; what is observable in it when alive; what colour it then hath; what kind of motion in the water; what use it maketh of all that curious workmanship, wch Nature hath adorn'd it with? — Henry Oldenburg

Sir Henry fixed him with a keen eye.
'Odd name, Tom Skatt - eh?'
'Thats right'
'You don't think we could be related?'
Tom looked up at his great-great-great-uncle and smiled.
'I don't think so'
'No,' grinned Sir Henry no, of course not — Henry Chancellor

It's an honor to win the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year award. — Peter Uihlein

Henry Denton: You Brits really don't have a sense of humor do you?
Elsie: We do if something's funny, sir. — Julian Fellowes

Now, I whispered. Boom! boom! boom! went the three heavy rifles, and down came Sir Henry's elephant dead as a hammer, shot right through the heart. — H. Rider Haggard

This place is a regular whispering-gallery. — Arnold Bennett

I was too much taken up with another interest to care; I felt beneath my feet the threshold of the strange door, in my life, which had suddenly been thrown open and out of which came an air of a keenness I had never breathed and of a taste stronger than wine. I had heard all my days of apparitions, but it was a different thing to have seen one and to know that I should in all likelihood see it familiarly, as I might say, again. I was on the lookout for it as a pilot for the flash of a revolving light and ready to generalise on the sinister subject, to answer for it to all and sundry that ghosts were much less alarming and much more amusing than was commonly supposed. There's no doubt that I was much uplifted. I couldn't get over the distinction conferred on me, the exception - in the way of mystic enlargement of vision - made in my favour.
("Sir Edmund Orme") — Henry James

Well, the news has got around. The Duchess of Keepsake has invited us to a ball, Sir Henry and Lady Withering have invited us to a ball, and Lord and Lady Hangfinger have invited us to ... yes, a ball."
"Well, that's a lot of ... "
"Don't you dare, Sam. — Terry Pratchett

Will the adoption of this new plan pay our debts! This, Sir, is a plain question. It is inferred, that our grievances are to be redressed, and the evils of the existing system to be removed by the new Constitution. Let me inform the Honorable Gentleman, that no nation ever paid its debts by a change of Government, without the aid of in- dustry. You never will pay your debts but by a radical change of domestic economy ... The evils that attend us, lie in extravagance and want of industry and can only be removed by assiduity and economy. — Patrick Henry

THERE IS A JUST GOOD WHO PRESIDES OVER DESTINIES OF NATIONS AND WHO WILL RAISE UP FRIENDS TO FIGHT OUR VALUES FOR US. THE BATTLE SIR, IS NOT TO THE STRONG ALONE, IT IS TO THE VIGILANT, THE ACTIVE, THE BRAVE. IF WE WERE BASE ENOUGH TO DESIRE IT, THERE IS NO RETREAT BUT IN SUBMISSION AND SLAVERY. BESIDES SIR WE HAD NO ELECTION. — Patrick Henry

She was afraid,' said Mrs. Bread, very confidently; 'she has always been afraid, or at least for a long time. That was the real trouble, sir. She was like a fair peach, I may say, with just one little speck. She had one little sad spot. You pushed her into the sunshine, sir, and it almost disappeared. Then they pulled her back into the shade and in a moment it began to spread. Before we knew it she was gone. She was a delicate creature. — Henry James

As Sir Henry Newbolt sums it up: "The real test of success is whether a life has been a happy one and a happy giving one." — Robert Baden-Powell

I am a member of this body. Therefore, sir, I shall neither fawn nor cringe before any party, nor stoop to beg ... I am here to demand my rights, and to hurl thunderbolts at the men who would dare to cross the threshold of my manhood. — Henry McNeal Turner

From CATS ARE KIND
A man said to the universe,
'Sir, I exist!'
'Excellent,' replied the universe,
'I've been looking for someone to take care of my cats. — Henry N. Beard

O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, no longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all? — Patrick Henry

If we wish to be free; if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained - we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms, and to the God of hosts, is all that is left us. — Patrick Henry

Petition me no petitions, sir, to-day; Let other hours be set apart for business. To-day it is our pleasure to be drunk; And this our queen shall be as drunk as we. — Henry Fielding

Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Beside, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of Nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. — Patrick Henry

I recall this passage as the hour of its first fully coming over me that she was a beautiful liberal creature. I had seen her personality in glimpses and gleams, like a song sung in snatches, but now it was before me in a large rosy glow, as if it had been a full volume of sound. I heard the whole of the air, and it was sweet fresh music, which I was often to hum over.
("Sir Edmund Orme") — Henry James

Atoms are round balls of wood invented by Dr. Dalton.
(Answer given by a pupil to a question on atomic theory, as reported by Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe.) — Henry Enfield Roscoe

If I had all the money I spent on drink, I'd spend it on drink (Sir Henry at Rawlinson End) — Vivian Stanshall

De Tocqueville, after his tour of the United States in 1831, was to comment that "The Senate contains within a small space a large proportion of the celebrated men of America. Scarcely an individual is to be seen in it who has not had an active and illustrious career: the Senate is composed of eloquent advocates, distinguished generals, wise magistrates, and statesmen of note, whose arguments would do honor to the most remarkable parliamentary debates of Europe." De Tocqueville was not the only foreign observer deeply impressed. The Victorian historian Sir Henry Maine said that the Senate was "the only thoroughly successful institution which has been established since the tide of modern democracy began to run." Prime Minister William Gladstone called it "the most remarkable of all the inventions of modern politics. — Robert A. Caro

Some soldier will say, 'You know, sir, you and I have some political disagreements, but I'm glad you came all the way out here.' And you know, you say, 'Well, maybe one day you'll see the light but I'm glad to be out here with you.' — Henry Rollins

Moriarty smiled his adder's smile.
And I relaxed. I knew. My destiny and his wound together. It was a sensation I'd never got before upon meeting a man. When I'd had it from women, the upshot ranged from disappointment to attempted murder. Understand me, Professor James Moriarty was a hateful man, the most hateful, hateable, creature I have ever known, not excluding Sir Augustus and Kali's Kitten and the Abominable Bloody Snow-Bastard and the Reverend Henry James Prince. He was something man-shaped that had crawled out from under a rock and moved into the manor house. But, at that moment, I was his, and I remain his forever. If I am remembered, it will be because I knew him. From that day on, he was my father, my commanding officer, my heathen idol, my fortune and terror and rapture. — Kim Newman

Beside, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. — Patrick Henry

promenade concert n. BRITISH a concert of classical music at which a part of the audience stands in an area without seating, for which tickets are sold at a reduced price. The most famous series of such concerts is the annual BBC Promenade Concerts (known as the Proms), instituted by Sir Henry Wood in 1895. — Catherine Soanes

A bum stood at the Lucky Market right in front of Artesia & Blossom. He was begging for money. He looked pretty pathetic, dressed in rancid, oily clothes. He smelled like cigarettes and urine. "Can you spare a dime?" he would ask. People would shake their heads or walk around him. He was getting nowhere. Two hours went by, no money, not a cent. "Please, a dime!" cried the bum. A middle-aged man walked by him, heard his plea and laid upon him a mint new dime. "Thank you, sir! Thank you!" shouted the bum. Dime in hand, the bum limped over to a phone booth and called in the airstrike. — Henry Rollins

It chances that I'd a letter myself by today's post, from Uncle Jonas Henry.' He chuckled. 'Seemingly he's as throng as he can be, and a trifle hackled with me for loitering here. I shall have to post off to Huddersfield next week, sir - and a bear-garden jaw I'll get when I arrive there, if I know Jonas Henry! — Georgette Heyer

Sir, the slowness of genius is hard to bear, but the slowness of mediocrity is insufferable. — Henry Thomas Buckle

Ye Gods and Little Fishes," said Sir Henry, "can it be? George, it's my own particular, one and only four starred Pussy. The super Pussy of all old Pussies... — Agatha Christie

Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugationthe last arguments to which kings resort. — Patrick Henry

Sir, I would rather be right than to be President. — Henry Clay

An ambassador', quipped Sir Henry Wootton, 'is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country. — Norman Davies

Far away on the path we saw Sir Henry looking back, his face white in the moonlight, his hands raised in horror, glaring helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him down. But that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him we could kill him. Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran that night. — Arthur Conan Doyle

The institutional arrangement whereby most professional economists are heavily burdened with teaching and administrative duties may militate against a sufficient admixture of the more laborious forms of statistical and field work. — Sir Henry Roy Forbes Harrod

It was grey windless weather, and the bell of the little old church that nestled in the hollow of the Sussex down sounded near and domestic. We were a straggling procession in the mild damp air - which, as always at that season, gave one the feeling that after the trees were bare there was more of it, a larger sky ...
("Sir Edmund Orme") — Henry James

Though I couldn't make out what she was talking of I was terribly frightened; the absence of a clue gave such a range to one's imagination.
("Sir Edmund Orme") — Henry James

The Constitution is said to have beautiful features; but when I come to examine these features, Sir, they appear to me horribly frightful. Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting - it squints towards monarchy. And does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American? Your president may easily become king ... Where are your checks in this government? ... I would rather infinitely - and I am sure most of this convention are of the same opinion - have a king, lords, and commons than a government so replete with such insupportable evils. — Patrick Henry

When the American Spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different; Liberty, sir, was then the primary object. — Patrick Henry

But the blots, Turkey," intimated I. "True,-but, with submission, sir, behold these hairs! I am getting old. Surely, sir, a blot or two of a warm afternoon is not to be severely urged against gray hairs. Old age-even if it blot the page-is honorable. With submission, sir, we both are getting old. — Henry James

The Brighton air used of old to make plain girls pretty and pretty girls prettier still - I don't know whether it works the spell now.
("Sir Edmund Orme") — Henry James

How long you been in the infantry, sir? Anything under ten miles counts as 'almost there'. — Henry V. O'Neil

His indirect way of approaching a character or an action, striving to realize it by surrounding rather than invading it, is ideally suited to the indefinite and suggestive presentation of a ghost story.
(introduction to "Sir Edmund Orme" by Henry James) — Herbert A. Wise

Do not suppose, dearest Sir, that I am so short-sighted as to destroy my life by English preaching, or any other preaching. St. Paul did much good by his preaching, but how much more by his writings. — Henry Martyn

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. — Patrick Henry

Sir, I wish to understand the true principles of the Government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more. — William Henry Harrison

What signifies sadness, sir; a man grows lean on it. — Henry MacKenzie

Henry, you mustn't mind. It is really a kindness to have him.' 'Well, I do mind, Emily,' said Mr Leslie, getting up. 'Kindness is one thing and your family is another. You treat this house as if it were the Ark, Emily, inviting everyone in.' 'At least she doesn't ask them in couples, sir,' said David. 'A female Holt would be appalling.' 'That's enough,' said his father. 'If Mr Holt comes into this house, I go out of it.' He took a cigar from the sideboard and went out, almost slamming the door. 'How — Angela Thirkell

If you will excuse us?'

'Go to Sir Henry's room,' Lady Mary called after her. 'And if you use weapons, be sure to call witnesses. — Dorothy Dunnett

There is a just God, who presides over the destinies the nation, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone, it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. If we were base enough to desire it, there is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains our forged. There clanking can be heard from Boston. Besides, sir, we have no election. — Patrick Henry