Audio Links for the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations 8th Ed
A selection of links to recordings of some of the quotations in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations 8e, including original speeches, poets reading their own work, or works in Old English.
Anonymous
Hwæt! wē Gārdena in gēardagum
þēodcyninga þrym gefrūnon,
hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Listen!
The fame of Danish kings
in days gone by, the daring feats
worked by those heroes are well known to us.
http://faculty.virginia.edu/OldEnglish/Beowulf.Readings/Prologue.html
Guillaume Apollinaire
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine.
Et nos amours, faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne?
La joie venait toujours après la peine.
Under Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine.
And our loves, must I remember them?
Joy always came after pain.
http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Apollinaire/Apollinaire-Guillaume_01_Le-Pont-Mirabeau_1913.mp3
Neil Armstrong
That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/schoolradio/subjects/history/britainsince1930s/space/one_small_step
John Betjeman
Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/subalterns-love-song
Tony Blair
She was the People's Princess, and that is how she will stay…in our hearts and in our memories forever.
http://www.history.com/speeches/tony-blair-on-the-death-of-princess-diana
Robert Browning
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/how-they-brought-good-news-ghent-aix-extract
George Bush
Read my lips: no new taxes.
http://www.history.com/speeches/read-my-lips-no-new-taxes
Neville Chamberlain
This morning, the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by eleven o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/schoolradio/subjects/history/ww2clips/speeches/chamberlain_declares_war
Geoffrey Chaucer
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote.
http://www.vmi.edu/fswebs.aspx?tid=34099&id=34251
Geoffrey Chaucer
Ful weel she soong the service dyvyne,
Entuned in hir nose ful semely;
And Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frenssh of Parys was to hire unknowe.
http://www.vmi.edu/fswebs.aspx?tid=34099&id=34327
Geoffrey Chaucer
Grisilde is deed, and eek hire pacience,
And bothe atones buryed in Ytaille;
For which I crie in open audience
No wedded man so hardy be t'assaille
His wyves pacience in trust to fynde
Grisildis, for in certein he shal faille.
http://www.vmi.edu/fswebs.aspx?tid=34099&id=34343
Winston Churchill
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/schoolradio/subjects/history/ww2clips/speeches/churchill_finest_hour
Winston Churchill
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/schoolradio/subjects/history/ww2clips/speeches/churchill_the_few
Winston Churchill
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
http://www.history.com/speeches/churchills-iron-curtain-speech
Bill Clinton
I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
http://www.history.com/speeches/bill-clinton-denies-sexual-relationship
e e cummings
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=7157
e e cummings
‘next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/next-course-god-america
Charles de Gaulle
Faced by the bewilderment of my countrymen, by the disintegration of a government in thrall to the enemy, by the fact that the instututions of my country are incapable, at the moment, of functioning, I General de Gaulle, a French soldier and military leader, realize that I now speak for France.
http://audio.theguardian.tv/sys-audio/Guardian/audio/2007/04/27/CharlesdeGaulle.mp3
Edward VIII
At long last I am able to say a few words of my own…you must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/edward_viii/12937.shtml
T. S. Eliot
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/journey-magi
T. S. Eliot
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=7626
Elizabeth II
I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.
http://www.royal.gov.uk/imagesandbroadcasts/historic%20speeches%20and%20broadcasts/21stbirthdayspeech21april1947.aspx
Minnie Louise Haskins, spoken by George VI
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.http://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/1939-king-george-vis-christmas-message
Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=1551
Ted Hughes
With a sudden sharp hot stink of fox,
It enters the dark hole of the head.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=7078
John F. Kennedy
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/kennedy_audio.shtml
John F. Kennedy
Ich bin ein Berliner.
I am a Berliner.
http://www.history.com/speeches/john-f-kennedy-rallies-hope-for-berlin
Philip Larkin
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/whitsun-weddings
Timothy Leary
If you take the game of life seriously, if you take your nervous system seriously, if you take your sense organs seriously, if you take the energy process seriously, you must turn on, tune in and drop out.
http://www.history.com/speeches/timothy-learly-on-mind-expansion#timothy-learly-on-mind-expansion
Louis MacNeice
I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=1559
Nelson Mandela
I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for, and to see realized. But my lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
http://audio.theguardian.tv/sys-audio/Guardian/audio/2007/04/20/Mandelafinal.mp3
Herb Morrison
It's bursting into flames…Oh, the humanity, and all the passengers!
http://www.history.com/speeches/eyewitness-account-of-hindenburg-disaster#eyewitness-account-of-hindenburg-disaster
Nehru
At the stroke of the midnight hour, while the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.
http://www.history.com/speeches/nehru-speaks-on-indian-independence-day
Richard Nixon
The great silent majority.
http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forkids/speechesforkids/silentmajority/silentmajority02.mp3
Richard Nixon
I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.
http://www.history.com/topics/watergate/speeches#nixon-i-am-not-a-crook
J. B. Priestley
This little steamer, like all her brave and battered sisters, is immortal. She'll go sailing proudly down the years in the epic of Dunkirk. And our great-grand-children, when they learn how we began this war by snatching glory out of defeat, and then swept on to victory, may also learn how the little holiday steamers made an excursion to hell and came back glorious.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/dunkirk/14310.shtml
Ronald Reagan
We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’
http://www.history.com/speeches/reagan-on-the-challenger-disaster
Ronald Reagan
Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
http://www.history.com/speeches/reagan-demands-fall-of-berlin-wall
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
http://www.history.com/speeches/franklin-d-roosevelts-first-inaugural-address
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
http://www.history.com/speeches/fdr-asks-congress-to-declare-war-on-japan
Siegried Sassoon
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/everyone-sang
Edith Sitwell
Still falls the Rain—
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss—
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=1563
Stevie Smith
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/not-waving-drowning
Lord Spencer
She needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic.
http://audio.theguardian.tv/sys-audio/Guardian/audio/2007/05/02/EarlSpenceredit.mp3
Stephen Spender
Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/truly-great
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/voices_from_the_19th_century.html
Margaret Thatcher
To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only this to say. ‘You turn if you want to; the lady's not for turning.’
http://audio.theguardian.tv/sys-audio/Guardian/audio/2007/04/27/thatcher_final.mp3
Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
http://www.openculture.com/2012/08/dylan_thomas_recites_do_not_go_gentle_into_that_good_night_and_other_poems.html
Joseph Welch
Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness…Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
http://www.history.com/speeches/army-mccarthy-hearings
William Carlos Williams
so much depends
Upon
a red wheelbarrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/red-wheelbarrow
W. B. Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/lake-isle-innisfree
