Earliest Recorded Usage

Famous quotes containing the words earliest, recorded and/or usage:

    “The earliest instinct of the child, and the ripest experience of age, unite in affirming simplicity to be the truest and profoundest part for man. Likewise this simplicity is so universal and all-containing as a rule for human life, that the subtlest bad man, and the purest good man, as well as the profoundest wise man, do all alike present it on that side which they socially turn to the inquisitive and unscrupulous world.”
    —Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    “He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned.”
    —14th-century French proverb, first recorded in English in A. Barclay, Gringore’s Castle of Labour (1506)

    “Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”
    —Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)