The following quotations are so well known as to have become almost as much a part of the language as proverbs are. Where do they come from? Which of them do you think are worth remembering? and why?

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Hackney entered the English language in the 14th century as a noun. Some think perhaps it came from "Hakeneye" (now "Hackney"), the name of a town (now a borough) in England. Others dispute this explanation, pointing to similar forms in other European languages. The noun "Hackney," in any case, refers to a horse suitable for ordinary riding or driving, as opposed to one used as a draft animal or a war charger. When "hackney" was first used as a verb in the late 16th century, it often meant "to make common or frequent use of." Later, it meant "to make trite, vulgar, or commonplace." The adjective "hackneyed" began to be used in the 18th century and now is a common synonym for "trite."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hackneyed

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1. "The cup that cheers but not inebriates."
2. "When lovely woman stoops to folly ..."
3. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave
   When first we practice to deceive!"
4. "O woman, in our hours of ease,
   Uncertain, coy, and hard to please!
   When pain and anguish wring the brow
   A ministering angel thou."
5. "True wit is nature to advantage drest,
   What oft was thought, but ne'er so well exprest."
6. "Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
   Who never to himself hath said,
   This is my own, my native land?"
7. "Oh wad some power the giftie gie us,
   To see oursel's as ithers see us!"
8. "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
   And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
9. "The child is father of the man."
   10 ."Shades of the prison-house begin to close
   Upon the growing boy."
10. "Water, water everywhere,
    Nor any drop to drink."
11. "Her features had not that response
    That stamps the castle of Vere de Vere."
12. "Kind hearts are more than coronets,
    And simple faith than Norman blood."
13. "The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
    The man's the gowd for a' that."

Source: English Grammar: EBH Joubert 1969

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