Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Oyster
It is unseasonable and unwholesome in all months that have not an R in their names to eat an oyster.
Butler—Dyet’s Dry Dinner. (1599).
’Twere better to be born a stone
Of ruder shape, and feeling none,
Than with a tenderness like mine
And sensibilities so fine!
Ah, hapless wretch! condemn’d to dwell
Forever in my native shell,
Ordained to move when others please,
Not for my own content or ease;
But toss’d and buffeted about,
Now in the water and now out.
Cowper—The Poet, the Oyster and Sensitive Plant.
Secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.
Dickens—Christmas Carol. Stave I.
“It’s a wery remarkable circumstance, sir,” said Sam, “that poverty and oysters always seem to go together.”
Dickens—Pickwick Papers. Ch. XXII.
I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I’ll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 20.
An oyster may be crossed in love! Who says
A whale’s a bird?—Ha! did you call my love?—
He’s here! he’s there! he’s everywhere!
Ah me! he’s nowhere!
R. B. Sheridan—The Critic. A Tragedy Rehearsed. Act III. Sc. 1.
He was a bold man that first eat an oyster.
Swift—Polite Conversation. Dialogue II.