A famous remark attributed to the 18th century philosopher Edmund Burke - "It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph'' - has won a poll to discover the world's top ten quotations.

It edged out such other celebrated quotes as William Yeats's "Tread softly because you tread on my dreams,'' Martin Luther King's "I have a dream'', and Rudyard Kipling's "If you can keep your head...''

At No 4, lines about life's choices by the American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) - "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I, I took the one less travelled by'' - are among my favourites.

The poll, conducted by Oxford University Press, inspired me to select others. Choosing a top ten proved impossible. But the following quotes - a ten-strong team with a couple of subs - embody my view of things:

1. Love thy neighbour as thyself - Christ. Alternatively expressed as "do unto others as you would have others do unto you '' (but who said that?) this is the simple prescription for a peaceful world. Religion isn't necessary.

2. When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? - John Ball, a leader of the Peasants' Revolt, for which he was executed in 1381. We all began as equals. How did we lose that happy state? How can we get it back?

3. Look thy last on all things lovely every hour - Walter de la Mare (1873-1956). Possibly my favourite quotation. Appreciate beauty while you can.

4. Nothing is so beautiful as Spring - Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889). With this I would couple lines by Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962): "Blessed is he who has seen, not with his eyes but with his vision, Spring flow down woods....''

5. Nature is never spent; there lives the dearest freshness deep-down things - Manley-Hopkins. No matter how badly we abuse our planet, the earth will one day be green again, with the stars shining brightly over all.

6. Time - Used is Life, Wasted is Existence - an unknown sage at Hutton Buscel, near Scarborough, who inscribed the wisdom on the church sundial.

7. The good not done, the love not given, time torn off unused - Philip Larkin (1922-1985), penetrating to the core of our guilt. To these conscience-pricking words I would couple John Betjeman's lament for "the peace before the dreadful daylights starts, of unkept promises and broken hearts''.

8. He was too far out all his life, and not waving but drowning - Stevie Smith (1902-71). Goes for all of us, don't you agree?

9. Life is a long discovery, isn't it? We only get our wisdom bit by bit - Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953), who went on: "If you have luck you find in early youth how dangerous it is to tell the Truth; and next you learn how dignity and peace are the ripe fruits of patient avarice.''

10. Those little nameless acts of kindness and of love - Willam Wordsworth (1770-1850). Returns us to near the start. This and No1 are the keys to escaping the world founded on No 9.