Quotes About Britain

Britain has been good to the Jews, and the Jews have been good for Britain.

In virtually every Continental state at this time, aristocracies had to live with the risk that their property might be pillaged or confiscated. Only in Great Britain did it prove possible to float the idea that aristocratic property was in some magical and strictly intangible way the people's property also. The fact that hundreds of thousands of men and women today are willing to accept that privately owned country houses and their contents are part of Britain's national heritage is one more proof of how successfully the British elite reconstructed its cultural image in an age of revolution.

I do not share the half-in, half-out attitude to the EU of some in Britain. Britain's place is in Europe.

I do miss things about Britain. I think there was a misconception, there definitely was, that I left because of bad press, and being pilloried. I left Britain because I fell in love with someone who lived in Switzerland - that was the main thing.

When you think of how much violence, how much blood... how much has been destroyed to create the great nations, America, Australia, Britain, Germany, France, Belgium - even India, Pakistan. Having destroyed so much to make them, we must have nuclear weapons to protect them - and climate change to hold up their way of life... a two-pronged annihilation project.

If Britain was to close down altogether overnight, then China would take up the slack of carbon emissions in two years. If America closed down, just the growth in China's emissions would replace America's emissions in 12 years.

About a hundred or so years before you were born, a Dark-Hunter made the mistake of falling in love with his Talpina. Unfortunately for the rest of us, she didn’t pass Artemis’s test. Artemis was so angry, she stepped in and banished the Talpinas from us, and implemented the oh so wonderful you’re-only-supposed-to-sleep-with-them-once rule. As further backlash, Acheron came up with the never-touch-your-Squire law. I tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve tried to find a decent one-night stand in seventh-century Britain. (Talon)

I was in Britain that year [1963] and some music publishing people in Denmark Street in London suggested me to the BBC. So I found myself in front of a British television show, which was a nice surprise.

BP found itself in a difficult situation after the tragic events in the Gulf of Mexico. We did everything we could to support it. Britain is interested in this, isn't it? I think it is. The same is true of other areas.

Even in Britain, the trade unions tell me that employment contracts have less protection than in the past.

I eat like a horse - my mother still brings me Cadbury's chocolate from Britain; I do have a very healthy appetite - but I work out.

People ask me if I'm influenced by British music, and I suppose I grew up listening to mostly British music - from new wave stuff through to heavy metal. Like, when I got into metal, it was Black Sabbath. I never really got into a lot of American rock. I appreciate some of it, but not much! Most of the great new wave music was coming out of Britain, and Germany. So maybe those influences have made their way into my music, and perhaps that's why I have this connection with people in Europe. But maybe it's something cosmic.

People who believe in 'universal health care' show remarkably little interest - usually none - in finding out what that phrase turns out to mean in practice, in those countries where it already exists, such as Britain, Sweden or Canada. For one thing, 'universal health care' in these countries means months of waiting for surgery that Americans get in a matter of weeks or even days.

Not surprisingly, extensive effort in Britain and America goes into finding tax shelter. the system is "efficient" for the shelter industry, not for the economy.

The fact is that Britain is the most warlike nation on earth. In the history of armed combat, we are the only democracy to have declared war on another democracy - England versus Finland in the second world war, in case you're interested - and we're always at the front of the queue when Johnny Foreigner gets a bit uppity. Who stood up to the Kaiser? Who stood up to Adolf? And let's not forget the Argies. What other country would have sent its fleet halfway round the world and lost 250 men to protect a flock of sheep and some oil that might or might not be there? We're still at it.

We should be working towards a carbon-neutral Britain by 2050. We should be working towards the elimination of petrol-driven motor cars, we should be really radical in what we do - the urgency of the problem is really enormous

The Americans are so much more positive. They are much more in love with success. In Britain, they're a fairly envious bunch, and they love it if you fail.

Fox hunting, there's big fox hunting thing, there's arguments in Britain about fox hunting. And they go around. They obviously hunt foxes because the foxes, they attack chickens. And posh people have an alliance with chickens just like in the First World War.

The transition to a low-carbon economy will be one of the defining issues of the 21st century. This plan sets out a route-map for the UK's transition from here to 2020...every business, every community will need to be involved. Together we can create a more secure, more prosperous low carbon Britain and a world which is sustainable for future generations.

Britain cherishes her eccentrics and wisely holds that the function of government is to build a walled garden in which anarchy can flourish.

My job is to support businesses, that means promoting British commerce in the big emerging markets that have been neglected in the past. It means keeping Britain open to inward investors, trade and skilled workers. It means cutting red tape which is suffocating growing companies which create jobs.

They believed that Britain was in Ireland defending their own interests, therefore the Irish had the right to use violence to put them out. My argument was that that type of thinking was out of date.

There are very few chefs both in Britain and the States that really identify the secret of being consistent. And combine consistency with flavor.

With respect to the northeastern boundary of the United States, no official correspondence between this Government and that of Great Britain has passed since that communicated to Congress toward the close of their last session.

An EU without Britain, without 1 of Europe's strongest powers, a country which in many ways invented the single market, and which brings real heft to Europe's influence on the world stage which plays by the rules and which is a force for liberal economic reform would be a very different kind of European Union.

Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be too clever by half. The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

In the end it may well be that Britain will be honored by the historians more for the way she disposed of an empire than for the way in which she acquired it.

I want Britain to punch its weight in the European Community.

I have a work presently in the Press named 'Six Months in Hell' which you may one day read. I consider it will be worth perusing, bruising badly the morals of Britain and America, while Royalty, clergy, critics, society and bloodhounds of law must all incur its censure.

In America journalism is apt to be regarded as an extension of history: in Britain, as an extension of conversation.

Britain and Pakistan will jointly fight the menace of terrorism .. Both the countries are facing a common threat of terrorism and we know that Pakistan is even more committed to fighting this menace

I don't think that the Scots are happy to drift into Britain becoming the poorest of the poor, sub-American 51st state.

Britain possesses no climate, only weather.

Anyone who thinks that wind factories are environmentally friendly should Google "Cefn Croes Photo Gallery", to see 100 chilling pictures showing how many miles of unspoiled Welsh countryside were disfigured to create the largest industrial site in Britain: all to "save" annually less than a quarter of the CO₂ emissions from a single jumbo jet.

When they see you get what you want and move on, quickly, you've done a contract with the crew from that point. In Britain if the sparks call you Guv on day two, you never need an award of any other kind.

The ban doesn't have anything to do with Livestrong or my ability to work in [the cancer] community. Perhaps it speeds it up. I don't know the examples in Great Britain of athletes who have fallen. I know the examples in the United States - the Tiger Woods, the Michael Vicks, even the Bill Clintons - people who are still out there able to work.

If Britain is to have a stable, affordable pension system, people need to work longer, but we will reward their hard work with a decent state pension that will enable them to enjoy quality of life in their retirement.

Combat forces of the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Poland, and other countries enforced the demands of the United Nations, ended the rule of Saddam Hussein - and the people of Iraq are free.

In Great Britain, governments often change their policies without changing their men. In France, they usually change their men without changing their policy.

In Britain, we haven't got enough money to make these long-running shows. We always do little mini ones. You have more control as an actor over what you want to do with it. On these you drive yourself mad trying to know what's going to happen, because the writers don't.

The art critics on some of Britain's newspapers could as easily have been assigned gardening or travel, and been cheerfully employed for life.

In the corporeal world, international law is whatever the United States and Great Britain say it is.

The colonial power tended to be France or Britain, and the Soviets were proclaimed as anti-imperialists. So, if you align yourself with the Soviets, it fits nicely with that kind of rhetorical division, but in reality it does not get you anywhere.

Britain gets the architecture it deserves. We don’t value architecture, we don’t take it seriously, we don’t want to pay for it and the architect isn’t trusted.

I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare. I actually want to do this Shakespeare play in New York, but I think it's interesting that there's this gaping hole in the repertoire in the American theater, which is Shakespeare. It's hardly ever done, compared to how often it's done in other companies, not just Britain. Someone from the Roundabout Theater Company - I said, "You never do Shakespeare." And he said, "Yes, we're not very good at it." And I thought, "What a terrible thing to say.".

I don't have to negotiate an arms agreement with Great Britain or with France.

After all we did for Britain, selling that corduroy and making it swing, all we got was a bit of tin on a piece of leather.

In Britain people might know me more for my comedy writing background, things like that.