Quotes About Britain

When my family moved from Ireland in the 70s, Britain was such a difficult place to be Irish. It was a decade of real social and economic upheaval in Britain. There were strikes, the three-day week, the oil crises, huge inflation, the winter of discontent and, what was it, four Prime Ministers? And relations between Britain and Ireland at that time were at an all-time low. I was born in the year of Bloody Sunday and of course the pub bombings happened in the mid-1970s.

Before then, Britain was pessimistic and the role of government was largely managing Britain in decline.

For all the chatter that Britain has moved beyond class, recent studies have found that it determines the life chances of British people more today than at any point since the Second World War... A child born into a rich family in Britain will almost certainly live and die rich, while a child born into a poor family will almost certainly live and die poor.

They have it wrong in asking if Schroeder favors Britain over France, or France over Britain. Schroeder favors Germany. That is what we all have to understand.

I was talking to my publisher in Britain and was told here we are - we are sixty million people and we reckon only four hundred thousand people in Britain really read.

(I)t is highly questionable whether when 'Europe speaks with one voice', as we are so often told it is doing, anyone is really listening. Europe's reputation as a serious player in international affairs is unenviable. It is a feeble giant who desperate attempts to be taken seriously are largely risible. It has a weak currency and a sluggish inflexible economy, still much reliant on hidden protectionism. It has a shrinking, ageing, population and, with the exception of Britain, rather unimpressive armed forces and, not excepting Britain, muddled diplomacy.

It's the reason why so many people left Britain like I did in the mid 60s because Britain was exactly the same then as America is today, getting ready to redistribute social wealth and it didn't work. You've seen that in places like Greece, Portugal, Iceland, Ireland where the entire country's business has collapsed, gone bankrupt. That's where America is heading.

Every generation has its war. I have just been reminded of mine. It ended in 1989, 43 years after it began, the longest war Britain fought and certainly the most expensive. Its climax was total victory. Yet there was no parade, no medals, no colours hung in cathedrals. The Cold War saw no battles and cost almost no blood. Where there is no blood there is no glory and hence no history. Asked What did you do in the war, Daddy?, I could say only that I paid my taxes and left it at that.

When I warned them [the French] that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken. Some chicken! Some neck!

I shall endeavor to marshal British opinion against a course of action which would bring in my opinion the greatest evils upon the people of India, upon the people of Great Britain and upon the British Empire itself.

But more than anything else, for the British folks Irish people were all terrorists. So when we went to Britain, it was always a lot of resistance to U2. And that's why we came to America.

All the evidence here, for example, in Britain, is that migrants, particularly from the rest of Europe, who come here contribute far more in taxes.

This is our chance to build a Britain where everyone benefits from the success of the economy.

A man is allowed sufficient freedom of thought, provided he knows how to choose his subject properly.... But the scene is changed as you come homeward, and atheism or treason may be the names given in Britain to what would be reason and truth if asserted in China.

There's another way we are getting behind business - by sorting out the banks. Taxpayers bailed you out. Now it's time for you to repay the favour and start lending to Britain's small businesses again.

The British Labour Party has always had a very strong "Atlanticist component," with an obsequiousness to American policies, and Blair represents this wing. He's clearly obsessed with Iraq. He has to be because the overwhelming majority of the people of Britain oppose a military action. I've never known a situation like it.

Britain and the United States are, and will remain, strong and close partners on trade, security and defence.

Stop thinking that if Britain or America or Russia or the West or whatever becomes superior, then we'll beat them, and then we'll all have a rest and live happily ever after. That doesn't work.

I defy my honored opponents to give me the name of a single man imprisoned in the United States, Great Britain, or West Germany for being an atheist. But in former communist countries, millions of our Christian brothers and sisters in faith have passed through jails or been killed. Who has fought for freedom and obtained it - atheists or Christians?

I think the best singers in the world, historically, are American. Britain's got its fair share, as well, but some of the greatest singers, ever, whether you're talking about Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey or Aretha Franklin, are from the legacy here.

Today there are more Muslims at prayer on Fridays in Britain, France, or Germany than there are Christians at mass or liturgy in those countries on Sundays.

A ley line is what might be called a field of force, a trail of telluric energy. There are hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, all over Britain, and they've been around since the Stone Age.

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.

If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you.

We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country. We are there so the people of Britain and our global interests are not threatened.

The spirit of the South Atlantic was the spirit of Britain at her best. It has been said that we surprised the world, that British patriotism was rediscovered in those spring days. It was never really lost. But it would be no bad thing if the feeling that swept the country then were to continue to inspire us. For if there was any doubt about the determination of the British people it was removed by the men and women who, a few months ago, brought a renewed sense of pride and self-respect to our country.

Our language and literature are without a doubt Britain's greatest contribution to the cultural heritage of the world.

A 66-YEAR-OLD woman has become the oldest new mum in Britain after giving birth to a baby boy. I'm amazed she needed to have a caesarean section though, you'd think at 66 she would have needed some masking tape down there just to stop it falling out.

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.

By 18th century standards, they [Great Britain] were the freest, most dynamic, most willing to challenge tradition and authority. They had the highest wages and highest living standard, and probably the most engagement between the populace and the government of any country. Then the United States took those same qualities to the nth degree, and the British were suddenly appeared stodgy and tradition-bound.

Some members, like Britain and France, are ready, willing and able to take action in Libya or Mali. Others are uncomfortable with the use of military force. Let's welcome that diversity, instead of trying to snuff it out.

The role of Italy and of Austria has diminished as has that of France and Britain; Germany and Japan have suffered catastrophically.

Along with William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin is Britain's greatest gift to the world. He was our greatest thinker.

The Irish move to a very low corporation tax has generated very significant revenue growth, considerably in excess of Britain's, where a slower economy has been combined with a number of stealth taxes.

I always say to anybody who's going over to America for the first time, 'Whatever you do, go and see a popular mainstream film with a big audience.' Because people shout out. You never get that in Britain. Everybody's so quiet, scared to laugh. It's like being in church.

I would like to invite the citizens of Great Britain and the citizens of the U.S. and the citizens of the world to come here and walk freely through the streets of Venezuela, to talk to anyone they want, to watch television, to read the papers. We are building a true democracy, with human rights for everyone, social rights, education, health care, pensions, social security, and jobs.

Is it not obvious that Britain, under the regime of Tony Blair, has ceased to respect the Charter of the United Nations?

Putin is a despot, and he's a very good despot. And he will see things in a narrow way. What is good for Russia? That is what he will do. If that's represented by a move toward the Baltic, that would be very dangerous, but he would do it, on the assumption that he would ask himself the question: I am prepared to fight for Estonia. Is the United States? Is Germany? Is Britain, France?

We have, or have had women presidents or prime ministers in Liberia, Chile, Germany, Great Britain...and yet the US of A still hasn't had a women president. It's just beyond my thinking. Look at Congress.

Britain in the 1970s was undoubtedly an economic mess because of the oil price explosion.

If you were born in Britain after World War II, you see a continuous atmosphere of decline, moral and economic and political.

The way we live in the West we live like kings. People moan about this and that in Britain but we have running water, electricity, security and a rule of law and so many people in the world don't have these.

I think our people in Britain have a normative expectation of ethical conduct.

An unprecedented number of uniformed males, marching, parading and engaging in mock battles in every region of Great Britain brought a pleasant frisson of excitement into many normally quiet and deeply repetitive female lives.

I would have bet money that Britain would not vote to leave the EU, and I would have been wrong. I would have bet money that Trump would not have been the Republican nominee, and I would have been wrong and I certainly would have bet money that he wouldn't win the election.

Jacobitism involved much more than a debate about the merits of a particular dynasty. Men and women were well aware that its success was almost certain to involved them in civil war. And the more politically educated knew that the Stuart Pretender was a pawn in a worldwide struggle for commercial and imperial primacy between Britain and France.

The campaign in Iraq illustrates the continuing progress of military technology and tactics, but if there is a single overriding lesson it must be this: American military power, especially when buttressed by Britain's, is virtually unchallengeable today. Take us on? Don't try! And that's not hubris, it's just plain fact.

Britain's got talent, enormous talent, that's very obvious.