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.

If Britain becomes a member of the Community, it will be healthier for Britain, advantageous for Europe, and a gain for the whole world. I do not know of many economic or political problems in the world which will be easier to solve if Britain is outside rather than inside the Community.

Up until I think eighth grade - when I found out in front of a roomful of people - I believed that England and Great Britain were two entirely different places. Like I didn't know that England was a part of Great Britain. I thought they were completely separate in every way.

I actually find in America, there's a slight snobbery about actors who go back and forth between big heavy dramas and popcorn fare. That always intrigues me, because that doesn't exist in the same way in Britain. And I imagine it would be worse. In terms of the sort of class, and the sort of snobby, slightly on the back-foot thing Britain has. But it's much more prevalent in America. I'm really intrigued by it. I don't know why that is. But I'm aiming to break down those barriers by being in a Shakespeare film and a Smurfs film within six months of each other.

I studied in Britain and spent great moments of my life there as a student living in Belsize Park. I admire the British trait of the stiff upper lip in the face of adversity. My wife studied in Britain too and both of us have many friends there.

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.

I have no idea what a British sensibility or a British sense of humor is. I have no concept of what that is. I have no concept of what American sensibility is. I was born in Great Britain, but I was only there for six months, and we moved to Belgium, where I grew up. I love Britain, I lived there for nine years doing shows and things, but I don't know what a British sensibility is. I'd like to have someone tell me what an American sensibility is.

Margaret Thatcher in Britain and soon after Ronald Reagan in the United States - both hard-line advocates of market fundamentalism - announced that there was no such thing as society and that government was the problem not the solution. Democracy and the political process were all but sacrificed to the power of corporations and the emerging financial service industries, just as hope was appropriated as an advertisement for a whitewashed world in which the capacity of culture to critique oppressive social practices was greatly diminished.

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.

While I enjoy spending time in L.A., Britain is my home.

In no country has the historical blackout been more intense and effective than in Great Britain. Here it has been ingeniously christened The Iron Curtain of Discreet Silence. Virtually nothing has been written to reveal the truth about British responsibility for the Second World War and its disastrous results.

Essentially we need a new social consensus for economic reform as New Labour has achieved in Britain.

I’ve spent a lot of recreational time walking around historical castles and estates, in Britain and Europe, and so I know what the real thing looks like

We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain!" They're going "You can't claim us, we live here! Five hundred million of us!" "Do you have a flag …? "No..." "Well, if you don't have a flag, then you can't have a country. Those are the rules... that I just made up!

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.

If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.

If you go on TV and say there's no other country in the world where you can be born poor and become rich, you get a huge megaphone. If you tell the truth, which is that most of the studies show actually the United States is worse than anybody except Britain in upward mobility, there is no audience for you.

Is this government of Britain's Isle, and this the royalty of Albion's King?

High national emotions are permissible when a soccer team is playing precisely because they are impermissible at most other times. There aren't, simply, many other places where you can sing your national anthem until you lose your voice without causing a riot. In the context of soccer, flag-waving nationalism - even chauvinistic, anti-foreigner, flag-waving nationalism - is acceptable in Britain.

We oppress people, we make our victims small wherever they are, whether they are a black girl in a rural community in, say, America or Britain, or whether it's something happening out there in one of the countries of conflict. I mean Sri Lanka, the human rights abuse there is appalling.

The moral of filmmaking in Britain is that you will be screwed by the weather.

The monarchy is so extraordinarily useful. When Britain wins a battle she shouts, God save the Queen; when she loses, she votes down the prime minister.

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.

Cordings make the best Covert coats, corduroys, moleskins and all the accoutrements. When I need a covert coat I get it from Cordings rather than make one myself and I'm a tailor so I should know! Cordings is without doubt, the best at what they do; they produce a quality which surpasses any other company of its kind in Britain.

[To the suggestion that Great Britain might someday want a Republic:] We'll go quietly.

Americans are much more open than people in Britain.

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.

Britain has a lot of wind. It's our wind. We don't have to import it.

I think we've come a long way since then. The big thing that changed was when ecstasy came along in Britain.

Contemporary Britain seems an endlessly fascinating place to me - but if I knew a little bit more about other places, and other times, maybe it wouldn't.

Eighty percent of the people of Britain want more money spent on public transport — in order that other people will travel on the buses so that there is more room for them to drive their cars.

I was a product of the times, the war, the occupation, the reoccupation, my 4 years in Britain, admiring but at the same time questioning whether they are able to do a better job than we can.

Honestly, I was just happy to get the work. I was chuffed to bits. I know David Furnish and Elton John a bit and I remember David talking very excitedly about it. This was going back four or five years even, when we were doing Little Britain at the Hammersmith Apollo. I'd lost my voice that night, but still did the show. I remember thinking: "God, they're going to think that's my voice and I'm not going to get in the film!" But it's just been a pleasure to be a part of.

I don't want to pay good money to hear ordinary people's lunatic views. Most of the people who phone in are [lunatics] - certainly in Britain.

Britain, and my hometown, will always be with me wherever I go and whatever I do - but I prefer to live in California.

A legacy that powerful does not disappear. Next to the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans were babies. Our modern nations like Great Britain and America? Blinks of an eye...The very oldest root of civilization, at least of Western civilization, is Egypt. Look at the pyramid on the dollar bill. Look at the Washington Monument—the world’s largest Egyptian obelisk. Egypt is still.......very much alive.

We can find common qualities and common values that have made Britain the country it is. Our belief in tolerance and liberty which shines through British history. Our commitment to fairness, fair play and civic duty.

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.

The immediate success of the war poem anthologies ... proved that the war had aroused in a new public an ear for contemporary verse ... There has never before, in the world's history, been an epoch which has tolerated and even welcomed such a flood of verse as has been poured forth over Great Britain during the last three years.

What is right for the family is right for Britain.

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.

I've always held the view that great states need strategic space. I mean, George Washington took his space from George III. Britain took it from just about everybody. Russia took all of Eastern Europe. Germany's taken it from everywhere they can, and China will want its space too.

Besides, I'd seen a really nice pair of shoes yesterday in the mall and I wanted them for my own. I can't describe the feeling of immediate familiarity that rushed between us. The moment I clapped eyes on them I felt like I already owned them. I could only suppose that we were together in a former life. That they were my shoes when I was a serving maid in medieval Britain or when I was a princess in ancient Egypt. Or perhaps they were the princess and I was the shoes. Who's to know? Either way I knew that we were meant to be together.

I love New York, but I have to admit that I feel very English, and I do miss that sense of history that you have everywhere in Britain.

I think it is vitally important to study History. If we are going to lead Britain safely into the future, it is essential that we understand our country's historical roots. If we can learn the lessons of the past, we will be able to avoid making mistakes in the future.

Let the message go out - a new generation has taken charge of Labour which is optimistic about our country, optimistic about our world, optimistic about the power of politics. We are optimistic and together we will change Britain.