Popular quotes about British! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 3
I know Im British. I havent spent much time in the U.K., but my parents are British, my family heritage is British, so if I wasnt British, what would I be? I am British.
Chris FroomeWell British pension funds have not been investing the savings of British people in British infrastructure.
George OsborneTaxation, the very thing that had triggered the British civil wars, would do so again, this time in America. The taxes may have been different, but the result would once again be disaster. What happened in America was really round two of those wars - the civil war of the British Empire, with the Hanoverians playing the part of the Stuarts, and the Americans the heirs of the revolutionaries, of Cromwell and of William III, the inheritors of a true British liberty, that had somehow got lost in its own motherland.
Simon SchamaPeople 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.
Chino MorenoThere are no countries in the world less known by the British than those selfsame British Islands.
George Henry BorrowI guess, on my list, going back to some old American stuff and British stuff that I used to love in the '80s, would be a British show called Dad's Army, which recently just turned into a movie.
Rhys DarbyThe 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.
Margaret ThatcherI think I went through early years of my career sort of thinking, "Well, maybe I'm just not British enough." And I always remember my father saying to me, "Don't think you're English, because however English you feel, some Englishman is going to remind you that you're not." Now, for him it must have been a much more acute experience, because he immigrated to England. I was born there, so I kind of felt I had the right to assume that I was British, but it's true. The English are a very warm and welcoming people, but there's a streak in there that reminds you, occasionally.
Alfred MolinaCalifornians don't have that marvelous British cynicism, but then the British can be so patronizing at times.
Alex KingstonThe people in the southern provinces have no interest whatsoever to see British forces leave because they're providing security, stability, structure, and relations have always been good ... really between the British forces and the local Iraqis in this area.
Hoshyar ZebariThe trouble with the British is that they are not interested in ideas. If Jesus came back today and offered to speak for an hour on British television, they would say, "What! Another talking head?
John CleeseIn England, the population explosion can be linked very clearly with the enclosure of the commons that uprooted the peasants from their land. In India, it was the same thing: the population increased at the end of the 18th century when the British took over and Indian lands were colonized. Instead of the land feeding Indian people it started to feed the British empire. So we had destitution. Destitute people who don't have their own land to feed themselves can only feed themselves by having larger numbers, therefore they multiply. It's the rational response of a dispossessed people.
Vandana ShivaIsrael was born under the British mandate. We learned from the British what democracy means, and how it behaves in a time of danger, war and terror. We thank Britain for introducing freedom and respect of human rights both in normal and demanding circumstances.
Shimon PeresThe laws of England will protect the rights of British subjects, and give a remedy for a grievance committed by one British subject upon another, in whatever country that may be done.
BayleyThe British media is sinking down, as the American news media has lowered the bar for all of humanity. British news media is definitely trying to stoop down to that level. Everyone is stooping to the lowest common denominator.
John OliverThe wrongful arrest of tens of thousands of British Muslims after the September 11 attacks can be explained by the very poor intelligence the police had, and, just possibly, excused by the fact that a terrorist action in Britain linked to British Muslims would have been hugely damaging.
Geoff MulganPeople say, "How do you get into the British film industry?" There is no British film industry, there are just people making films and finding their own way. It's not like in the States where there are studios and there's an actual infrastructure to it; there's just nothing here. You make it from scratch a lot of the time.
Ben WheatleyCountries are different. They make different choices. We cannot harmonise everything. For example, it is neither right nor necessary to claim that the integrity of the single market, or full membership of the European Union requires the working hours of British hospital doctors to be set in Brussels irrespective of the views of British parliamentarians and practitioners.
David CameronIt is not for us to give an assessment to what happened, but in our opinion the reputation of British science, the reputation of the British government, and the reputation of the title 'Sir' has sustained heavy damage.
Andrey IllarionovIf the colonists hadn't rejected British militarism and the massive financial burden of maintaining the British military, America wouldn't exist.
Rachel MaddowWhat if all those strange and unexplainable bends in history were the result of supernatural interference? At which point I asked myself, what's the weirdest most eccentric historical phenomenon of them all? Answer:the Great British Empire. Clearly, one tiny little island could only conquer half the known world with supernatural aid. Those absurd Victorian manners and ridiculous fashions were obviously dictated by vampires. And, without a doubt, the British army regimental system functions on werewolf pack dynamics.
Gail CarrigerI enjoy playing villains - I'm very proud that I belong to a very honorable tradition of British actors who come to Hollywood to play the bad guys. At some point in American film, I think there was the idea that the British accent had a tone to it that's a little bit naughty.
Alfred MolinaI've read a lot of war writing, even World War I writing, the British war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves's memoir "Goodbye to All That," and a civilian memoir "Testament of Youth" by Vera Brittain .
George PackerJimmy Greaves and Kenny Dalglish had similar know-how, but Dalglish's knowledge and reading of the game was far superior. He was the most complete footballer in British soccer.
Jimmy ArmfieldJoe Calzaghe is next. If he gets himself out that armchair, gets himself back in the gym, let's have a fight for the British fans and the rest of the world.
Carl FrochSome people try to say I'm British by the way I'm speaking. But I think I'm more Canadian, because I speak really slow. Midwestern and Canadian.
Rich FulcherIn the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, as in so many later conflicts, British women seem to have been no more markedly pacifist than men. Instead, and exactly like so many of their male countrymen, some women found ways of combining support for the national interest with a measure of self-promotion. By assisting the war effort, women demonstrated that their concerns were by no means confined to the domestic sphere. Under cover of a patriotism that was often genuine and profound, they carved out for themselves a real if precarious place in the public sphere.
Linda ColleyI dont like Jews. Or colored folk. Or natives, now that you mention it...I bet you like Catholics. Cant stand them either. Nor women, Fabians, Socialists, homosexuals, Asians, or British.
HerbertAt the next election he'll offer the British public an alternative that provides weight and substance and seriousness in a political debate that is, frankly, increasingly obsessed with modishness and flim-flam.
Paddy AshdownI've had much nastier things said about me in the British press than in the Bosnian press.
Paddy AshdownGrowing up in a Canadian household that was more British than Big Ben, I dreamed of flying to England myself and visiting the places my family never tired of talking about. I always woke up before the plane landed.
Alan BradleyA British porch is a musty, forbidding non-room in which to fling a sodden umbrella or a muddy pair of boots; a guard against the elements and strangers. By contrast the good ol' American front porch seems to stand for positivity and openness; a platform from which to welcome or wave farewell; a place where things of significance could happen.
Dan StevensWhen the invasion began, the British public was called upon to 'support' troops sent illegally and undemocratically to kill people with whom we had no quarrel. 'The ultimate test of our professionalism' is how Commander McKendrick describes an unprovoked attack on a nation with no submarines, no navy and no air force, and now with no clean water and no electricity and, in many hospitals, no anaesthetic with which to amputate small limbs shredded by shrapnel. I have seen elsewhere how this is done, with a gag in the patient's mouth.
John PilgerEstablishing a client state in Iraq would significantly enhance that strategic power, a matter of great significance for the future. As Zbigniew Brzezinski observed, it would provide the US with "critical leverage" of its European and Asian rivals, a conception with roots in early post-war planning. These are substantial reasons for aggression - not unlike those of the British when they invaded and occupied Iraq over 80 years earlier, at the dawn of the oil age.
Noam ChomskyNo 'rules.' What are you, British or something? I guess I'm too nice... No wonder people take advantage of me.
Alfonso CuaronIโm curious about things that people arenโt supposed to seeโso, for example, I liked going to the British Museum, but I would like it better if I could go into all the offices and storage rooms, I want to look in all the drawers andโdiscover stuff. And I want to know about people. I mean, I know itโs probably kind of rude but I want to know why you have all these boxes and whatโs in them and why all your windows are papered over and how long itโs been that way and how do you feel when you wash things and why donโt you do something about it?
Audrey Niffenegger...Dean Mohamet, a Muslim landowner from Patna who had followed his British patron to Ireland. There he soon eloped with, and later marries, Jean Daly, from a leading Anglo-Irish family.... In 1807 Dean Mohamet moved to London where he opened the country's first Indian owned curry restaurant, Dean Mohamet's Hindoostanee Coffee House :...He finally decamped to Brighton where he opened what can only be described as Britain's first oriental massage parlour and became "Shampooing Surgeon to Kings George IV and William IV. "
William DalrympleOne of the marked superiorities the English enjoy over other peoples is their ability to imbue the foreigner with a crippling inferiority complex the moment he sets foot on British soil.
Pierre DaninosIt is fundamental to Socialism that we should liquidate the British Empire as soon as we can.
Stafford CrippsBritish ferries have stopped transporting live animals to the Continent. This has made it very difficult for England fans to get to Away matches.
Jo BrandThere is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. The British people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy, but they bitterly resent being deceived or finding that those responsible for their affairs are themselves dwelling in a fool's paradise.
Winston ChurchillMy colleagues and I are of that generation of young men who went through the Second World War and the Japanese Occupation and emerged determined that no oneโneither Japanese nor Britishโhad the right to push and kick us around. We determined that we could govern ourselves and bring up our children in a country where we can be proud to be self-respecting people.
Lee Kuan Yew