Popular quotes about British! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 4
Dubai was brilliant, they looked around the world. They saw Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, Chicago, Sydney, London all ran British common law. British common law is much better for commerce than is French common law or sharia law. So they took 110 acres of Dubai soil, put British common law with a British judge in charge, and they went from an empty piece of soil to the 16th most powerful financial center in [the] world in eight years.
Michael StrongI grew up in a very British family who had been transplanted to Canada, and my grandmother's house was filled with English books. I was a very early reader, so I was really brought up being surrounded with piles of British books and British newspapers, British magazines. I developed a really great love of England.
Alan BradleyI shot for French and British Vogue. The British Vogue one featured clothes by Chloe and was shot at Highgate and the John Soane Museum. It came out much better in my opinion. I only did one day and was working with my own make-up and hair people and a model who I've known for years.
Nan GoldinThe British were doing crime stories first, but the British thing is a very different thing. There, the stories are about restoring a break in the fabric of society. The American thing has never been worrying about breaks in the fabric of society, but about people doing their job, whether it's police procedurals or criminals or whatever.
Donald E. WestlakeClass has always been a staple of British comedy. We've always been able to laugh at it. When British shows are translated to America, the absence of the equivalent class structure there often causes them to fail. But over here we've always got comic mileage out of it.
Dick ClementBritish rule depends upon repression and collaboration and the Irish people should recognise that those who collaborate with Britain in exchange for a slice of the cake will implement British policy and remain silent when Irish people are murdered and oppressed. It is they who are responsible for prolonging the war in Ireland. Without the quislings, without the collaborators, we would already have reached freedom.
Martin McGuinnessIsrael 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 Peres[Congress] is not the British Parliament, and I hope it never will become the British Parliament... Are we going to bring the president in here and have a question period like the prime minister has in Great Britain?
Trent LottUltimately, imperialism made even the British working classes suffer. This is a point which the British working classes found quite difficult to swallow, but they did, actually.
Amartya SenOnce, when a British Prime Minister sneezed, men half a world away would blow their noses. Now when a British Prime Minister sneezes nobody else will even say 'Bless You'.
Bernard LevinThe 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 MulganCountries 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 CameronMy folks were English. They were too poor to be British. I still have a bit of British in me. In fact, my blood type is solid marmalade.
Bob HopeI must fight unto the death the unholy attempt to impose British methods and British institutions on India.
Mahatma GandhiToday a Scot is leading a British army in France [Field Marshall Douglas Haig], another is commanding the British Grand Fleet at sea [Admiral David Beatty], while a third directs the Imperial General Staff at home [Sir William Roberton]. The Lord Chancellor is a Scot [Viscount Finlay]; so are the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Foreign Secretary [Bonar Law and Arthur Balfour]. The Prime Minister is a Welshman [David Lloyd George], and the First Lord of the Admiralty is an Irishman [Lord Carson]. Yet no one has ever brought in a bill to give home rule to England!
John Hay BeithIt is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind every man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he should ever harbor it in his mind.
Henry David ThoreauAll the rich families who used to own all the British estates have gone bust because their children have blown their money.
JJ FeildMan seems to be a rickety poor sort of thing, any way you take him; a kind of British Museum of infirmities and inferiorities. He is always undergoing repairs. A machine that was as unreliable as he is would have no market.
Mark TwainUnlike a lot of British directors, I hadn't done any theater. But, I had a great mentor who said, "What you're looking for is exactly the same thing you've done in your documentaries, which is moments of emotional truth.
Susanna WhiteGermany will continue to play a central - perhaps even a more important - role in the European Union. I think that we will all miss the pragmatic approach of the British, however, particularly in those long nights of negotiation.
Jean-Claude JunckerI do not wonder that British youth is in revolt against the morbid doctrine that nothing matters but the equal sharing of miseries; that what used to be called the submerged tenth can only be rescued by bringing the other nine-tenths down to their le.
Winston ChurchillI joined the army on my seventeenth birthday, full of the romance of war after having read a lot of World War I British poetry and having seen a lot of post-World War II films. I thought the romantic presentations of war influenced my joining and my presentation of war to my younger siblings.
Walter Dean MyersThe fierce pulsation of resurgent pride that disclaims servitude may one day cease to throb in the heart of Ireland - but the heart of Ireland will that day be dead. While Ireland lives, the brain and the brawn of her manhood will strive to destroy the last vestige of British rule in her territory
Thomas MacDonaghA 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 we strengthen our relations with the Gulf states, when we cooperate with the Arabs, everybody asks if we are looking for a new geopolitical place. But in the Middle East and the Gulf, you can find German, French and British goods everywhere. German relations to these states are very good, as are English and French relations. Does this make them Arab-oriented?
Recep Tayyip ErdoganI'm doing all these interviews with the British press, the Italian press, and others. They all want to talk about this stuff. I don't have a stance; I don't have a go-to thing to say about any of this.
Paul BeattyAmong the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
Mahatma GandhiFigures cannot calculate the amount collected by those public and private robbers: it is more than would liberate every slave in the United States; it would pay the British debt! They say, We do not force people to give. I see no difference between forcing a man out of his money, at the mouth of a pistol, and forcing it from by trick and cunning; the crime is the same.
Anne RoyallEstablishing 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 ChomskyAll these stuff she's done before - the rosary, the deep thoughts, the faux British accent. It's the same thing over and over. She's be so much better if she just retired, and I like Madonna.
Andrea TantarosIt has not been the style of Canadian politicians to write of their experiences, although it is the common practice for British, French, and American Politicians upon their retirement. But I have been criticized before and I expect to be again.
Judy LaMarshLike, Mission Of Burma to me always sounded almost like they were part of the British Arty New Wave. I kind of like that. I like not being able to tell the difference.
Graham CoxonNo. I am not a royalist. Not at all. I am definitely a republican in the British sense of the word. I just don't see the use of the monarchy though I'm fierce patriot. I'm proud proud proud of being English, but I think the monarchy symbolizes a lot of what was wrong with the country.
Daniel RadcliffeThe British vice is overthinking before we speak, which is really annoying. I love the way that, in America, people are more straightforward.
Felicity JonesBritish actors come at acting from a slightly different angle. Because a lot of the films are cast out there, they are so used to the angle from which the Americans, and certainly the young guys from LA, are coming at it, that I think it's interesting for them to find these English actors who maybe approach acting from a different place.
Jim SturgessBritish business is disappointed that the MPC felt unable to act more boldly to counter the worsening economic circumstances and the sharp slowdown in the pace of economic activity,.
David FrostParliamentary democracy is, in truth, little more than a means of securing a periodical change in the management team, which is then allowed to preside over a system that remains in essence intact. If the British people were ever to ask themselves what power they truly enjoyed under our political system they would be amazed to discover how little it is
Tony BennI work three days at home, and two days in the British Library or the London Library, just to get out of the house and hide from the children.
David NichollsThrough crowdfunding anyone can find companies and products.Forming a partnership with innovative British businesses was appealing and the opportunity to go on a journey with these companies as they grow, and hopefully share in their future success, is exciting.
Andy MurrayWhat did I want with prestige? The British Open paid the winner $600 in American money. A man would have to be two hundred years old at that rate to retire from golf.
Sam SneadPeople fail you, children disappoint you, thieves break in, moths corrupt, but an Order of the British Empire goes on for ever.
Fay Weldon