Popular quotes about British! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 57
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.
Winston ChurchillI remember I was really into this British band, The Vapors, with that song "Turning Japanese." I thought that they were really next level genius cryptic weirdos. And then I realized when I got older they are just using a lot of British words, and I didn't know what they meant. But I thought, Oh, they are making up their own language.
Craig FinnWe are a British nation with British characteristics. Every country can take some small minorities and in many ways they add to the richness and variety of this country. The moment the minority threatens to become a big one, people get frightened.
Margaret ThatcherHad we adopted non-violence as the weapon of the strong, because we realised that it was more effective than any other weapon, in fact the mightiest force in the world, we would have made use of its full potency and not have discarded it as soon as the fight against the British was over or we were in a position to wield conventional weapons. But as I have already said, we adopted it out of our helplessness. If we had the atom bomb, we would have used it against the British.
Mahatma GandhiIn this instance of the fire-arms, the Asiatic has been most improperly bracketed with the native. The British Indian does not need any such restrictions as are imposed by the Bill on the natives regarding the carrying of fire-arms. The prominent race can remain so by preventing the native from arming himself. Is there a slightest vestige of justification for so preventing the British Indian?
Mahatma GandhiI once found myself conspiring with a British Cabinet Minister as to how we might persuade Her Majesty's Treasury to cough up more money for the British Travel advertising in America. Said he, "Why does any American in his senses spend his vacation in the cold damp of an English summer when he could equally well bask under Italian skies? I can only suppose that your advertising is the answer." Damn right.
David OgilvyThe 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 ZebariWhen I was 13, listening to Choice FM, I would listen to a lot of R&B from America, and whenever a British person tried to do it, it didn't really work, they just sounded like they were trying to copy that whole style. Now the music sounds British, something real rather than an imitation.
Katy B[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 LottThe 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.
BayleyI think Americans still can't help but respond to the natural authority of this voice. Deep down they long to be told what to do by a British accent. That's why so many infomercials have British people.
John OliverCommanders and senior officers should die with troops. The honour of the British Empire and the British Army is at stake.
Lord Randolph ChurchillCountries 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 CameronThe problem with being British... I don't know if it's me being British or being raised a strict Catholic, but you never really enjoy success.
Danny BoyleThere are cases - for example, the American Revolution. George Washington's army lost just about every battle with the British, who had a much better army. The war was basically won by guerrilla forces that managed to undermine the British occupation.
Noam ChomskyIt was a heavenly summer, the summer in which France fell and the British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk. Leaves were never such an intense and iridescent green; sunlight glinted on flower-studded meadows as the Germans encircled the Maginot Line and overran not only France but Belgium and Holland. Birdsong filled the air in the lull between bursts of gunfire and accompanied the fleeing refugees who blocked the roads. It was as though the weather was preparing a glorious requiem for the death of Europe.
Eva IbbotsonI am closer to the pacifist side, in that I think that the British response to German aggression, which was to try to starve the Continent into a state of revolt and to terrorize German civilians with bombing raids, was part of the total catastrophe.
Nicholson BakerI think sensitive is the wrong description of me. I'm British, actually, so quite bad at expressing myself in conversation, as any ex-girlfriend will tell you. I'm probably emotionally stunted.
James BluntI had passed through the entire British education system studying literature, culminating in three years of reading English at Oxford, and they'd never told me about something as basic as the importance of point of view in fiction!
Philip PullmanI 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.
HerbertI'm a big fan of British journalists like 'The Independentโs Robert Fisk, but it's hard to find voices like his in the U.S.
Jackson BrowneEstablishing 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 ChomskyTo be able to hold all four majors - the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open, PGA - all concurrently I think is the Grand Slam. But a lot of people have a different opinions on that. People think you have to win it in the same calendar year.
Tiger WoodsThe British tend to shy away from the spotlight. We don't like being singled out in any way, and I think that is something which is important for me to learn to do.
Damon HillWe (British) have reached the state where the private sector is that part of the economy the government controls and the public sector is that part that nobody controls.
James Goldsmith...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 DalrympleIt is fundamental to Socialism that we should liquidate the British Empire as soon as we can.
Stafford CrippsThe British vice is overthinking before we speak, which is really annoying. I love the way that, in America, people are more straightforward.
Felicity JonesI am a subject of the British Crown, but whenever I have to choose between the interests of England and Canada it is manifest to me that the interests of my country are identical with those of the United States of America.
Wilfrid LaurierI played the British Open in 1937. It took a week to get there and a week to get home. I was the low American; finished fourth or fifth. And what it came down to was, I lost a good part of my summer, won $185, and spent $1,000 on boat fare alone.
Byron NelsonIn recent years, perhaps encouraged by competition from McDonald's, the British hamburger has become a credit to the nation. At the time of which I speak, it looked like a scorched beer-coaster or a tenderized disc brake.
Clive JamesThrough 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 MurrayI don't want to hear of any of you men getting into any fights with the British. But if you do, you'd better not get whipped.
Curtis LeMayWhen my father arrived in Kenya, he had found the Kikuyu way of life similar to that of the British at the time the Romans invaded England 2,000 years ago.
Louis LeakeyWe have the character of an island nation: independent, forthright, passionate in defence of our sovereignty. We can no more change this British sensibility than we can drain the English Channel. And because of this sensibility, we come to the European Union with a frame of mind that is more practical than emotional.
David CameronBritons seem to have given up on assimilating their Muslim population, with many British elites patting themselves on the back for their tolerance and multiculturalism.
Linda ChavezMy 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.
Vince CableOn one occasion, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jeremy Irons and myself were due to appear at the Sarajevo film festival and were turned off a UN plane on orders from Geneva. We had to get local journalists to transport the films in for us. I tell you this only to demonstrate that festivals can be a lifeline. But, after all the difficulties I'd had in getting there, in 1996 I found myself being flown in on a four-seater RAF plane as an official guest, endorsed by the British Embassy. Ironically, the film I was to present was Mission: Impossible.
Vanessa RedgraveShakespeare villains were extraordinary. Macbeth, Iago, Richard III... They're so richly layered that a British actor would find it almost impossible to create a two-dimensional villain, if he's explored in his early years or continues to explore his Shakespearean heritage. You can almost not judge them, if they're played really well.
Ben KingsleyThe Iranians have a lousy government, so therefore their economy is lousy, even though they have significant oil revenues. So I am convinced that together, we can, with the French, with the British, with the Germans and other countries, democracies around the world, we can affect Iranian behavior. But have no doubt, but have no doubt that the Iranians continue on the path to the acquisition of a nuclear weapon. And it is a threat not only in this region but around the world.
John McCain