Popular quotes about British! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 8
I think I've actually benefited from Australia being a kind of combination of both British and American culture. We kind of got the best of both British and American television and books, science fiction and fantasy, and so on. So I'm familiar with a lot of, for example, American books and television that a British author of my generation might not be.
Garth NixI 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 ChurchillAnd it is undeniably true that the greatest and most important right of a British subject is that he shall be governed by no laws but those to which he, either in person or by his representatives, hath given his consent; and this, I will venture to assert, is the great basis of British freedom; it is interwoven with the Constitution, and whenever this is lost, the Constitution must be destroyed.
Joseph WarrenNo British Government ever will and ever can risk the bones of a British grenadier.
Austen ChamberlainThere are actually quite high profile British TV star cameos in it that you probably wouldn't even notice, that the British wouldn't even notice, let alone the American audience.
Simon PeggEnding the slave trade was contrary to British economic interests. For all its limitations and hypocrisies - British slavery itself, of course, still continued to exist - I still think it was a great moment in human history.
Henry Louis GatesWhat do you call that nice, shiny white metal they use to make sidings and airplanes out of? Aluminum, right? Aluminum, pronounced 'uh-LOO-mih-num', right? Anybody knows that! But do you know how the British spell it? 'Aluminium', pronounced 'Al-yoo-MIH-nee-um'. Ever hear anything so ridiculous? The French and Germans spell it 'aluminium', too, but they're foreigners who don't speak Earth-standard. You'd think the British, however, using our language, would be more careful
Isaac AsimovI have a plan. It entails leading to a fair deal and relationship with the British. We will be reasonable, but we will also negotiate firmly and without gullibility. I believe we must come to an agreement for the people of Britain and the people on the Continent, but not under exclusively British terms.
Jean-Claude JunckerWe did not lack for religious leaders to urge us into "godly" war [...]. All of this was part of a well-financed propaganda campaign on the part of British agents. As usual, the government of the United States was being "run" by the British Secret Intelligence Service.
Eustace MullinsThe trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. So a group of the most eminent British scientists put their heads together and made complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it. To the eternal glory of British science, their labour bore fruit.
George MikesMore than 55,000 men from Bomber Command lost their lives, of whom 38,000 were British. That's one in 10 of all the British servicemen lost in the Second World War. It beggars belief that there has not been some recognition for what they gave until now.
Carol VordermanThe people of the Falkland Islands, like the people of the United Kingdom, are an island race. They are few in number but they have the right to live in peace, to choose their own way of life and to determine their own allegiance. They way of life is British; their allegiance is to the Crown. It is the wish of the British people and the duty of Her Majesty's Government to do everything that we can to uphold that right. That will be our hope and our endeavour, and, I believe, the resolve, of every Member of this House.
Margaret ThatcherIt 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 ThoreauI am a passionate believer in freedom of speech. I would not support anything which would impinge on aggressive robust freedom of the British press, but when things go wrong and there has been outright illegality, there should be proper accountability.
Nick CleggMy father and I had a good relationship, it was very relaxed. He had a lot of humour. He looked a little bit like me, although he had no beard. He had the appearance of a very elegant British-looking man.
Michael HanekeWe must assist the British in the war as if there were no White Paper and we must resist the White Paper as if there were no war.
David Ben-GurionAh, there's nothing like tea in the afternoon. When the British Empire collapses, historians will find that it had made but two invaluable contributions to civilization - this tea ritual and the detective novel.
Ayn RandI've been a Danish prince, a Texas slave-dealer, an Arab sheik, a Cheyenne Dog Soldier, and a Yankee navy lieutenant in my time, among other things, and none of 'em was as hard to sustain as my lifetime's impersonation of a British officer and gentleman.
George MacDonald FraserI 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 PullmanWhat did it mean to be called โlordโ? Iโll assume youโve never had the honor, since I doubt any of you happen to be British royalty. (And, if by chance you are, then let me say, โHello, Your Majesty! Welcome to my stupid book. Can I borrow some cash?โ)
Brandon SandersonSome 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 FulcherThat's the one thing I say about the great British shows. You know, I see it on the series on HBO where the season is shortened to like 12 or 6 or whatever it is. You know there's a reason why there's a quality behind that. Because I think the writers as well as the crew and the cast do get burnt out after doing continuous episodes after and over and it feels like a factory rather than something of a creative process. And we get tapped out. That's just my opinion.
Hayden PanettiereBut 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.
BonoYeah. Floyd is his batman." His what?" Batman, like in the British army, each officer had a batman, a personal servant." You spend too much time reading, Spenser. You know more stuff that don't make you money than anybody I know.
Robert B. ParkerI want to be taken playfully, not seriously - not with a long British face, but with beautiful laughter. Your laughter, your playfulness is the recognition that you have understood me. Your seriousness shows that you have misunderstood me, you have missed it - because seriousness is nothing but sickness. It is another name of sadness; it is a shadow of death. And I am all for life. If it is needed for your laughter, your dance, even to reject me, then reject me - but don't reject the dance and the song and the life, because that is my teaching.
RajneeshI'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 BeattyNo 'rules.' What are you, British or something? I guess I'm too nice... No wonder people take advantage of me.
Alfonso CuaronThe British capitalize on their accent when they don't want you to know what they're saying. But if you wake them up at 4 A.M., they speak perfect English, the same as we do.
Henry A. KissingerIt is fundamental to Socialism that we should liquidate the British Empire as soon as we can.
Stafford CrippsThe British climate, although it is very wet, it is quite mild in winter. We don't get these severe - generally don't get severe winters.
Andy GoldsworthyI'm a big fan of British cinema; I think we make some unbelievably brilliant films, but they can quite often have a dark feel.
Ed SpeleersI am leading a war against the British Empire. I'm not worried about what Democratic Party hacks say or do.
KeshaA Jew who converted, who simulated, was, at least in some periods, safe. Hitler in the beginning did not want to kill all the Jews but he wanted us to have a Germany free of Jews. If America had allowed Jews to come in, the British had accepted Jews from Palestine, they were safe.
Elie WieselThe news that Osama Bin Laden is dead will bring great relief to people across the world. Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the worst terrorist atrocities the world has seen - for 9/11 and for so many attacks, which have cost thousands of lives, many of them British.
David CameronDad loved movies and I grew up with British comedy. My ultimate favourite is Peter Sellers.
Mike MyersSometimes Americans don't quite get my sense of humor. My good ol' British sarcasm seems to go over their heads.
Lee WestwoodWhen it comes to the British monarchy, I prefer to be seduced by an image than presented with a real person. It's kind of a Warhol thing.
Damien HirstI teach Korean translation at the British Centre for Literary Translation summer school, so I see an emerging generation too, who are around my age. I'm hoping to find time to mentor, and to help emerging translators to a first contract through Tilted Axis.
Deborah SmithWhether people watch Doctor Who or not over here, everybody knows about it. It's a British icon, it's so part of the nation.
Freema AgyemanThe 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.
John PilgerIt drives on with a courage which is stronger than the storm. It drives on with a mercy which does not quail in the presence of death. It drives on as proof, a symbol, a testimony that man is created in the image of God and that valour and virtue have not perished in the British race.
Franklin D. RooseveltThe British government had not engaged in any serious actual oppression of the colonies before 1774, but it had claimed powers not granted by the governed, powers that made oppression possible, powers that it began to exercise in 1774 in response to colonial denial of them. The Revolution came about not to overthrow tyranny, but to prevent it.
Edmund MorganPop managers are fixed in the dramatic stock character repertoire too, ever since the first British pop film musical, Wolf Mankowitz's 'Expresso Bongo' of 1959, with Cliff Richard as Bongo Herbert and Laurence Harvey as his manager. The key components were cast as X parts gay, X parts Jewish and triple X opportunistic.
Peter YorkI don't think the Spice Girls are celebrated as much as they should be. We championed British pop worldwide. We toured everywhere to sell-out crowds and I think there should have been a reflection of that at February's Brit's anniversary.
Melanie ChisholmAll these mountains of Irish dead, all these corpses mangled beyond recognition, all these arms, legs, eyes, ears, fingers, toes, hands, all these shivering putrefying bodies and portions of bodies once warm living and tender parts of Irish men and youths - all these horrors in Flanders or the Gallipoli Peninsula, are all items in the price Ireland pays for being part of the British Empire.
James Connolly