Popular quotes about England! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 2
Medieval England was a great military power with a sophisticated machinery of government, but her naval administration, at best improvised and for long periods missing altogether, pointed to a grave weakness: the lack of any reliable means of putting a force of warships at the disposal of the crown. Only Richard I and Henry V of all the kings of England can be said to have understood the problem and attempted to remedy it. It is no coincidence that they wer by far the most successful in war.
Nicholas RodgerMy agents were like "Come to L.A., we've got meetings for you." I was like "No, I'm doing this now." Then my father became very ill back in England, and I didn't want to be away. I went back to England and did a bunch of crazy indie movies, all of which I loved with a passion, and none of which did any business.
Olivia WilliamsI think the whole emphasis in England, in universities, on practical criticism (but not that so much as on historical criticism, knowing what period a line comes from) this is almost paralysing. In America, in University, we read - what? - T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Yeats, that is where we began. Shakespeare flaunted in the background. I'm not sure I agree with this, but I think that' for the young poet, the writing poet, it is not quite so frightening to go to university in America as it is in England, for these reasons.
Sylvia PlathThis because it is never really very cold in England. It is drizzly, and the wind will blow; hail happens, and there is a breed of Tuesday in January in which time creeps and no light comes and the air is full of water and nobody really loves anybody, but still a decent jumper and a waxen jacket lined with wool is sufficient for every weather England's got to give.
Zadie SmithA lot of people have lost interest in watching England play. To get motivated to watch international football, you need your country to be having some form of success and England haven't had any for a long time now.
Michael OwenFor the most part, French cities are much better preserved and looked after than British cities, because the bourgeoisie, the people who run the cities, have always lived centrally, which has only recently begun to happen in big cities in England. Traditionally in England, people who had any money would live out in the suburbs. Now, increasingly, people with money live in the cities, but this has changed only in the last 20 or so years.
Jonathan MeadesI consider myself British and have very happy memories of the UK. I spent the first 14 years of my life in England and never wanted to leave. When I was in Australia I went back to England a lot.
Naomi WattsOne of the first big bubbles, of course, was the huge and horrible South Sea Bubble in England. And the aftermath was interesting. Many of you probably don't remember what happened after the South Sea Bubble, which caused an enormous financial contraction, and a lot of pain. They banned publicly traded stock in England for decades.
Charlie MungerAll the talk about the so-called unspeakable horror of early capitalism can be refuted by a single statistic: precisely in these years in which British capitalism developed, precisely in the age called the Industrial Revolution in England, in the years from 1760 to 1830, precisely in those years the population of England doubled.
Ludwig von MisesThe liberty of the press is dear to England; the licentiousness of the press is odious to England: the liberty of it can never be so well protected as by beating down the licentiousness.
Sherrilyn KenyonI was accused of every monstrous vice by public rumour and private rancour; my name, which had been a knightly or noble one, was tainted. I felt that, if what was whispered, and muttered, and murmured, was true, I was unfit for England; if false, England was unfit for me.
Lord ByronI got the O.B.E because I represent England outside of England more...but thinking of me as an actor, I haven't done all the classical theatre, all the great roles. Think of Helen Mirren and me. Helen, who I adore, is a friend - should be Dame. I am the rebel, the revolutionary on the side.
Charlotte RamplingWatch MTV and you can see what the music scene is like in England. The Spice Girls? Not a lot of creativity in the commercial area. There are still great musicians in England, but not a lot being heard that much.
Jimmy Carl BlackOur civility, England determines the style of, inasmuch as England is the strongest of the family of existing nations, and as we are the expansion of that people. It is that of a trading nation; it is a shopkeeping civility. The English lord is a retired shopkeeper, and has the prejudices and timidities of that profession.
Ralph Waldo Emerson[James] Madison pointed out in the discussion of the constitutional debates - the constitutional convention - that democracy would be a danger. He used England of course as the model and said suppose that in England everyone had the free right to vote; the poor, the propertyless - who are the great majority - would use their voting power to take away the rights of property owners to carry out what we would call land reform.
Noam ChomskyAnd why does England thus persecute the votaries of her science? Why does she depress them to the level of her hewers of wood and her drawers of water? Is it because science flatters no courtier, mingles in no political strife? ... Can we behold unmoved the science of England, the vital principle of her arts, struggling for existence, the meek and unarmed victim of political strife?
David BrewsterWalt Whitman and Emerson are the poets who have given the world more than anyone else. Perhaps Whitman is not so widely read in England, but England never appreciates a poet until he is dead.
Oscar WildeThe good thing about England - like, if I were in France, all people would be doing is rubbing my nose in Donald Trump. As if I voted for him. Just rubbing my nose in him. And in England, they'd be rubbing my nose in it too, except for Brexit. So that means they can't rub my nose in anything!
David SedarisA seashell should be the crest of England, not only because it represents a power built on the waves, but also the hard finish ofthe men. The Englishman is finished like a cowry or a murex.
Ralph Waldo EmersonWithout English art, I never would have understood myself, my own family, or the New England world I lived in.
William MonahanTwo decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher's England to Deng's China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history.
Charles KrauthammerThe fact is that in England so many of our politicians are career politicians - they've always been politicians since they left their education. And in the old days of course politicians used to be fish mongers or doctors or whatever. They'd lived life. These days, power seems to go to the hands of people that that's all they've done. And I'm not sure that's a good thing, because it does remove them from the realities of life.
Jeremy IronsIn England every man you meet is some man's son; in America, he may be some man's father.
Ralph Waldo EmersonI've stayed in houses that were in the country, and in England, but I'm still not sure that I've stayed in an English country house.
Lev Grossman...it was like an examination paper that asks grammar, when what you want to be asked is Kings of England.
James M. BarrieOur children were mostly brought up and educated in the Churchill suburb east of Pittsburgh. Each summer, we took them back to England for an extended period.
John PopleEngland was full of words I'd never heard before - streaky bacon, short back and sides, Belisha beacon, serviettes, high tea, ice-cream cornet.
Bill BrysonI don't really know what Americans are like. I've no idea. I know a few things about them. In my imagination, they have warm peachy hearts, whereas the English have horrible spiteful withered hearts - success in England inspires envy - in America, it inspires hope.
Sebastian HorsleyI've been a witness to unfairness in society all my life. To the conditions under which my mother worked all her life, working in an industrial weaving shed in the north of England. And it has been this feature of unfairness that has motivated me in all of my political thinking.
Patrick StewartWhen I get to China, I will have no claim on any one for anything. My claim will be alone in God and I must learn before I leave England to move men through God by prayer alone.
Hudson TaylorAlthough I haven't experienced violence in a relationship, I know that two women every week in England and Wales are killed by their partner or ex-partner, and that unless we act now, many more women will die because of domestic violence. We must speak out now against all forms of domestic violence, not only physical abuse but also the emotional, sexual and financial abuse which means that many women are afraid to be at home with their partner.
Jemma KiddGrowing 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 BradleyThere they lived on, those New England people, farmer lives, father and grandfather and great-grandfather, on and on without noise, keeping up tradition, and expecting, beside fair weather and abundant harvests, we did not learn what. They were contented to live, since it was so contrived for them, and where their lines had fallen.
Henry David ThoreauIn England, in France, in no other country would a black man have a chance to get elected. There's no two ways about it. Our country [USA] has been better about dealing with immigration and people who are different from each other than any other country in the world, that I know of.
Randy NewmanI've never been bashful to say that I'm not really interested in Formula One. When I lived in England, it's all I wanted to do and I thought that anything else would somehow be a compromise to my dreams. But then when I came back to the States, I realised how much I loved being back in the States...
Danica PatrickThere was interest from clubs in Italy and England, I believe. But I've never been attracted by the way they play in Italy. Staying in Spain was always my preference.
Luis FigoEngland is a country where people stay exactly as they are. The soul does not receive the slightest jolt.
Natalia GinzburgThe Council on Foreign Relations is the American branch of a society which originated in England ... [and] ... believes national boundaries should be obliterated and one-world rule established.
Carroll QuigleyBritish ferries have stopped transporting live animals to the Continent. This has made it very difficult for England fans to get to Away matches.
Jo BrandIt was so soon after I'd had my son and I really wasn't planning on going back to work for a while. I will walk over hot coals to work with Bill Condon on anything, the experience that you have with him is just too good... I've certainly never worked with him before so the trio of Bill [Codon], Ian [McKellen], and Sherlock Holmes, and England: it was too much to say "no" to.
Laura LinneyHowever, you have to recognize that regulations will never be completely successful and they will always be full of holes. You must constantly be ready to fill new holes. Actually regulation should be kept to a minimum, but there has to be some cooperation between market participants and authorities - as was the case in the early postwar years. The Bank of England was a very successful regulator by cooperating with market participants. This cooperative spirit was broken by the market fundamentalists.
George Soros