Britain Quotes - Page 26

• Anyone who has walked through the deserted palaces of Versailles or Vienna realise how much of a part of the life of a nation is lost when a monarchy is abolished. If buckingham palace and windsor castle were transformed into museums, if one politician competed against another for president of the republic, Britain would be a sadder and less interesting place. Our politicians are not men such as could challenge more than a thousand years of history.

  William Rees-Mogg

  Men, Museums, Years

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• The Government have consistently made it clear that the mechanism in the United Kingdom whereby the European draft constitutional treaty could be implemented is approval by the House of Commons followed by a referendum of the people of Britain. There is no question of implementing it by the back door.

  Douglas Alexander

  Doors, Government, People

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• Women's sexy underwear is a minor but significant growth industry of late-twentieth-century Britain in the twilight of capitalism.

  Angela Carter

  Sexy, Fashion, Women

  Angela Carter (1998). “Shaking a Leg: Collected Writings”, Penguin Group USA

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• The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wine, Government, World

  'Walden' (1854) 'Economy' conclusion

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• My point is that this Potter business has legs. It will run and run, and we must be utterly mad, as a country, to leave it to the Americans to make money from a great British invention. I appeal to the children of this country and to their Potter-fiend parents to write to Warner Bros and Universal, and perhaps, even, to the great J K herself. Bring Harry home to Britain-and if you want a site with less rainfall than Rome, with excellent public transport, and strong connections to Harry Potter, I have just the place.

  Boris Johnson

  Running, Country, Strong

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• I couldn't speak Japanese very well, passport regulations were changing, I felt British and my future was in Britain. And it would also make me eligible for literary awards. But I still think I'm regarded as one of their own in Japan.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Thinking, Awards, Japan

  "Living memories" by Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. February 18, 2005.

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• British 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 McGuinness

  War, Cake, People

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• Generations will continue to meet the same fate unless the perennial oppressor-Britain-is removed, for she will unashamedly and mercilessly continue to maintain her occupation and economic exploitation of Ireland to judgment day, if she is not halted and ejected.

  Bobby Sands

  Fate, Generations, Occupation

  Bobby Sands (1997). “Bobby Sands: Writings from Prison”, Roberts Rinehart Publishers

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• They believed that Britain was in Ireland defending their own interests, therefore the Irish had the right to use violence to put them out. My argument was that that type of thinking was out of date.

  John Hume

  Thinking, Use, Violence

  "Ireland's Champion of Civil Rights". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 8, 2002.

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• In no country has the historical blackout been more intense and effective than in Great Britain. Here it has been ingeniously christened The Iron Curtain of Discreet Silence. Virtually nothing has been written to reveal the truth about British responsibility for the Second World War and its disastrous results.

  Harry Elmer Barnes

  Country, War, Responsibility

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• When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don't like it you can change it.

  Tony Benn

  Change, Government, Europe

  "Tony Benn: His views on socialism, Europe, war and writing", www.bbc.co.uk. March 14, 2014.

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• People in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don't vote. They always say that that everyone should vote but I think that if the poor in Britain or the United States turned out and voted for people that represented their interests there would be a real democratic revolution.

  Tony Benn

  Real, Thinking, People

  "Sicko". Documentary, Drama, 2007.

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• If the situation in Zimbabwe continues to deteriorate, Britain will argue for Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in March.

  Jack Straw

  Government, Zimbabwe, Arguing

  "UK threat to punish Mugabe" by Andrew Meldrum and Ewen MacAskill, www.theguardian.com. January 8, 2002.

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• I think Britain would be alright, if only we had a different Government.

  William Hague

  Thinking, Government, Different

  "Hague's 'foreign land' speech". Speech at the Spring forum in Harrogate, www.theguardian.com. March 4, 2001.

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• I therefore believe that the politics of the left and centre of this country are frozen in an out-of-date mould which is bad for the political and economic health of Britain and increasingly inhibiting for those who live within the mould. Can it be broken?

  Roy Jenkins

  Country, Believe, Broken

  Speech to Parliamentary Press Gallery, 9 June 1980, in 'The Times' 10 June 1980

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• I came to office with one deliberate intent: to change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society - from a give-it-to-me, to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Self, Giving, Office

  Margaret Thatcher's Speech to Small Business Bureau Conference, www.margaretthatcher.org. February 8, 1984.

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• My job is to stop Britain from going red.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Jobs, Red

  Speech to Institute of Public Relations, www.margaretthatcher.org. November 2, 1977.

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• I am a passionate believer that Britain has benefited the whole world and that our heritage, our culture, our values and more importantly our people who created those things, are worth fighting for.

  Steve Blake

  Fighting, People, Culture

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• It was one thing to contain the Soviet Union in Europe because Britain, France, and Germany were all willing to join in. But will Japan and other Asian countries be willing to join in the containment of China?

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, Japan, Europe

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• I was the best manager in Britain because I was never devious or cheated anyone. I’d break my wife’s legs if I played against her, but I’d never cheat her.

  Bill Shankly

  Wife, Legs, Cheat

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• I have learned things from the game. Much of my knowledge of locations in Britain and Europe comes not from school, but from away games or the sports pages, and hooliganism has given me both a taste for sociology and a degree of fieldwork experience. I have learned the value of investing time and emotion in things I cannot control, and of belonging to a community whose aspirations I share completely and uncritically.

  Nick Hornby

  Sports, School, Europe

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• Androgynous fashion, long hair, the Pill, a new interest in the inner psychological life - an unabashed sloppiness, if you will - really marks the sixties. It was when Britain went girlie. And what do girls do? Girls shop.

  Andrew Marr

  Girl, Fashion, Hair

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• I remember being in China and realising how irrelevant not even Britain is, but also Europe. We're just another remote country that hardly impinges on some places at all.

  Clive Anderson

  Country, Europe, Remember

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• I would point out that Japan's proposal at the Versailles Peace Conference on the principle of racial equality was rejected by delegates such as those from Britain and the United States

  Hideki Tojo

  Equality, Japan, Principles

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• It would actually be quite nice if the American ambassador in Britain could pay the [congestion] charge that everybody else is paying and not actually try and skive out of it like some chiselling little crook.

  Ken Livingstone

  Nice, Trying, Crooks

  "U.S.A. Is No. 1, on London List of Traffic Fees" by Alan Cowell, www.nytimes.com. May 02, 2006.

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