Britain Quotes - Page 32

• The national strike of the miners in 1972 performed, I believe, a great service, not only to the miners, but the people in Britain today who wanted coal.

  Michael Foot

  Believe, People, Coal

  Michael Foot's speech at the House of Commons, 1974.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of all the sights and sounds which attracted me on my first arrival to live in London in the mid-thirties, one combined operation left a lingering, individual spell. I naturally went to Hyde Park to hear the orators, the best of the many free entertainments on offer in the capital. I heard the purest milk of the world flowing, then as now, from the platform of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

  Michael Foot

  Party, Sight, World

  Michael Foot (1980). “Debts of Honour”, London : Davis Poynter

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain. Tragically Londoners have now paid the price of the government ignoring such warnings.

  George Galloway

  Country, Government, Iraq

  "Galloway: Bombings price of Iraq". news.bbc.co.uk. July 8, 2005.

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Führer confirms my impressions of yesterday. He would like an understanding with Great Britain. He knows that war with the British will be hard and bloody, and knows also that people everywhere today are averse to bloodshed.

  Franz Halder

  War, Yesterday, People

  Diary entry, spartacus-educational.com. July 14, 1940.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• In 1860, sixty-three per cent of the couples married in Great Britain had families of four or more children; in 1925 only twenty per cent had more than four.

  Thomas Malthus

  Children, Couple, Twenties

  6 Copy quote

• How can there be democracy if the leadership in the United States and Britain don't uphold the values which my father's generation fought the Nazis, millions of people gave their lives against the Soviet Union's regime, didn't they? Because of what? Democracy. And what democracy meant. No torture, no camps, no detention forever or without trial, without charges. In solitary confinement. Those techniques which are not just alleged, they have actually been written about by the FBI. I don't think it's being far left - I hope that I'm wrong to consider that it's far left to uphold the rule of law.

  Vanessa Redgrave

  Father, Thinking, Law

  9 Copy quote

• When Tony Benn became a minister in the 1960s -- and I think this must be apocryphal -- he had a huge map of Britain hung upside down in his office, so the channel was at the top and Scotland was at the bottom and, apparently, he said, "This is how we need to look at this country, with the money and the power draining by force of gravity out of the south east." That was a great idea. I rather liked him for that. I don't know if it's actually true or not.

  Neal Ascherson

  Country, Thinking, Scotland

  4 Copy quote

• When we sell a kilo of bean coffee in Uganda, we get one dollar per kilo. The same kilo, when it is processed [and sold in Britain], goes for $10, $11 or even more a kilo. That is the same situation that goes for all raw materials.

  Yoweri Museveni

  Coffee, Uganda, Dollars

  "President Museveni Highlights Ugandan Achievements for Americans" by Jim Fisher, news.findlaw.com. September 23, 2005.

  49 Copy quote

  Show source

• One person I do feel a little sorry for, though, is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the most important clergyman in Britain and he's only got two lousy palaces to live in. What sort of life is that for a man of God? I bet if Jesus came back, even he'd be embarrassed for him; I bet he wouldn't be able to look him in the eye.

  Pat Condell

  Jesus, Sorry, Eye

  YouTube Channel "Pat Condell"/"Religion In The UK", www.youtube.com. April 17, 2007.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• [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 Lott

  President, Prime, Ministers

  "A Jolly Good Show, but the Wrong Side of the Pond" by Dana Milbank, www.washingtonpost.com. June 12, 2007.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Britain is blessed with a functioning political culture. It is dominated by people who live in London and who have often known each other since prep school. This makes it gossipy and often incestuous.

  David Brooks

  Blessed, School, People

  "Britain Is Working". www.nytimes.com. May 23, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• From Britain's point of view the 1939 war had been a liberal war which had been entered into in a condition of moral indignation without the resources to fight it, that it had been providential good fortune which had placed the burden of fighting on the Russians and the Americans.

  Maurice Cowling

  War, Fighting, Views

  Maurice Cowling (1990). “Mill and Liberalism”, p.15, Cambridge University Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• It seemed to me singularly ill-contrived for the British government to be going to war with Hitler when Hitler might have been about to attack the Russians, and even more ill-contrived that, when Hitler did attack the Russians, he had already defeated the French army. What I'm saying is that the war shouldn't have been started in September 1939...from the point of view of Britain, the war was really not a good thing and I would regard it as, in effect, a defeat.

  Maurice Cowling

  War, Army, Government

  "Singular Encounters" by Naim Attallah, Quartet Books, (p. 144), 1990.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Northern Ireland is part of Ireland, not Britain, as can clearly be seen from aerial photographs.

  Jeremy Hardy

  Photograph, Northern Ireland, Ireland

  "Jeremy Hardy: Caustic comic". news.bbc.co.uk. April 5, 2002.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• For all the chatter that Britain has moved beyond class, recent studies have found that it determines the life chances of British people more today than at any point since the Second World War... A child born into a rich family in Britain will almost certainly live and die rich, while a child born into a poor family will almost certainly live and die poor.

  Johann Hari

  Children, War, Class

  "Britain - a caste society?". JohannHari.com, January 29, 2006.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Not surprisingly, extensive effort in Britain and America goes into finding tax shelter. the system is "efficient" for the shelter industry, not for the economy.

  Robert Kuttner

  Britain And America, Effort, Shelter

  Robert Kuttner (1987). “The Economic Illusion: False Choices Between Prosperity and Social Justice”, p.188, University of Pennsylvania Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Britain, with the most completely socialized health system in the West, now spends the lowest fraction of GNP on health care of any major nation. There are frequent complaints of excessive waits for elective surgery and other inconveniences, but British citizens live slightly longer than Americans, on average, and our overall health conditions are comparable.

  Robert Kuttner

  Average, Waiting, Citizens

  Robert Kuttner (1984). “The economic illusion: false choices between prosperity and social justice”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A ley line is what might be called a field of force, a trail of telluric energy. There are hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, all over Britain, and they've been around since the Stone Age.

  Stephen R. Lawhead

  Age, Energy, Lines

  "The Skin Map". Book by Stephen R. Lawhead, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child.

  John Guillebaud

  Children, Would Be, Helping

  4 Copy quote

• In England, theres no acknowledgement the invention of slavery came from Britain.

  Chiwetel Ejiofor

  Slavery, England, Invention

  4 Copy quote

• Books are special, books are the way we talk to generations that have not turned up yet. The fact that we can actually, essentially communicate with the people in ancient Egypt, people in Rome and Greece, people in ancient Britain, people in New York in the 1920s who can communicate to us and change the way we think, and change the things that we believe. I think that books are special. Books are sacred. And I think that when you are selling books, you have to remember that in all the profits and loss, in all of that, you are treading on sacred ground.

  Neil Gaiman

  New York, Believe, Book

  9 Copy quote

• This morning President Obama met with Britain's Prince William in the Oval Office. It was a meeting between a symbolic ruler with no real power and the future king of England.

  Conan O'Brien

  Morning, Kings, Real

  4 Copy quote

• Britain's last gold medal was a bronze in 1952 in Helsinki

  Nigel Starmer-Smith

  Inspirational, Funny, Gold

  6 Copy quote

• In the old days it would have been a relatively simple matter to have checked Hitler's territorial ambitions. All you'd have needed would have been the 1914 combination of Britain, France and Russia. Indeed, if such an alliance had acted decisively to defend Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler might even have been overthrown by his own military. But it was not to be.

  Niall Ferguson

  Military, Ambition, Simple

  10 Copy quote

• At one level Great Britain at the beginning of the 18th century was like the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, both three and one, and altogether something of a mystery.

  Linda Colley

  Christian, Doctrine, Three

  8 Copy quote