Britain Quotes - Page 7

• Britain, the first industrial nation, had offered the world a remarkable public experiment in liberal, capitalist democracy whose success was premised upon free trade and world peace. Tuesday, 4 August 1914 brought that experiment to an abrupt halt.

  Kenneth O. Morgan

  August, Tuesday, History

  Kenneth O. Morgan (1984). “The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain”, p.522, Oxford University Press, USA

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• We had to do what we had to do - Britain is great again.

  Margaret Thatcher

  History, British History

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• Almost everywhere else in Europe, the more military the state, the stronger the king - except in Britain. Here it was parliament, not the monarchy, who signed the cheques. The longer the war went on, the stronger parliament became, as the purse on which it sat grew bigger and bigger.

  Simon Schama

  Kings, Military, War

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• The first modern propaganda agency was the British Ministry of Information a century ago, which secretly defined its task as "to direct the thought of most of the world" - primarily progressive American intellectuals, who had to be mobilized to come to the aid of Britain during World War I.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Agency, Tasks

  "How the Magna Carta became a Minor Carta, part 1" by Noam Chomsky, www.theguardian.com. July 24, 2012.

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• I live a perfectly happy and comfortable life in Blair's Britain, but I can't work up much affection for the culture we've created for ourselves: it's too cynical, too knowing, too ironic, too empty of real value and meaning.

  Jonathan Coe

  Real, Knowing, Cynical

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• When Captain America died, Americans heard it in an American way: through the media. When Captain Britain died, the British felt it in their chests.

  Paul Cornell

  Media, America, Way

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• No, people back home don't realize why there is this kind of need for heroes in America at the moment. People in Britain don't really understand what's going on here. They don't understand why Camp X-ray exists.

  Jon Ronson

  Hero, Home, America

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• The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights. 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, Order, Light

  " The Green War on Children" by Michelle Malkin, www.realclearpolitics.com. October 08, 2010.

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• Cordings make the best Covert coats, corduroys, moleskins and all the accoutrements. When I need a covert coat I get it from Cordings rather than make one myself and I'm a tailor so I should know! Cordings is without doubt, the best at what they do; they produce a quality which surpasses any other company of its kind in Britain.

  Mark Powell

  Doubt, Quality, Needs

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• The Welsh are not like any other people in Britain, and they know how separate they are. They are the Celts, the tough little wine-dark race who were the original possessors of the island, who never mixed with the invaders coming later from the east, but were slowly driven into the western mountains.

  Laurie Lee

  Wine, Dark, Islands

  Laurie Lee (2015). “I Can't Stay Long”, p.89, Penguin UK

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• The wisdom and spirit of Churchill not only saved Britain from the Third Reich but saved Western civilization from a Nazi Dark Ages when no other nation was willing to take up that defense. Churchill was the greatest military, political and spiritual leader of the 20th century.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Spiritual, Military, Dark

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• All monarchs I hate, and the thrones they sit on,
  From the hector of France to the cully of Britain.

  John Wilmot

  Hate, Thrones, France

  John Wilmot, John Adlard (2002). “The Debt to Pleasure: John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in the Eyes of His Contemporaries and in His Own Poetry and Prose”, p.74, Taylor & Francis

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• I was the first home-grown sex symbol, rather like Britain`s naughty seaside postcards. When Marilyn Monroe`s first film was shown here [The Asphalt Jungle (1950)], a columnist actually wrote: `How much like our Diana Dors she is`.

  Diana Dors

  Sex, Home, Naughty

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• I look upon Virginia as a rib taken from Britain's side... While they both proceed as living under the marriage-compact, this Eve might thrive so long as her Adam flourishes. Whatever serpent shall tempt her to go astray etc [will only cause] her husband to rule more strictly over her.

  Alexander Spotswood

  Husband, Taken, Virginia

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• The Stamp Act imposed on the colonies by the Parliament of Great Britain is an ill-judged measure. Parliament has no right to put its hands into our pockets without our consent.

  George Washington

  Hands, Pockets, Revolution

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• The epithets of parent and child have been long applied to Great Britain and her colonies, [but] we rarely see anything from your side of the water except the authoritative style of a master to a school-boy.

  George Mason

  Children, School, Boys

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• Has the grim savage rushed again from the wilderness? Or does some fiend... twang her deadly arrows at our breast? No, none of these: it is the hand of Britain that inflicts the wound.

  Joseph Warren

  Hands, Arrows, Doe

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• Britain is obviously one of the world powers and they bombed the World Trade Centre, which is a landmark in itself, and over in Britain you've got Buckingham Palace and the Eiffel Tower, which are big buildings, so to speak.

  Robbie Kearns

  Rugby League, Towers, World

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• During the late war I had an infallible rule for deciding what Great Britain would do on every occasion. It was, to consider what they ought to do, and to take the reverse of that as what they would assuredly do, and I can say with truth that I was never deceived.

  Thomas Jefferson

  War, Late, Deceived

  Thomas Jefferson (2006). “The Quotable Jefferson”

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• This is a Budget for Britain's future to secure fairness for each child and invest in every child

  Gordon Brown

  Children, Fairness, Secure

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• If the new Universal History were also read, it would give a connected idea of human affairs, so far as it goes, which should be followed by the best modern histories, particularly of our mother country; then of these colonies; which should be accompanied with observations on their rise, increase, use to Great Britain, encouragements and discouragements, the means to make them flourish, and secure their liberties.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Education, Country, Mother

  Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks (1844). “The Life of Benjamin Franklin: Containing the Autobiography, with Notes and a Continuation”, p.574

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• We are really doing our very best. There are no doubt many mistakes and shortcomings. A lot of things are done none too well. Some things that ought to be done have not yet been done...[But Britain's effort has] justly commanded the wonder and admiration of every friendly nation in the world.

  Winston Churchill

  War, Mistake, Effort

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• ...the discovery, that at no time did this man (Hitler) pose or intend a real threat to Britain or the Empire.

  David Irving

  Real, War, Men

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• By the time I had finished my coffee and returned to the streets, the rain had temporarily abated, but the streets were full of vast puddles where the drains where unable to cope with the volume of water. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would think that if one nation ought by now to have mastered the science of drainage, Britain would be it.

  Bill Bryson

  Rain, Coffee, Thinking

  Bill Bryson (2010). “Notes From A Small Island: Journey Through Britain”, p.279, Random House

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• Bargaining is a repulsive habit; compromise is one of the highest human virtues - the difference between the two being that the first is practised on the Continent, the latter in Great Britain.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, Two

  George Mikes (1986). “How to be a Brit: The Classic Bestselling Guide”, p.50, Penguin UK

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