British History Quotes - Page 3

• No medieval monarch in the whole of British history ever had such power as every modern British Prime Minister has in his or her hands. Nor does any American President have power approaching this

  Tony Benn

  Hands, President, Doe

  Tony Benn, Chris Mullin (1979). “Arguments for socialism”, Jonathan Cape

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• Of all the memorable phrases that have been minted and mobilised to describe modern British royalty, 'constitutional monarchy' is virtually the only one which seemes to have neither been anticipated nor invented by Walter Bagehot. It was he who insisted that 'a princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and as such it rivets mankind'; and he who warned that the monarchy's 'mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic'.

  David Cannadine

  Memorable, Magic, Phrases

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• Lord Beaverbrook was fundamentally a lonely man, with a low sense of his own self-worth, who was incapable of forming a stable, loving relationship with anyone. He could charm or he could bully; he could give or he could take; he was glad to see his guests arrive and pleased to see them go. Although many people genuinely loved him, he was incapable of believing that this was either possible or true. No wonder he was so restless, so impatient, so vindictive, so quick to lose his temper, so eager to stir things up.

  David Cannadine

  Lonely, Believe, Self Worth

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• It is impossible not to be moved by the verve, courage and elan with Churchill attacked his last and ultimately invincible enemy, old age and infirmity. As in all his campaigns, he assailed his adversary with endless high spirits, expert advice, ample helpings of brandy and champagne, and the loving and long-suffering support of his wife.

  David Cannadine

  Long, Wife, Advice

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• David Irving has consistenly applied an evidential double standard, demanding absolute documentary proof to convict the Germans (as when he sought to show that Hitler was not responsible for the Holocaust), while relying on circumstantial evidence to condemn the British (as in his account of the Allied bombing of Dresden).

  David Cannadine

  Holocaust, Double Standard, Documentaries

  David Cannadine (1998). “History in Our Time”, p.224, Yale University Press

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• For all her active goodness, Florence Nightingale herself was far from being the angelic figure of popular adulation: according to Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians she was a self-righteous, domineering amazon, who was ruthless in her compassion, merciless in her philantropy, destructive in friendships, obsessional in her list for power, and demonic in her saintliness.

  David Cannadine

  Compassion, Self, Florence Nightingale

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• For Henry James, class was 'the essentially hierarchial plan of English society' which was 'the great and ever-present fact to the mind of a stranger; there is hardly a detail of life that does not in some degree betray it'.

  David Cannadine

  Details Of Life, Class, Mind

  David Cannadine (1998). “History in Our Time”, p.186, Yale University Press

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• For those who reject it, the Victorian experience is something to feel embarrassed about, to apologise for, to escape from, and never to repeat. But to those who remain enthralled, it is a fabulous story of oustanding success and splendid achievement, by comparison with which Britain's 20th century records seems at best unimpressive, and often distinctly lacklustre.

  David Cannadine

  Achievement, Stories, Records

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• Like sex, poverty and power, suicide may always be with us. But like them again, the actual form is takes is essentially time-specific and culture-bound, not only in the past but in the present too. The people who took their lives, the paths which led them to that end, and the experience of dying in this way were deeply influenced by specific historical circumstances. Only by making a greater effort at historical understanding can this most secret house of death be made to yield up more of its confidences.

  David Cannadine

  Suicide, Sex, Past

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• More attention should have been given to the fundamental transformation which took place during Queen Victoria's reign, from ruling sovereign to constitutional monarch. Again, gender mattered. If Albert had lived, it seems clear that he would have resisted that development much more tenaciously, which the gradual emasculation (and feminization) of monarchy was probably more easily accomplished when a woman was on the throne.

  David Cannadine

  Queens, Should Have, Sovereign

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• The long-established and noble rule of Law, one of the greatest products of the character and tradition of British history, has suffered a deadly blow. Blackmail has become respectable.

  Robert Menzies

  Character, Blow, Law

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• Charitable endeavour exalts the prestige and the status of the giver. This may sound unduly cynical but as with all philantrophic activity, it is not easy to unravel the mutually reinforcing motives of selflessness and self-interest. All that can safely be said is that most members of the royal family have difficulty distinguishing between concern about society, concern about the social order and concern about what best to do so they can remain at the top of it.

  David Cannadine

  Self, Order, Cynical

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• Vernon Bogdanor's account The Monarchy and the Constitution is written as much in the shadow of Edmund Burke as it is of Walter Bagehot. He stresses the organic development of the British constitution, prefers evolution to revolution, and thinks stability is better than strife.

  David Cannadine

  Stress, Thinking, Shadow

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• I knew a bit but we don't study a lot of British history at school in Australia. We have our own 50-year period to concentrate on.

  Eric Bana

  School, Years, Australia

  "The Other Boleyn Girl - Eric Bana interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• The wisest fool in Christendom.

  King James I

  Fool, Christendom, Wisest

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• Jews show so near an affinity to you... Where is your Christianity if you do not believe in their Judaism?

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Believe, History, Christianity

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• Egyptologists, skilled in piecing together the papyri of lost civilisations, suddenly discovered that the same talent could be applied to working out the pattern of German radio traffic.

  Robert Harris

  History, Work Out, Together

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• I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government an official note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o'clock, that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and consequently this country is at war with Germany.

  Neville Chamberlain

  Country, Morning, War

  "Neville Chamberlain's declaration of war". www.theguardian.com. September 03, 1939.

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• Nine English traditions out of ten date from the latter half of the nineteenth century.

  C.P. Snow

  History, Half, Nine

  "The Masters".

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• Of the 664 men who rode into the Valley of Death about 540 eventually got out of it again. By far the highest casualty rate was among the horses. Compared with the Somme or an evening in the Blitz, the Valley of Death was a piece of cake.

  Simon Heffer

  Horse, Men, Cake

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• The Victorians pioneered numbers of commercial rackets about which their descendants complain (the manufacturers of Bovril, it appears, were virtually official sponsors of the Boer War).

  D. J. Taylor

  War, Numbers, History

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• The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the Revolution of 1688 is this that this was our last Revolution.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  History, Eulogy, Lasts

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• We, while noting many things amiss about Victorian society, more often sense them judging us.

  A. N. Wilson

  History, Judging, Victorian

  "The Victorians". Book by A. N. Wilson, 1970.

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• Compare the scale and magnifcence of Versailles with St James's - the brick-built hovel in which the 18th-century kings of England lived. What was then the most powerful monarchy in the world housed its sovereigns in a converted leper hospital, yet, at the same time, parliament provided the magnificent palaces of Chelsea and Greenwich as hospitals for retired soldiers and sailors.

  David Starkey

  Kings, Powerful, History

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• For William Cecil and others in Elizabeth's Council, whose sense of Catholic conspiracy and threat governed their political thinking, England's security lay in the creation of a united and Protestant British Isles, which could stand alone, ready to resist invaders. Divine providence had set the islands apart from the rest of the world by encircling seas, 'a little world by itself'.

  Susan Brigden

  Thinking, Islands, Sea

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