Britons Quotes

• Poor Britons, there is some good in them after all - they produced an oyster.

  Sallust

  Oysters, Culture, Poor

  10 Copy quote

• I'm embarrassed when I see Brits abroad; they have their tops off, wear flip flops, and shout at the top of their voices.

  Noel Gallagher

  Voice, People, Musician

  52 Copy quote

• No one can be as calculatedly rude as the British, which amazes Americans, who do not understand studied insult and can only offer abuse as a substitute.

  Paul Gallico

  Inspirational, Rude, Insulting

  The New York Times, January 14, 1962.

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• Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton

  George III

  Country, Names, American Revolution

  'The King's Speech on Opening the Session' in 'Hansard' 18 November 1760, col. 942

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• Listening to Britons dining out is like watching people play first-class tennis with imaginary balls.

  Margaret Halsey

  Class, Play, People

  Margaret Halsey (1938). “With Malice Toward Some”

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• A Briton even in love should be A subject, not a slave!

  William Wordsworth

  Love, Slave, Should

  William Wordsworth (1854). “The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth”, p.97

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• Why do Britons keep stabbing each other in August? Why do seaside hotels burn down in August? Why do children disappear in August, examinations get easier and Heathrow become the world's worst airport? The answer lies not in reality but in appearance. News editors abhor a vacuum. Half an hour of airtime and 10 pages of news must be filled each day, whatever the weather.

  Simon Jenkins

  Children, Lying, Reality

  "The state has only aided our seasonal spates of thuggery" by Simon Jenkins, www.theguardian.com. August 21, 2007.

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• Britons put up with, Americans fix, Canadians cope

  Margaret Mead

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• It would be wrong to interpret the growth of British national consciousness in this period in terms of a new cultural and political uniformity being resolutely imposed on the peripheries of the island by its centre. For many poorer and less literate Britons, Scotland, Wales and England remained more potent rallying calls than Great Britain, except in times of danger from abroad. And even among the politically educated, it was common to think in terms of dual nationalities, not a single national identity.

  Linda Colley

  Thinking, Islands, Scotland

  9 Copy quote

• Kitty Kelley's method, already perfected in her unauthorised and unflattering biographies of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Reagan, is to write bestsellers that take what she describes as an 'unblinking look' at their subjects - which might, of course, mean that her eyes are permanently open or permanently closed... the result is a work so bad that Britons cannot realise how fortunate they are in being unable to buy it. The great mistake with this book is not that it has been published in Britain, but that it has actually been published anywhere else.

  David Cannadine

  Mistake, Book, Mean

  4 Copy quote

• Where are the rough brave Britons to be found With Hearts of Oak, so much of old renowned?

  Bill Vaughan

  Heart, Brave, England

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• It is plain and demonstrable, that much ale is not good for Yankee, and operates differently upon them from what it does upon a Briton; ale must be drank in a fog and a drizzle.

  Herman Melville

  Yankees, Fog, Doe

  Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.1232, Delphi Classics

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• BBC Radio is not so much an art or industry as it is a way of life . . . a mirror that reflects . . . the eccentricities, the looniness that make Britons slightly different from other humans.

  Morley Safer

  Art, Mirrors, Radio

  6 Copy quote

• The average Mexican lives longer now than the average Briton did in 1955. Infant mortality is lower today in Nepal than it was in Italy in 1951. The proportion of Vietnamese living on less than $2 a day has dropped from 90 per cent to 30 per cent in twenty years. The rich have got richer, but the poor have done even better.

  Matt Ridley

  Average, Years, Mexican

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• Aspects of life here civility, courtesy, coziness have always bound Britons to their country . . . They are part of the British myth, along with lovely countryside, dogs and horses, rose gardens, the Armada, the Battle of Britain.

  R. W. Apple

  Country, Dog, Horse

  5 Copy quote

• The British have their own conception of what constitutes the typical American. He must have a flavor of the Wild West about him. He must do spectacular things. He must not be punctilious about dignity, decorum and other refinements characteristic of the real British gentleman. The Yankee pictured by the Briton must be a bustler. If he is occasionally flagrantly indiscreet in speech and action, then he is so much more surely stamped the genuine article. The most typical American the British ever set their eyes on was, in their judgment, Theodore Roosevelt.

  B. C. Forbes

  Real, Eye, America

  4 Copy quote

• Between now and then, after 43 years of European marriage, the whole body of legislation will therefore have to be disentangled. That entails a whole range of specific and very complex questions: what will be the future legal status of the millions of EU citizens in the UK and the millions of Britons on the continent?

  Jean-Claude Juncker

  Years, Citizens, Body

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

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• I genuinely did not expect more than half our nation to choose to walk away from our long-term allies into the arms of our new friends Vladimir Putin, Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump. Or that they would do so without an economic plan, a trading strategy, or a credible leader, making the average Briton's future more uncertain than any time since the Blitz.

  Brian Reade

  Marine, Average, Long

  Source: www.mirror.co.uk

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• You perceive, do you not, that our national fairy tales reflect the inmost desires of the Briton and the Gaul?

  Rudyard Kipling

  Desire, Fairy Tale, Tales

  Rudyard Kipling (1970). “A book of words. Souvenirs of France. Something of myself”

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• The Britons (say historians) were naked, civilized men, learned, studious, abstruse in thought and contemplation; naked, simple, plain in their acts and manners; wiser than after ages.

  William Blake

  Simple, Men, Age

  William Blake, David V. Erdman, Harold Bloom (1982). “The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake”, p.542, Univ of California Press

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• The Britons are quite separated from all the world.

  Virgil

  World, Nationalism

  16 Copy quote

• A truly international field, no Britons involved.

  David Coleman

  Inspirational, Funny, Fields

  4 Copy quote

• Even the lowest of the Hindus, the Pariah, has less of the brute in him than a Briton in a similar social status. This is the result of an old and excellent religious civilization. This evolution to a higher spiritual state is possible only through discipline and education.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Spiritual, Religious, Civilization

  Swami Vivekananda (1974). “Awakened India”

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• Most Britons still lived and died without encountering anyone whose skin colour was different from their own. Slaves, in short, did not threaten, at least as far as the British at home were concerned. Bestowing freedom upon them seemed therefore purely an act of humanity and will, an achievement that would be to Great Britain's economic detriment, perhaps, but would have few other domestic consequences.

  Linda Colley

  Home, Achievement, Humanity

  8 Copy quote

• In the last quarter of the 20th century, Britons have been understandably obsessed with the problem of having too little power in the world. In the third quarter of the 18th century, by contrast, their forebears were perplexed by the problem of having acquired too much power too quickly over too many people.

  Linda Colley

  People, World, Littles

  5 Copy quote