Englishmen Quotes - Page 14

• There is an Indian story -- at least I heard it as an Indian story -- about an Englishman who, having been told that the world rested on a platform which rested on the back of an elephant which rested in turn on the back of a turtle, asked (perhaps he was an ethnographer; it is the way they behave), what did the turtle rest on? Another turtle. And that turtle? 'Ah, Sahib, after that it is turtles all the way down

  Clifford Geertz

  Turtles, Elephants, Stories

  René Girard, Clifford Geertz, Geoffrey H. Hartman, Stanford University. Committee on Modern Thought and Literature (1973*). “Myth and ritual in Shakespeare: A midsummer night's dream”

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• Spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it, reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Live Life, Order, Should Have

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.39, Xist Publishing

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• Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Men, Speaks French, Looks

  "The Luck of the Bodkins". Book by P. G. Wodehouse, 1935.

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• "Sassenach." He had called me that from the first; the Gaelic word for outlander, a stranger. An Englishman. First in jest, then in affection.

  Diana Gabaldon

  Firsts, Affection, Stranger

  "Dragonfly in Amber". Book by Diana Gabaldon, 1992.

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• I heard an Englishman, who had been long resident in America, declare that in following, in meeting, or in overtaking, in the street, on the road, or in the field, at the theatre, the coffee-house, or at home, he had never overheard Americans conversing without the word DOLLAR being pronounced between them. Such unity of purpose ... can ... be found nowhere else, except... in an ant's nest.

  Frances Trollope

  Coffee, Home, America

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• The average cooking in the average hotel for the average Englishman explains to a large extent the English bleakness and taciturnity. Nobody can beam and warble while chewing pressed beef smeared with diabolical mustard. Nobody can exult aloud while ungluing from his teeth a quivering tapioca pudding.

  Karel Capek

  Average, Cooking, Insulting

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• All Englishmen talk as if they've got a bushel of plums stuck in their throats, and then after swallowing them get constipated from the pips.

  W. C. Fields

  Insulting, Swallowing, Plums

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• The depressing thing about an Englishman's traditional love of animals is the dishonesty thereof ... Get a barbed hook into the upper lip of a salmon, drag him endlessly around the water until he loses his strength, pull him to the bank, hit him on the head with a stone, and you may well become fisherman of the year. Shoot.the salmon and you'll never be asked again.

  Clement Freud

  Depressing, Animal, Years

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• I am, as far as I can tell, about a month behind Lord Byron. In every town we stop at we discover innkeepers, postillions, officials, burghers, potboys, and all kinds and sorts of ladies whose brains still seem somewhat deranged from their brief exposure to his lordship. And though my companions are careful to tell people that I am that dreadful being, an English magician, I am clearly nothing in comparison to an English poet and everywhere I go I enjoy the reputation- quite new to me, I assure you- of the quiet, good Englishman, who makes no noise and is no trouble to any one.

  Susanna Clarke

  People, Brain, Noise

  Susanna Clarke (2005). “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell”, p.599, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• That part of the Englishman's nature which has found gratification in religion is now drifting into political life.

  Beatrice Webb

  Political, Found, Drifting

  Beatrice Webb, Beatrice Potter Webb (1979). “My Apprenticeship”, p.163, Cambridge University Press

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• I am the last Englishman to rule in India.

  Jawaharlal Nehru

  India, Lasts

  Quoted in John Kenneth Galbraith, A Life in Our Times (1981)

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• The great works belong to no one nation, no one cultural tradition even. They are universal.I want an Australian vision of arts policy that is expansive, is embracing, is not narrow, is not parochial. For example, that Australians can do Shakespeare just as well as Englishmen can because we, like every civilised nation, partake of the great canonical works. It's not about Australian nationalism; it's about our identity as a culturally ambitious, culturally sophisticated nation.

  George Brandis

  Art, Vision, Ambitious

  Source: www.abc.net.au

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• So the books for the Englishman, as he listened intently or not, had gaps of plot like sections of a road washed out by storms, missing incidents as if locusts had consumed a section of tapestry, as if plaster loosened by the bombing had fallen away from a mural at night.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Book, Night, Missing

  Michael Ondaatje (2011). “The English Patient”, p.7, Vintage

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• I have no intention of watching undersized Englishmen perched on horses with matchstick legs race along courses planned to amuse Nell Gwynn.

  Gilbert Harding

  Horse, Race, Jockeys

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• What is unique about Drogheda is the very large number of Protestants in the garrison and the fact that it's commanded, by and large, by Englishmen, who have come over from the English Civil War and are fighting in Ireland, and Cromwell is extraordinarily savage against these... Drogheda, after all, was a Protestant

  Ronald Hutton

  War, Fighting, Unique

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• How hard it is to make an Englishman acknowledge that he is happy! Pendennis. Book ii. Chap. xxxi.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Happiness, Book, Chaps

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• In the early days of the December that my father was to die, my younger brother brought me the news that I was a Jew. I was then a transplanted Englishman in America, married, with one son and, though unconsoled by any religion, a nonbelieving member of two Christian churches. On hearing the tidings, I was pleased to find that I was pleased.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Christian, Brother, Atheist

  Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.317, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. They have in themselves what they value in their horses, mettle and bottom.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Horse, Men, Shoes

  "English Traits". Book by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1856.

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• This book will prove the following ten facts: 1. A Goon is a being who melts into the foreground and sticks there. 2. Pigs have wings, making them hard to catch. 3. All power corrupts, but we need electricity. 4. When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, the result is a family fight. 5. Music does not always sooth the troubled beast. 6. An Englishman's home is his castle. 7. The female of the species is more deadly than the male. 8. One black eye deserves another. 9. Space is the final frontier, and so is the sewage farm. 10. It pays to increase your word power.

  Diana Wynne Jones

  Book, Home, Eye

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• If these are indeed the spirits of Englishmen and Englishwomen who have passed over into the next world, surely they would know how to form a proper queue?

  Julian Barnes

  World, Next, Spirit

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• What beefsteak is to Argentina, flamenco to Spain, cool reserve and self-control in all situations to an Englishman, what vodka is to a Russian and beer to a Bavarian, what money is to a Swiss, that is outdoor-life to an Australian. It is a noble mania, better than vodka, better than cool reserve, better than money.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humor, Beer

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• This war proceeds along its terrible path by the slaughter of infantry...I say to myself every day. What is going on while we sit here, while we go away to dinner or home to bed? Nearly, 1000 - Englishmen, Britishers, and the other is America...Everything else is swept away.

  Winston Churchill

  War, Home, America

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• The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen's lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.

  Winston Churchill

  Doctors, Mind, Empires

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• An Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman were invited to a Christmas party. The Englishman brought a bag of tinsel, the Scotsman brought a bag of holly and they asked the Irishman: "What have you brought?" He said: "I brought a pair of knickers." They asked: "What has that got to do with Christmas?" He said "They're Carol's."

  Frank Carson

  Funny, Party, Humor

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• If you must kill English officials, why not kill me instead?

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Why Not, Language, Kill Me

  Mahatma Gandhi (1971). “Collected Works”

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