Englishmen Quotes - Page 4

• An Irish man fights before he reasons, a Scotchman reasons before he fights, an Englishman is not particular as to the order of precedence, but will do either to accommodate his customers.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Business, Fighting, Men

  Philip Dormer Stanhope (4th earl of Chesterfield.), Charles Caleb Colton (1861). “Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son on men and manners. To which are added, selections from Colton's 'Lacon'.”, p.188

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• Leave three Englishmen in a room and they will invent a rule that prevents a fourth joining them.

  Julian Fellowes

  Three, Joining, Rooms

  Julian Fellowes (2006). “Snobs: A Novel”, p.21, Macmillan

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• It is not that the Englishman can't feel-it is that he is afraid to feel. He has been taught at his public school that feeling is bad form. He must not express great joy or sorrow, or even open his mouth too wide when he talks-his pipe might fall out if he did.

  E. M. Forster

  Fall, School, Justice

  Abinger Harvest "Notes on English Character" (1936)

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• Because I am an Englishman I spent most of my life in a state of embarrassment.

  Colin Firth

  Life, Awkward, Feelings

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• Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life.

  Cecil Rhodes

  Firsts, Remember, Winning The Lottery

  In Peter Ustinov 'Dear Me' (1977) ch. 4

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• An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose.

  A. P. Herbert

  Humorous, Purpose, Noble

  1935 Uncommon Law,'Fox-Hunting Fun'.

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• You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.

  William Butler Yeats

  Truth, Lying, Ideas

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• Englishmen have always loved Moliere.

  Lytton Strachey

  Lytton Strachey (1965). “Spectatorial Essays”

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• I've written so many songs about Englishmen, I have to go elsewhere.

  Ray Davies

  Song, Elsewhere, Written

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• It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Hate, Pygmalion, Mouths

  Pygmalion (1916) preface

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• At twelve noon, The natives swoon And no further work is doneBut mad dogs and Englishmen, Go out in the midday sun.

  Noel Coward

  Dog, Mad, Twelve

  'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' (1931 song)

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• My two elder sisters married Englishmen and went abroad.

  Bill Forsyth

  Sister, Two, Married

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• I married a young Englishman in Cambridge in 1955 and have lived in Britain every since.

  Anne Stevenson

  Married, Young, Britain

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• A spirit, breathing the language of independence, is natural to Englishmen, few of whom are disposed to brook compulsion, or submit to the dictates of others, when not softened by reason, or tempered with kindness.

  Joseph Lancaster

  Kindness, Breathing, Independence

  Joseph Lancaster (1807). “Improvements in Education, as it Respects the Industrious Classes of the Community: Containing Among Other Important Particulars, an Account of the Institution for the Education of One Thousand Poor Children, Borough Road, Southwark; and of the New System of Education on which it is Conducted”, p.148

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• Michael Powell always used to say 'I'm a typical Englishman'. He was and he wasn't. He was very cosmopolitan and spent a lot of time in Europe.

  Thelma Schoonmaker

  Europe, Typical, Used

  Source: www.fluxmagazine.com

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• Let us learn from the English rulers the simple fact that the oppressors are blind to the enormity of their own misdeeds.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Simple, Facts, Language

  Gandhi (Mahatma) (1924). “Collected works”

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• The Almighty in His infinite wisdom did not see fit to create Frenchmen in the image of Englishmen.

  Winston Churchill

  Fit, Infinite, Almighty

  Winston Churchill (1952). “War Speeches: From June 25, 1941 to September 6, 1943”

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• God is decreeing to begin some newand great period in his Church, even to the reforming of Reformation itself. What does he then but reveal Himself to his servants, and as his manner is, first to his Englishmen?

  John Milton

  Church, Doe, Firsts

  'Areopagitica' (1644) p. 31

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• Englishmen are so odd. They are like a nest of Chinese boxes. It takes a very long time to get to the centre of them. When one gets there the result is unrewarding, but the process is instructive and entertaining.

  Ian Fleming

  Long, Chinese, Nests

  Ian Fleming (1961). “gilt-edged bonds”

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• An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The barman looks at them and says: "Is this some kind of a joke?"

  Frank Carson

  Funny, Humor, Bars

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• Tennis was a game invented by a woman named Samantha Tennis in 1839, in the village of Lobsworth, County of Kent, as a diversion for the wealthy and titled Englishmen of the region, who had nothing better to do at the time but drink, belch and wear funny clothes.

  Dan Jenkins

  Games, Clothes, Tennis

  Dan Jenkins (2015). “"YOU CALL IT SPORTS, BUT I SAY IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!"”, p.301, Simon and Schuster

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• Rugby is a game for the mentally deficient... That is why it was invented by the British. Who else but an Englishman could invent an oval ball?

  Peter Pook

  Games, Balls, Oval

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• An Englishman hath three qualities, he can suffer no partner in his love, no stranger to be his friend, nor to be dared by any.

  John Lyly

  Suffering, Quality, Three

  "Euphues and his England". Book by John Lyly, 1579.

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• Indeed, the Englishman's history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.

  Henry David Thoreau

  History, France, England

  Henry David Thoreau (1866). “Cape Cod”, p.215

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• It is because the cosmos is meaningless that we must secure our individual illusions of values, direction, and interest by upholding the artificial streams which give us such worlds of salutary illusion. That is - since nothing means anything in itself, we must preserve the proximate and arbitrary background which makes things around us seem as if they did mean something.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Mean, Giving, Cosmos

  Letter to James F. Morton (6 November 1930), in "Selected Letters III, 1929-1931" edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, (p. 208), 1968.

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