Englishmen Quotes - Page 6

• My heart rebels against any foreigner imposing on my country the peace which is here called Pax-Britannica.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Country, Heart, Rebel

  Mahatma Gandhi (1968). “Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi”

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• It would be a sad day for India if it has to inherit the English scale and the English tastes so utterly unsuitable to the Indian environment.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  India, Would Be, Taste

  Mahatma Gandhi (1965). “Collected Works”

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• Virtually the entire inflow was therefore Asiatic, and all but three or four thousand of that inflow originated from the Indian subcontinent... It is by 'black Power' that the headlines are caught, and under the shape of the negro that the consequences for Britain of immigration and what is miscalled 'race' are popularly depicted. Yet it is more truly when he looks into the eyes of Asia that the Englishman comes face to face with those who will dispute with him the possession of his native land.

  Enoch Powell

  Eye, Race, Land

  "Still to Decide" by Enoch Powell, Eliot Right Way Books, (p. 209), 1972.

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• When an Englishman has professed his belief in the supremacy of Shakespeare amongst all poets, he feels himself excused from the general study of literature. He also feels himself excused from the particular study of Shakespeare.

  Aubrey Beardsley

  Literature, Belief, Study

  "Under the Hill and Other Essays". Book by Aubrey Beardsley, 1904.

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• I thinke it not amisse to forewarne you that you thrust as few wordes of many sillables into your verse as may be: and hereunto I might alledge many reasons: first the most auncient English wordes are of one sillable, so that the more monasyllables that you use, the truer Englishman you shall seeme, and the lesse you shall smell of the Inkehorne.

  George Gascoigne

  Smell, Use, May

  George Gascoigne, John W. Cunliffe (2012). “The Complete Works of George Gascoigne: Volume 1, The Posies”, p.468, Cambridge University Press

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• We Hindus and Mohamedans would have to blame our folly rather than the English, if we allowed them to put us asunder.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Blame, Language, Folly

  Mahatma Gandhi (1968). “Gandhis India: Unity in Diversity”

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• I must fight unto the death the unholy attempt to impose British methods and British institutions on India.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Fighting, India, Language

  Mahatma Gandhi (1947). “Gandhigrams”

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• The Indian struggle is not anti-British, it is anti-exploitation, anti-foreign rule, not anti-foreigners.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Struggle, Language, British

  Mahatma Gandhi (1958). “Collected Works”

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• He was born an Englishman and remained one for years.

  Brendan Behan

  Years, England, Born

  'Hostage' (1958) act 1

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• We know that England is crying for a leader, and that leader has emerged in the person of the greatest Englishman I have ever known, Sir Oswald Mosley... When the history of Europe comes to be written I can assure you that his name will not be second to either Mussolini or Hitler.

  William Joyce

  Europe, Names, Leader

  William Joyce's speech at Brighton (March 1934) as quoted in Frederic Mullally "Fascism inside England" (p. 15), 1946.

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• The impossibility of keeping Englishmen sober ashore was a constant source of complaint, It was the great weakness of 16th century English infantrymen, whose performance when sober was admired even by the Spaniards. Already it was true, as it was to be for centuries, that many saw and despised the drunken sailor ashore, but few knew and admired him at his work afloat.

  Nicholas Rodger

  Sailor, Saws, Weakness

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• When a tiger changes his nature, Englishmen will change theirs.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Tigers

  Mahatma Gandhi, Judith M. Brown (2008). “The Essential Writings”, p.134, Oxford University Press

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• The poor silly-clever Irishman takes off his hat to God's Englishman.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Clever, Silly, Hats

  1904 Larry Doyle. John Bull's Other Island, act 1.

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• The nearest approach to the infallible in literary judgment is represented in the colossal work of the teacher of all these three [Edmund Gosse, Edward Dowden and George Saintsbury], the greatest critic that ever lived - not an Englishman, but a Frenchman, the wonderful Sainte-Beuve.

  Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

  Teacher, Three, Wonderful

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• If I were an Englishman, I should esteem the man who advised a war with China to be the greatest living enemy of my country. You would be beaten in the end, and perhaps a revolution in India would follow.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Country, War, Men

  "The Mind of Napoleon" by J. Christopher Herold, (p. 249), 1955.

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• A land may be said to be discovered the first time a European, presumably an Englishman, sets foot on it.

  Vilhjalmur Stefansson

  Land, Feet, May

  Discovery (published 1964).

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• I have to laugh when the English claim they are such a wonderful nation. Everyone knows that Englishmen are really Germans, that the English kings were German, and that in Russia the emperors were either of German origin or received their education in Germany.

  Hermann Goring

  Kings, Russia, Laughing

  Remark on May 28, 1946. "The Nuremberg Interviews". Book by Leon Goldensohn, 2004.

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• The working-class is now issuing from its hiding-place to assert an Englishman's heaven-born privilege of doing as he likes, and is beginning to perplex us by marching where it likes, meeting where it likes, bawling what it likes, breaking what it likes.

  Matthew Arnold

  Class, Heaven, Likes

  'Culture and Anarchy' (1869) ch. 3

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• Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness.

  William Bradford

  Father, Ocean, Plymouth

  Nathaniel Morton, William Bradford, Thomas Prince, Edward Winslow (1669). “New-England's Memorial”, p.23

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• The canker has so eaten into the society that in many cases the only meaning of education is a knowledge of English.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Language, Cases, English Language

  Mahatma Gandhi, Mohandas Gandhi, Ronald Duncan (2005). “Gandhi: Selected Writings”, p.167, Courier Corporation

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• The fact that an Englishman has an Argentinian as an idol is very rare. I keep watching my [title-winning] goal against QPR and every time I get more emotional. My plan is to stay here because I'm convinced Manchester City will be at the same level as Real Madrid and Barcelona.

  Sergio Aguero

  Real, Winning, Emotional

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• Non-co-operation is a movement intended to invite Englishmen to co-operate with us on honourable terms or retire from our land.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Land, Movement, Language

  Mahatma Gandhi (1994). “Volume of prefaces”

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• For educated Americans like Joseph Ellis, Vietnam is a special hang-up. I am an Englishman of exactly the Vietnam generation, a couple of years younger than Ellis; indeed, for reasons too complicated to explain here, I was nearly drafted into the US army in 1965. I know many Americans of my own age and, as much to the point, my own class - journalists, publishers, lawyers. And I don't think I know one who served in Vietnam.

  Geoffrey Wheatcroft

  Couple, Army, Thinking

  "Not so macho" by Geoffrey Wheatcroft, www.theguardian.com. June 22, 2001.

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• Christianity in India is inextricably mixed up for the last hundred and fifty years with the British rule.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Years, India, Fifty

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• Why do people speak of great men in terms of nationality? Great Germans, great Englishmen? Goethe always protested against being called a German poet. Great men are simply men and are not to be considered from the point of view of nationality, nor should the environment in which they were brought up be taken into account.

  Albert Einstein

  Taken, Men, Views

  Quoted in N.Y. Times, 18 Apr. 1926

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