England quotes

  • We have in England a particular bashfulness in every thing that regards religion.

    -Joseph Addison
      In The Spectator, no.458,15  Aug.

  • Long experience has taught me that in England nobody goes to the theatre unless he or she has bronchitis.

    -James Agate
    Attributed.

  • Speak for England, Arthur!

    - Leo(pold) Charles Maurice Stennett Amery
      Shouted to  Arthur Greenwood, Labour Opposition spokesman, 2 Sep, as Greenwood began a House of Commons speech calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, immediately preceding the declaration of  World War II.

  • Possibly the symbol for America is the Frontier† The corresponding symbol for England is the Island† The central symbol for Canada†is undoubtedly Survival, la Survivance.

    - Margaret Eleanor Atwood
      Survival: a Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, ch.1, 'Survival'.

  • What do you think about England, this country of ours where nobody is well?

    -W(ystan) H(ugh) Auden
      The Orators,'Address for a Prize Day'.

  • It issaid that England invented the phrase,'Her Majesty's Opposition'; that it was the first government which made a criticism of administration as much a part of the polityas administration itself. 51

    -Walter Bagehot
      The English Constitution, ch.2,'The Cabinet'.

  • Who can tell without instruction what is likely to be the effect of thenew loans of England toforeignnations? We press upon half-finished and half-civilized communities incalculable sums; we are to them what the London money-dealers are to students at Oxford and Cambridge.

    -Walter Bagehot
      'Postulates of English Political Economy', in Economic Studies (1880).

  •    The Parliament of England cannot have on earth so strong pillars and pregnant supporters of all their were always told there is one golden rule: no hanky panky in theTardis.

    - Robert Baillie
      On playing Doctor  Who. Quoted in the Sunday Times,7 Mar.

  • When you think about the defence of England, you no longer think of the chalk cliffs of Dover.You think of the Rhine. That is where our frontier lies today.

    - Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin (of Bewdley)
      House of Commons, 30  Jul.

  • It fell about the Lammas tide, When the muir-men win their hay, The doughty Douglas bound him to ride Into England, to drive a prey.

    -Ballads
    'The Battle of Otterbourne', opening lines.

  • The one art-form that has been invented in England.

    - Sir (Henry) Max(imilian) Beerbohm
    Of the pantomime.  Attributed.

  • With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, Fallen in the cause of the free.

    - (Robert) Laurence Binyon
      'For the Fallen', in The Times, 21 Sep.

  • The things I've done for England.

    - Lajos Biro
      Line delivered by Charles Laughton as Henry VIII to Else Lanchester as  Anne of Cleves in  The Private Life of Henry  VIII (with  Arthur Wimperis).

  • The whore and gambler, by the state Licensed build that nation's fate. The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave old England's winding sheet.

    -William Blake
    c.1803  Auguries of Innocence, l.113^6

  • And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen?

    -William Blake
      Milton, preface. Stanza1.

  • I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land.

    -William Blake
      Milton, preface. Stanza 4.

  • When you destroy a blade of grass You poison England at her roots; Remember no man's foot can pass Where evermore no green life shoots.

    - Gordon Bottomley
      'To Ironfounders and Others'.

  • England is the mother of Parliaments.

    -John Bright
      Speech, Birmingham,18  Jan.

  • There is no nation on the continent of Europe that is less able to do harm to England, and there isno nation on the continent of Europe to whom we are less able to do harm, than Russia.We are so separate that it seems impossible that the two nations, by the use of reason or common sense at all, could possibly be brought into conflict with each other.

    -John Bright
      Speech, Birmingham,13  Jan.

  • Of late years an abundant shower of curates has fallen upon the north of England.

    - Charlotte Bronte« 
      Shirley, ch.1.

  •   If I should die, thinkonly this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich dust a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

    - Rupert Chawner Brooke
      'The Soldier'.

  • God! I will pack, and take a train, And get me to England once again! For England's the one land,I know, Where men with Splendid Hearts may go.

    - Rupert Chawner Brooke
      'The Old Vicarage, Grantchester'.

  • The world was beforethecreationand at anend beforeit had a beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive. Though my grave be England, my dying place was Paradise, and Eve miscarried of me before she conceived of Cain.

    - SirThomas Browne
    ^5  Religio Medici (published1643), pt.1, section 59.

  • All places, all airs make unto me one country; I am in England, everywhere, and under any meridian.

    - SirThomas Browne
    ^5  Religio Medici (published1643), pt.2, section1.

  • Oh, to be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In Englandnow!

    - Robert Browning
      Dramatic Romances and Lyrics,'Home- Thoughts, from Abroad'.

  • 'Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?'say.

    - Robert Browning
      Dramatic Romances and Lyrics,'Home- Thoughts, from the Sea'.

  • These are the gardens of the Desert, these The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful, For which the speech of England has no name The Prairies.

    -William Cullen Bryant
      Poems,'The Prairies'.

  • Look at the Irish! Theyare the cleverest propagandists extant, and managed to persuade most people that they were a brave, generous, humorous, talented, warm- hearted race, cruelly yoked to a dull mercantile England, when,God knows, they were exactly the opposite.

    -John, 1st BaronTweedsmuir Buchan
      The Three Hostages.

  • Now Sark rins o'er the Solway sands, An' Tweed rins to the ocean, To mark where England's province stands, Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

    - Robert Burns
      'Such a parcel of rogues in a nation', stanza1.

  • After all, it is not every man who nearly becomes Prime Minister of England.

    - Baron Butler
      On being passed over as Harold Macmillan's successor in favour of  Alec Douglas-Home,  Jan.

  • In rural England, people live wrapped tight in a cocoon; only their eyes move to make sure that nobody gets more than themselves.

    -J(ames) L(loyd) Carr
      How Steeple Sinderby  Wanderers Won the FA Cup, pt.2.

  • Under a more heroic Minister, and in a less self-seeking age, it is probablethat England would have preferred the risk, whatever its extent, to the infamy of betraying an ally whom she had enticed into peril. But our Ministry is not heroic; and our generation, though not indifferent to glory, prefers it when it is safe and cheap.

    -of Salisbury
      On Palmerston's failure to defend Denmark against Prussia, in the Quarterly Review,  Jul.

  • Be England what she will, With all her faults, she is my country still.

    - Charles Churchill
      The Farewell, l.27^8.

  • When I warned the French that Britain would fight on alone,General Weygand told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinetthat inthreeweeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken. Some chicken, some neck!

    - Lord Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill
      Speech to the Canadian Parliament, 30 Dec.

  • : 'Tis for the honour of England that all Europe should know that we have blockheads of all ages. : I wonder there is not an Act of Parliament to save the credit of the nation, and prohibit the exportation of fools.

    -William Congreve
    FAINALLMIRABELL1700  The Way of the World, act1, sc.5.

  •    The dominion of the sea, as it is an ancient and undoubted right of the crown of England, so it isthe best security of the land† The wooden walls are the best walls of this kingdom.

    -Thomas, 1st Baron Coventry
      Speech to the Star Chamber,17  Jun.'Wooden walls'refers to ships.

  • The stately homes of England, How beautiful they stand, To prove the upper classes Have still the upper hand.

    - Sir Noe«  l Peirce Coward
      'The Stately Homes of England' (song).

  • England, with all thy faults I love thee still My country!

    -William Cowper
      The Task, bk.2,'The Timepiece', l.206^7.

  • England has greater counties Their peace to hers is small; Low hills, rich fields, calm rivers, In Essex seek them all.

    - Arthur S(hearly) Cripps
    Quoted in S P B Mais and Tom Stephenson (eds) Lovely Britain (c.1930).

  • I became one of the stately homos of England.

    - Quentin Crisp
      The Naked Civil Servant, ch.24.

  • In England, the system is benign and the people are hostile. In America, the people are friendlyand the system is brutal!

    - Quentin Crisp
      In The Guardian, 23 Oct.

  • It is only when you get to see and realize what India isthat she is the strength and the greatness of Englandthat you feel that every nerve a man may strain, every energy he may put forward, cannot be devoted to a nobler purpose than keeping tight the cords that hold India to ourselves.

    - Lord George Nathaniel Curzon (of Kedleston)
      Speech at Southport,15 May.

  •    The naturalist in England, in his walks, enjoys a great advantage over others in frequently meeting with something worthy of attention; here he suffers a pleasant nuisance in not being able to walk a hundred yards without being fairly tied to the spot by some new and wondrous creature.

    - Charles Robert Darwin
      In Brazil.  Journey of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited duringthe Voyage of HMS 'Beagle' Round the World (published1839).

  • You that love England, who have an ear for her music, The slow movement of clouds in benediction, Clear arias of light thrilling over her uplands, Over the chords of summer sustained peacefully.

    - Cecil Day-Lewis
      The Magnetic Mountain, pt.4, no.32.

  • Manchester, one of the greatest, if not really the greatest mere village in England.

    - Daniel Defoe
    ^7  A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, letter10.

  • The Continent will not suffer England to be the workshop of the world.

    - Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield Disraeli
      House of Commons,15 Mar.

  • I am neither a Whig nor aTory. My politics are described in one word, and that word is England.

    - Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield Disraeli
      Speech, House of Commons.

  • England does not love coalitions.

    - Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield Disraeli
      Speech, House of Commons,17 Dec.

  • England is unrivalled for two thingssport and politics.

    - Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield Disraeli
    Quoted in Colin  Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

  • The bow was made in England, Of true wood, of yew wood, The wood of English bows.

    - SirArthur Conan Doyle
    The White Company,'Song of the Bow'.

  • England's not a bad country† It's just a mean, cold, ugly, divided, tired, clapped-out, post-imperial, post- industrial slag-heap covered in polystyrene hamburger cartons. 286

    - Margaret Drabble
      A Natural Curiosity.

  •    That shire which we the Heart of England well may call.

    - Michael Drayton
    ^22  Of  Warwickshire. Polyolbion, song13, l.2.

  • Three poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpassed, The next in majesty, in both the last: The force of Nature could no farther go; To make a third, she joined the former two.

    -John Dryden
      'Epigram on Milton', engraved on the frontispiece to the 1688 edition of Paradise Lost. The three poets are Homer, Virgil and Milton.

  • Oh! The roast beef of England, And old England's roast beef!

    - Henry Fielding
    Grub Street Opera, act 3, sc.3.

  • England istheparadise of women, thepurgatoryof men, and the hell of horses.

    -John Florio
    Second Frutes, ch.12.

  •    You cannot be absolutely dumb when you live with a person unless you are an inhabitant of the North of England or the State of Maine.

    - Ford Madox originally Ford Hermann Hueffer Ford
      The Good Soldier, pt.3, ch.4.

  • Here is the heart of our island: the Chilterns, the North Downs, the South Downs radiate hence. The fibres of England unite in Wiltshire, and did we condescend to worship her, here should we erect our national shrine.

    - E(dward) M(organ) Forster
      The Longest  Journey, ch.13.

  • England is a great and powerful nation, foremost in human progress, enemy to despotism, the only safe refuge for the exile, friend of the oppressed. If ever England should be so circumstanced as to require the help of anyally, cursed be the Italian who would not step forward with me in her defence.

    - Giuseppe Garibaldi
      Letter,12  Apr.

  • Daniel Day Lewis has what every actor in Hollywood wants: talent. And what everyactor in England wants: looks.

    - Andre   Paul Guillaume Gide
      In The Independent,13 May.

  • I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I've information vegetable, animal and mineral, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical.

    - Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert
       The Major-General's song, The Pirates of Penzance, act1.

  • England's foreign policy should always be inspired by the love of freedom. There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon visionary ideas but upon the long experience of many generations within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom one lays the firmest foundations both of loyalty and order.

    -W(illiam) E(wart) Gladstone
      Speech, West Calder, 27 Nov.

  •    It is clear that both England and America are now to be governed by the mob.

    - George Grenville
      On the repeal of the Stamp  Act,  Jul.

  • In England, even the poorest of people believe that they have rights; that is very different from what satisfies the poor in other lands.

    - Simon Heffer
    The Philosophy of Right.

  • The stately homes of England, How beautiful they stand! Amid their tall ancestral trees, O'er all the pleasant land. See Coward 239:18.

    - Felicia ne  e Browne Hemans
      'The Homes of England'.

  • What have I done for you, England, my England?

    -W(illiam) E(rnest) Henley
      'Pro Rege Nostro'.

  • The Common Law of England has been laboriously built about a mythical figurethe figure of 'The Reasonable Man'.

    - SirA(lan) P(atrick) Herbert
      Uncommon Law,'The Reasonable Man'.

  • I am happy now that Charles calls on my bedchamber less frequently than of old. As it is, I now endure but two calls a week and when I hear his steps outside my door I lie down on my bed, close my eyes, open my legs, and think of England.

    - Lady Hillingdon
       Journal entry. Quoted in  J Gathorne-Hardy  The Rise and Fall of the British Nanny (1972), ch.3. The phrase is often rendered 'Lie back and think of England'.

  • L'Angleterre toujours sera s½ur de la France. England will always be the sister of France.

    -Victor Marie Hugo
      Cromwell, act 2, sc.2.

  • We live half our lives in England†there can't have been anything quite like this sincethe Roman colonists settled in Britain: not the hanging on with one hand, and the other hand full of seas.

    - Robin pseudonym of IrisGuiver Wilkinson Hyde
      The Godwits Fly, ch.8.

  • The best thing I know between France and England isthe sea.

    - Douglas William Jerrold
    The Wit and Opinions of Douglas Jerrold (published1859),'The Anglo-French  Alliance'.

  • If an earthquake were to engulf England tomorrow, the English would manage to meet and dine somewhere among the rubbish, just to celebrate the event.

    - Douglas William Jerrold
    Quoted in Blanchard Jerrold  The Life and Remains of Douglas Jerrold (1859), ch.14.

  • Oats. A grain, which in England isgenerally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

    - Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
      A Dictionary of the English Language.

  • The notion of libertyamuses the people of England, and helps to keep off the taedium vitae.When a butcher tells you that his heart bleeds for his country he has, in fact, no uneasy feeling.

    - Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
      Remark,16 May. Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

  • The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!

    - Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
      Remark,6  Jul. Quoted in James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

  • Seeing Scotland, Madam, is only seeing a worse England.

    - Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
      Remark quoted in a letter to Boswell,7  Apr. Quoted in James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.3.

  • England still stands outside Europe. Europe's voiceless tremors do not reach her. Europe is apart, and England is not of her flesh and body.

    -John Maynard, 1st Baron Keynes (of Tilton)
      The Economic Consequences of the Peace.

  • The healthiest situation in England, on Easthampstead Plain. Free run of Windsor Forest. TheTimes every morning. A double-barrelled gun and pointers, and leave to shoot three Wellington College boys a week (not more) in case black game was scarce.

    - Charles Kingsley
       The reward for criminal lunacy. The Water Babies, ch.4.

  • Winds of the World, give answer! Theyare whimpering to and fro And what should they know of England who only England know? The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      'The English Flag'.

  • Of all the trees that grow so fair, Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun, Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      Puck of Pook's Hill,'Tree Song'.

  • England shall bide till Judgement Tide By Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      Puck of Pook's Hill,'Tree Song'.

  • Our England is a garden that is full of stately views, Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues, With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by; But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      'The Glory of the Garden'.

  • Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made By singing:'Oh, how beautiful!'and sitting in the shade, While better men than we go out and start their working lives At grubbing weeds from gravel paths with broken dinner-knives.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      'The Glory of the Garden'.

  • There is but one task for all For each one life to give. What stands if freedom fall? Who dies if England live?

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      'For  All We Have and  Are'.

  • England's on the anvilhear the hammers ring Clanging from the Severn to theTyne!

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      Rudyard Kipling's Verse,'The  Anvil'.

  • Be of good comfort Master Ridley, and play the man.We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as (I trust) shall never be put out.

    - Hugh Latimer
      Spoken to Nicholas Ridley, as they waited together to be burned at the stake,16 Oct. Quoted in Foxe Acts and Monuments (1563).

  • Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines, the slimy, the belly-wriggling invertebrates, the miserable sodding rotters, the flaming sods, the snivelling, dribbling, dithering, palsied, pulse-less lot that make up England today.

    - D(avid) H(erbert) Lawrence
      Letter to Edward Garnett, 3  Jul, after the rejection of Sons and Lovers by Heinemann.

  • How glorious it would be in the eyes of God and men, if we managed to hunt the Catholics from England, follow them to France, and, like the bold King of Sweden, rouse the Protestants in France, plant our religion in Paris by agreement or force, and go from there to Rome to chase the Antichrist and burn the town whence superstition comes.

    - David Leslie
      Said to Lord Hume, Council of Scottish Nobles,  Aug.

  • The history of England is emphatically the history of progress.

    -1st Baron
      'Sir  James Mackintosh's History of the Revolution in England, in1688' in the Edinburgh Review,  Jul.

  • The history of England is emphatically the history of progress.

    -1st Baron
      House of Commons, 22 May.

  • England, their England. See Henley 395:40.

    - A(rchibald) G(ordon) MacDonnell
       Title of novel. US    government    official    and    businessman,    former    chief

  •    In England, pop art and fine art stand resolutely back to back.

    - Colin MacInnes
    England, Half English,'Pop Songs and Teenagers'.

  •    Every man who comes to England is entitled to the protection of the English law, whatever oppression he may heretofore have suffered, and whatever may be the colour of his skin, whether it is black or whether it is white.

    -William Murray, 1st Earl Mansfield
       Judgement on the Somersett slavery case, May.

  • In England, justice is open to alllike the Ritz Hotel. 560

    - SirJames Charles Mathew
    Quoted in R E Megarry Miscellany-at-Law (1955). Sometimes attributed to Lord Darling.

  • 'Tis Ireland gives England her soldiers, her generals too.

    - George Meredith
      Diana of the Crossways, ch.2.

  • On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners.

    - George Mikes
      How to Be an  Alien.

  • Lords and Commons of England, consider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors: a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse,not beneaththereachofany pointthehighest that human capacity can soar to.

    -John Milton
      Areopagitica: a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing.

  • Such proud, obstinate, ridiculous judgements I have encountered many times, and once even in England.

    - SirThomas More
      Utopia (English translation1556), bk.1.

  • Sothat finding myself at present inorabout onehundred and twenty degrees off east longitude from England, it bred in me a desire to proceed on the same easterly course till I had ended where I began, and so to have once made one circle round the globe of the earth, which would have been a voyage of voyages.

    - Peter Mundy
    c.1640  Objections were raised and Mundy was unable to fulfil this aim. Travels (published c.1650).

  • England is a nation of shopkeepers.

    -Napoleon I
    Attributed while in exile on St Helena.

  • In a Lancashire cotton-town you could probably go for months on end without once hearing an'educated' accent, whereas there can hardly be a town in the South of England where youcould throwa brick without hitting the niece of a bishop.

    - George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair Orwell
      The Road to Wigan Pier, ch.7.

  • Down here it was still the England I had known in my childhood:†all sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England, fromwhich Isometimesfear that weshall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs.

    - George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair Orwell
      Homage to Catalonia, ch.14.

  • England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much- quoted passage, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons.

    - George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair Orwell
    The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, pt.3,'Shopkeeper at War'.

  • A family with the wrong members in controlthat, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.

    - George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair Orwell
    The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, pt.3,'The English Revolution'.

  • I therefore fearlessly challenge the verdict which this house†is to give on the question now brought before it†whether, as the Roman, in days of old, held himself free from indignity, when he could say Civis Romanus sum; so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong.

    - HenryJohnTemple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
      From his four-and-a-half hour Don Pacifico speech, Jun. Don Pacifico was a PortugueseJew resident in Athens, born in Gibraltar and therefore a British subject. In support of his claims for compensation from the Greek government for damage done to his property by a mob, Palmerston sent the British fleet to blockade Piraeus and brought the two countries to the brink of war.

  • England is one of the greatest powers of the world. No event or series of events bearing on the balance of power, or on probabilities of peace or war, can be matters of indifferencetoher, and herrighttohaveand to express opinions onmattersthusbearingonher interests is unquestionable.

    - HenryJohnTemple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
      Letter to QueenVictoria, 23 Aug.

  • I think it not unlikely but I shall be in England before you receivethisYou may be surethat Ifeel happyat turning my face towards home.We this morning have done with all intercourse with the natives; and the sails are now hoisting for our departure for the coast.

    - Mungo Park
      Last letter to his wife before leaving Sansanding on the River Niger. Collected in Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa in theYear1805 (published1815). Park and his party reportedly drowned in the river when they were ambushed and their boat sank.

  • There'll always be an England While there's a country lane, Wherever there's a cottage small Beside a field of grain.

    - Ross and Charles, Hugh Parker
      Song.

  • This day my country was confirmed to me under the great seal of England, with large powers and privileges, by thename of Pennsylvania; anametheking wouldgive it in honor of my father.

    -William Penn
      Letter to RobertTurner,14 Mar.

  • England's chief defence depends upon the navy being always ready to defend the realm against invasion.

    -Philip II
    c.1555  Submission to the Privy Council while King-Consort of England.

  • The spirit that now resists your taxation in America is†the same spirit that established the great fundamental, essential maxim of your libertiesthat no subject of England shall betaxed but byhis ownconsent. The glorious spirit of Whiggismanimates three million in America, who prefer poverty with liberty to gilded chains and sordid affluence; and who will die in defence of their rights as men, as free men.

    -William, 1st Earl of Chatham known as  the Elder Pitt
      Speech to the House of Lords, 20 Jan.

  • England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example. 653

    -William known as  theYounger Pitt
      Replying to a toast in which he had been described as the saviour of his country in the wars with France. Quoted in R Coupland War Speeches ofWilliam Pitt (1915).

  • What do they know of England, who only the West End know? See Kipling 471:99.

    - Michael Powell
      Attributed comment in defence of Gone to Earth.

  • It is hard to tell where the MCC ends and the Church of England begins.

    -J(ohn) B(oynton) Priestley
      In the New Statesman, 20 Jul.

  • England isnot ruined becausesinewy brownmenfroma distant colony sometimes hit a ball further and oftener than our men do.

    -J(ohn) B(oynton) Priestley
    Quoted in ColinJarmanThe Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

  • ThepoorestHethat isinEnglandhathalifetoliveaswellas the greatest He, and therefore, truly Sirs,Ithink that every man that is to live under a Government ought first, by his own consent, to put himself under that Government.

    -Thomas Rainborowe
      Said to Cromwell during theArmy Debates, Putney, 29 Oct.

  • The Church of England should no longer be satisfied to represent only the Conservative Party at prayer.

    - (Agnes) Maude Royden
      Address to the Life and Liberty Movement, London,16 Jul.

  • We had better remain in union with England, even at the risk of becoming a subordinate species of Northumberland, as far as national consequence is concerned, than remedy ourselves by even hinting the possibility of a rupture. But there is no harm in wishing Scotland tohavejust somuchill-nature, according toher own proverb, as may keep her good-nature from being abused.

    - Sir Walter Scott
      Letters of Malachi Malagrowther on the Proposed Change of Currency, letter1.

  • We don't bother much about dress and manners in England, because, as a nation, we don't dress well and we've no manners.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Valentine to Dolly and Philip Clandon. You Never CanTell, act1.

  • There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the neurotic classes.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Lady Utterword. Heartbreak House, act 3.

  • Go anywhere in England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what doyoualwaysfind? Thatthestables arethereal centre of the household.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Lady Utterword. Heartbreak House, act 3.

  • This souls'prison we call England.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Hector Hushabye. Heartbreak House, act 3.

  • The captain is in his bunk, drinking bottled ditch-water; and the crew isgambling in the forecastle. She will strike and sink and split. Do you think the laws of God will be suspended in favour of England because you were born in it?

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Captain Shotover. Heartbreak House, act 3.

  • England and America are two countries divided by a common language.

    - George Bernard Shaw
    Attributed.

  • Men of England, wherefore plough For the lords who lay you low?

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      'Song to the Men of England'.

  • Onpaper,England areagood cricketteam.Thetroubleis they play on grass.

    - Arthur Smith
    Attributed.

  • That knuckle-end of Englandthat land of Calvin, oat- cakes and sulphur.

    - Rev Sydney Smith
    Quoted in Lady Holland Memoir (1855), vol1, ch. 2.

  • What a pity it is we have no amusements in England but vice and religion!

    - Rev Sydney Smith
    Quoted in H PearsonThe Smith of Smiths, (1934), ch.10.

  •    The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity; men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend.

    - Robert Southey
      The Life of Nelson, ch.9.

  • L'esprit et le ge  nie perdent vingt-cinq pour cent de leur valeur, en de b arquant en Angleterre. The mind and genius lose twenty-five percent of their value on entry into England.

    -Stendhal pseudonym of  Henri Beyle
      Le Rouge et le noir, bk.2, ch.7.

  • Respectability is a very good thing in its way, but it does not rise superior to all considerations. I would not for a moment venture to hint that it was a matter of taste; but I think I will go as far as this: that if a position is admittedly unkind, uncomfortable, unnecessary, and superfluously useless, although it were as respectableasthe Church of England, the sooner a man is out of it, the better for himself, and all concerned.

    - Robert Louis Stevenson
      An InlandVoyage,'At Maubeuge'.

  • O mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies, O skilled to sing of Time or Eternity, God-gifted organ-voice of England, Milton, a name to resound for ages.

    -Tennyson
      'Milton: Alcaics', l.1^4.

  • The national sport of England is obstacle-racing. People fill their rooms with useless and cumbersome furniture, and spend the rest of their lives trying to dodge it.

    - Sir Herbert (Draper) Beerbohm Tree
    Quoted in Hesketh Pearson Beerbohm (1956).

  • It was manifest to me that there was something in the Roman Catholic religion which made the priests very dear to the people; for I doubt whether in any village in England, had such an accident happened to the rector, all the people would have roused themselves at midnight to wreak their vengeance on the assailant.

    - Anthony Trollope
      Argosy,'Father Giles of Ballymoy', May.

  •    Takeaway from Englishauthorstheircopyrights, and you would very soon take away from England her authors.

    - Anthony Trollope
      Autobiography, ch.6.

  • A faineant government is not the worst government that England can have. It has been the great fault of our politicians that they have all wanted to do something.

    - Anthony Trollope
      Phineas Finn, ch.13.

  • The way to ensuresummer in England istohaveitframed and glazed in a comfortable room.

    - Horace, 4th Earl of Orford Walpole
      Letter toWilliam Cole, 28 May. In The Correspondence of HoraceWalpole (Yale edition,1937^8).

  • You never find an Englishman among the under- dogsexcept in England, of course.

    - Evelyn Arthur StJohn Waugh
      The Loved One, ch.1.

  • In England we have come to rely upon a comfortable time-lag of fifty years or a century intervening between the perception that something ought to be done and a serious attempt to do it.

    - H(erbert) G(eorge) Wells
    TheWork,Wealth and Happiness of Mankind, ch.2.

  •    The eyes ofall England are onthis Parliament.If youdoin good earnest wish to see England hold the balance of Europe and to be indeed at the head of the Protestant interest, it will appear by your right improving the present opportunity.

    -William III also called  William of Orange
      At the State Opening of Parliament, Dec.

  • There'll alwaysbe anEngland, but whowants anEngland full of morons reading the Express?

    -Plum
      Letter to Denis Mackail, 22 Apr.

  •   Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness.We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

    -William Wordsworth
      'Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour', complete poem (published1807).

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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