Englishmen quotes

My general impression isthat Englishmen act better than Frenchmen, and Frenchwomen better than Englishwomen.

- (Enoch) Arnold Bennett
  Cupid and Commonsense, preface.

Mad dogs and Englishmen Go out in the midday sun.

- Sir Noe«  l Peirce Coward
  'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' (song).

We have persuaded ourselves that Englishmen of the present dayare such a nervously excitable race, that the onlychancefor theirdescendants isto keep themothers in a state of coma. The fathers, we think are incurable.

- (Sarah) Emily Davies
  Paper read at the  Annual Meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Sciences, published in Thoughts on Some Questions Relating to Women1860^1908.

When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather.

- Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
  In The Idler, no.11, 24  Jun.

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
  Areopagitica: a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing.

Of historyand its consequences it may be said: 'Those who can, gloat; those who can't, brood.' Englishmen are born gloaters; Irishmen born brooders. There are, it is true, brooders who take to gloating, and they did much to build the Empire.Yet the brooder-gloater, such as the Irishman turned Englishman, is not, as a human type, altogether a success. He is a little too much on his guard, like an excessivelyassimilated Jew, or a son of Harlem who has decided to'pass'. The past of the Irishman, the Jew, the Negro, is, psychologically, too explosive to be buried.

-Cruise
  To Katanga and Back: a UN case history.

But Lord! to see the absurd nature of Englishmen, that cannot forbear laughing and jeering at everything that looks strange.

- Samuel Pepys
  Diary entry, 27 Nov.

We must recollect†what it is we have at stake, what it is we have to contend for. It is for our property, it is for our liberty, it is for our independence, nay for our existence as a nation; it is for our character, it is for our very name as Englishmen, it is for everything dear and valuable to man on this side of the grave.

-William known as  theYounger Pitt
  Speech, 22 Jul, on the breaking of the Peace of Amiens and the resumption of the war with Napoleon. Quoted in Speeches of the Rt. Hon.William Pitt (1806), vol.4.

But if you unscotch us you will find us damned mischievous Englishmen.

- Sir Walter Scott
  Letter toJ W Croker,19 Mar.

There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles; he supportshiskingon loyal principles and cuts off hishead on republican principles.

- George Bernard Shaw
  The Man of Destiny.

Englishmen never will be slaves: they are free to do whatever the Government and public allow them to do. 778

- George Bernard Shaw
  The Devil toAnnWhitefield. Man and Superman, act 3.

As an Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen, I retired to my room.

- Laurence Sterne
  A SentimentalJourney,'Preface. In the Desobligeant'.

This is no case of petty right or wrong That politicians or philosophers Can judge. I hate not Germans, nor grow hot With love of Englishmen, to please newspapers.

- (Philip) Edward Thomas
  'This Is No Case of Petty Right OrWrong'.