British Quotes
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Shimla was annexed by the British in 1819, after the Gurkha war. At that time it was known for the temple of Hindu Goddess Shyamala Devi.
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More British Quotes
The former summer capital of the British in India, and the present capital of Himachal Pradesh, Shimla has been blessed with all the natural bounties which one can think of. It has got a scenic location, it is surrounded by green hills with snow capped peaks . The spectacular cool hills accompanied by the structures made during the colonial era creates an aura which is very different from other hills.
— History, in Welcome to Shimla District, National informatics center, Himachal Pradesh. 31 March 2008.
Should we retain our national flag that conveys historical continuity from the days of the Cakobau government to the period of British Colonial rule, or is it time for a new one?
ratu joni madraiwiwi— Opening address, Fiji Week celebrations, 7 October 2005
It was a walled city and the European trading companies settled outside the fort area all along the river front. The city developed in three phases during the European influence and the British rule: First along the river front, Next on the southern side of Maidan to railway station and Third after being made the capital of the province of Bihar along the Bailey road, the new capital area.
Nancy Nancy— Thesis synopsis-Patna: A historic riverine city more
Among the worst examples is that of the Alberni Indian Residential School (British Columbia) where, during the 1920s, children caught "talking Indian" suffered the hideous ordeal of having sewing needles pushed through their tongues.
ward churchill— Churchill, Ward (November 2004). w:Kill the Indian, Save the Man: The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books. p. 55. ISBN 0872864340. Churchill's source: Haig-Brown, Celia (April 1, 1988). Resistance and Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School. Vancouver, BC: Tillacum Library. ISBN 0889781893.
I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.
muhammad iqbal— Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s 1930 Presidential Address to the 25th Session of the All-India Muslim League, Allahabad, 29 December 1930 (from University of Columbia website)
[Winston Churchill] is the servant, not of the British public, or of the British Empire, but of International Jewish Finance. This charge must be preferred against a man who has so signally violated British tradition in the course of this war.
william joyce— Broadcast, Radio Cologne, 8 April 1943
Napoleon’s troops fought in bright fields, where every helmet caught some gleams of glory; but the British soldier conquered under the cool shade of aristocracy. No honours awaited his daring, no despatch gave his name to the applauses of his countrymen; his life of danger and hardship was uncheered by hope, his death unnoticed.
— Peninsular War (1810), Vol. ii, Book xi, Chap. iii.
Shimla may have been called the summer capital, but for all practical purposes this was the real Capital of India as the Government of India stayed there for the better part of the year moving down to Kolkata and later to New Delhi only during the winter months. As the summer capital of the British Raj, Shimla came to be known as ‘the workshop of the Empire’.
Ashok Kumar— A Journey into the Past (2012)
Control over energy resources [of the former Soviet Union] and export routes out of the Eurasian hinterland is quickly becoming one of the central issues in post-Cold War politics. Like the "Great Game" of the early 20th century, in which the geopolitical interests of the British Empire and Russia clashed over the Caucasus region and Central Asia, today's struggle between Russia and the West may turn on who controls the oil reserves in Eurasia.
— Cohen, Ariel (2006), "The New "Great Game": Oil Politics in the Caucasus and Central Asia", Backgrounder (The Heritage Foundation) (#1065)
The British Empire has advanced to a new conception of autonomyand freedom, to the idea of a system of British nations, each freely ordering its own individual life, but bound together in unity byallegiance to one Crown, and co-operating in all that concerns the common weal.
George VI— 1927 Opening, as Duke ofYork, the first Australian Parliament to assemble in Canberra, 9 May.
As for myself, my course is clear. A British subject I was born — a British subject I will die. With my utmost effort, with my latest breath, will I oppose the ‘veiled treason’ which attempts by sordid means and mercenary proffers to lure our people from their allegiance.
john a. macdonald— February 3, 1891 as the 1891 election was called, fought largely over the issue of free trade with the United States. [1]
As a soldier who has spent a quarter of his life in the study of the science of arms, let me tell you I went into the British Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I believe now that if you prepare thoroughly and efficiently for war, you get war.
— Speaking in Carnegie Hall, New York City, on 4 April 1919.
— "Maurice Criticises Peace Conferees". New York Times: p. 13. 5 April 1919.
Yet people who benefit from all this now viciously defy Westminster, purporting to act as though they were an elected government; people who spend their lives sponging on Westminster and British democracy and then systematically assault democratic methods. Who do these people think they are?
harold wilson— Broadcast on May 25, 1974, referring to the Ulster Workers Council strike. The use of the term "sponging" gave offence in Northern Ireland. Glenn Barr, chairman of the coordinating committee between the Loyalist paramilitaries and the UWC, said he thought of making Wilson an honorary member of the UWC for rallying Protestants behind the strike.
It is, I reckon, difficult to conceive of a single area of government policy that is at once so important for each of us, so catastrophically complicated, so insanely unjust, so obscenely ineffective, and has been quite so comprehensively cocked up by successive administratations as the British pension system.
— The Guardian, 2008-12-19, section g2, page 5.
[Robinson Crusoe] is the true prototype of the British colonist. The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit is in Crusoe: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity.
james joyce— James Joyce, “Daniel Defoe,” translated from Italian manuscript and edited by Joseph Prescott, Buffalo Studies 1 (1964): 24-25
They (Indo-Fijians) came as indentured laborers to this land and were treated harshly. They had little reason to be grateful to their colonial masters and like the indigenous Fijians. The British crown colony of Fiji was funded in part from their toil, yet they were treated like second-class citizens.
ratu joni madraiwiwi— Poppy Drive speech, 21 October 2005
Like or dislike her, the British Queen is harmless. Her role is purely ceremonial. Conversely, life and death are in the hands of the monarch who sits in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
ilana mercer— “Mobocracy vs. Monarchy,” WorldNetDaily.com, May 20, 2011.
Modern Guwahati dates back to the British occupation of Assam in 1826 and it is from this date the city came to have due importance. Except few temples, an earthen fort and tanks, there are hardly any medieval remnants and ruins in Guwahati.
— Pabitra Giri, in "Guwahati: The Gateway to the East", p.27
The British Residency was established on the northern banks of the Musi River now referred to as Secunderabad and the gap between Hyderabad and Secunderabad gradually filled with residences and industry.
— Press Reporter’s Guild, Hyderabad, in p.11
During the British colonial period, Jaipur is again especially interesting because it remained the capital of semi-autonomous Indian state that lay outside the domain of British India....In the years since Independence , Jaipur, now the capital of Rajasthan, has experienced rapid and dramatic expansion and contributions to this process has been made by some of India’s leading architects…
— In p.9 (Building Jaipur: The Making of an Indian City)
...In Bengal the British , who had been trading there since 1650s, settled for Calcutta as their base around 1690. Here a collection of bungalows which looked like ‘thatched hovels’, a stables , a hospital , a barracks , and a powder magazine could all be found huddled next to the imposing Fort William. The three as yet unpromising settlements of Bombay , Madras , and Calcutta, were eventually to become the power centers of British rule in India.
— Lizzie Collingham, in Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors (13 April 2010),p.86
After a temporary eclipse, in 16th century, Sher Shah Suri returned the city to its former glory and established the present Patna. After the decline of the Mughals , the British too found Patna a convenient regional capital and built a modern extension to this ancient city and called it Bankipore. It was in Gandhi Maidan in this area, that Mahatma Gandhi held his prayer meetings.
— Bihar State Tourism Development Corporation, in Destinations :: Patna (http://bstdc.bih.nic.in/Patna.htm), National Information Center.
Alarmed by the famine of 1770, captain John Garstin built this huge granary Golghar for the British army in 1786. The massive structure is 29 m high and the walls are 3.6 m wide at the base. The winding stairway around this monument offers a brilliant panoramic view of the city and the Ganga flowing by.
— Bihar State Tourism Development Corporation, in "Destinations: Patna"
In 1903, the British completed a narrow-gauge railway, whose diminutive locomotive led to its being called the “toy” train, to Shimla from Kalka. The UNESCO -recognized train route passes through 102 tunnels and crosses over 850 bridges. Before its advent, visitors had to travel the 69 kilometers from Kalka along a bridle path in two-wheeled carts pulled by pairs of ponies.
— Peter Aronson and Yésica del Moral, in "Shimla: India’s Queen of Hills".
During the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British occupation of Srinagar, colonial-style colleges, hospitals, and courts were constructed. In the downtown area of the city are less well-known residences, mosques, temples, hammams , and bazaars constructed in the local vernacular of timber and masonry architecture. Together, these buildings represent an unusually intact pre-modern urban environment.
— WMF, in "Srinagar Heritage Zone"
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.
— Mahatma Gandhi, "An Autobiography OR The story of my experiments with truth", Chapter 27, Recruiting Campaign, from a leaflet urging Indians to serve with the British Army in World War II. [5]
British Soldier, in Westminster Abbey
— Beneath this stone lies the body
of a British warrior
Unknown by name or rank
brought from France to lie among
the most illustrious of the land
and buried here on Armistice Day
11 Nov: 1920, in the presence of
His Majesty King George V
His Ministers of State
the Chiefs of his Forces
and a vast concourse of the nation.
Thus are commemorated the many
multitudes who during the Great
War of 1914-1918 gave the most that
Man can give Life itself
for God
for King and country
for loved ones, home and empire
for the sacred cause of Justice and
the Freedom of the world.
They buried him among the kings because he
had done good toward God and toward
his house.
