British Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

We have a hieroglyphical inscription in the British Museum as early as the reign of Sevechus of the eighth century before the Christian era, showing that the doctrine of Trinity in Unity already formed part of their religion and that... the three gods only made one person.

In various talk th' instructive hours they past, Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last; One speaks the glory of the British queen, And one describes a charming Indian screen; A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes; At every word a reputation dies.

You British plundered half the world for your own profit. Let's not pass it off as the Age of Enlightenment.

Paddy Chayefsky

Lahore, the second largest city of Pakistan, ancient capital of the Punjab, home to nearly as many people as New York, layered like a sedimentary plain with the accreted history of invaders from the Aryans to the Mongols to the British.

It is also absolutely correct that some British folk customs have descended directly from pagan rituals, such... the giving of presents and decoration of homes with greenery at midwinter.

All men - whether they go by the name of Americans or Russians or Chinese or British or Malayans or Indians or Africans - have obligations to one another that transcend their obligations to their sovereign societies.

The head of a ship however has not always an immediate relation to her name, at least in the British navy.

William Falconer

A man may be a great statesman, and yet dislike his wife, and like somebody else's. A man may be a great hero, and yet he may have an unseemly passion, or an unpaid tailor. But the British public does not understand this.... It thinks, unhappily or happily as you may choose to consider, that genius should keep the whole ten commandments. Now, genius is conspicuous for breaking them.

When a man wants to write a book full of unassailable facts, he always goes to the British Museum.

Anthony Trollope

I was not a great match to be the little boy of the very British Basil Rathbone's character, I'm born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, and I had this southern accent. We were on these huge wide-open castle sets and they kept telling me how the microphones were 'way up there' and how I had to talk extra loud.

It seems to me one cannot sit down in that place [the Round Reading room of the British Museum] without a heart full of grateful reverence. I own to have said my grace at the table, and to have thanked Heaven for my English birthright, freely to partake of these beautiful books, and speak the truth I find there.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Brook Taylor... in his Methodus Incrementorum Directa et Inversa (1715), sought to clarify the ideas of the calculus but limited himself to algebraic functions and algebraic differential equations....Taylor's exposition, based on what we would call finite differences, failed to obtain many backers because it was arithmetical in nature when the British were trying to tie the calculus to geometry or to the physical notion of velocity.

The central fact of North American history is that there were fifteen British Colonies before 1776. Thirteen rebelled and two did not.

It sometimes occurs to me that the British have more heritage than isgood for them.

The habit of a midwinter festivity had come by the dawn of history (and probably very long before) to seem a natural one to the British, and not one to be eradicated by changes of political or religious fashion.... It was general custom in pagan Europe to decorate spaces with greenery and flowers for festivals, attested wherever records have survived.

Science is of no party. Under the government, whether of Whig or Tory, she has often had to complain of the difficulty of making herself heard in recommendation of her objects; but those objects once recognized by a British government, are taken up in a spirit and with a liberality which ensures success, if success be possible.

There are important arguments to be made about the relative merits of an hereditary or an elected head of state: but not at the level of the human frailties of particular monarchs or presidents. No one seriously contends that the American presidency should be abolished because Bill Clinton is a self-confessed adulterer. So why should the abolition of the British monarchy be contemplated because the same is true of Prince Charles?

David Cannadine

Set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests; in short against the gates of earth and hell.

In Italy, for the same price as a typical British hamburger meal including sweet, a builder's labourer could eat like a king - rather better in fact, because pasta dishes gain from being kept simple.

When I write I have no loyalty except to historical truth as I see it and care no more about British achievements and mistakes than any other.

A. J. P. Taylor

There is no good government but what is republican. That the only valuable part of the British constitution is so; for the true idea of a republic is "an empire of laws, and not of men." That, as a republic is the best of governments, so that particular arrangement of the powers of society, or in other words, that form of government which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the law, is the best of republics.

Scandal, it bears repeating, undermines monarchies, but rarely ends them. It may be true that, according to a recent editorial in the New York Times, the British monarchy now exists primarily 'for our amusement'. But as long as people find it amusing, and want to be amused by it, they will be happy to see it undermined but uneager to kill it off.

David Cannadine

And if there is one thing we can be sure of, it's that extreme weather events like Superstorm Sandy, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, and the British floods—disasters that, combined, pummeled coastlines beyond recognition, ravaged millions of homes, and killed many thousands—are going to keep coming.

I do not propose to our British ladies, that they should turn Amazons in the service of their sovereign, nor so much as let their nails grow for the defence of their country. The men will take the work of the field off their hands, and show the world, that English valour cannot be matched when it is animated by English beauty.

The British people are compassionate. We will always support those who are genuinely homeless. But we cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice.

Suella Braverman