England Quotes

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The average Briton, as well as honorable and right honorable members of the House, had known that England possessed colonies and had understood that colonies, as a matter of course, existed to supply him with sugar and rice, indigo and tobacco, and in return to buy at a good price whatever he might himself wish to sell.

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One Cartwright brought a Slave from Russia, and would scourge him, for which he was questioned: and it was resolved, That England was too pure an Air for Slaves to breathe in.

In the West Country town of Hereford, the president of a women's club told a year-end meeting that the January bingo game would be canceled to save electricity. Then she proposed a New Year's resolution. 'Let us all work to get England back on her dear old feet,' she said and bumped down pinkly into her chair, overwhelmed by applause.

Samuel Hartlib, a celebrated writer on husbandry in the last century, a gentleman much beloved and esteemed by Milton, in his preface to the work, commonly called his Legacy, laments greatly that no public director of husbandry was established in England By Authority; and that we had not adopted the Flemish custom of letting farms upon improvement... Cromwell, in consequence of this admirable performance, allowed Hartlib a pension of 100l. a year ; and Hartlib afterwards, the better to fulfil the intentions of his benefactor, procured Dr. Beati's excellent annotations on the Legacy, with other valuable pieces from bis numerous correspondents.

While numerous studies have dealt with the nature of organization-environment relations, the first major attempt to identify the types of organizational structure and managerial practice that are appropriate for different environmental conditions was conducted by Burns and Stalker, who studied twenty manufacturing firms in England and Scotland. Of these, fifteen were in the electronics industry, four were in research and development, and one was a major manufacturer. The particular environmental conditions examined were the rates of change in the scientific technology and the relevant product markets of the firms being studied.

Arthur G. Bedeian

Young Ireland, the Catholic Party and its newspaper organs in Dublin are trying to do all the mischief they can. They are praising the mutineers, and calling upon the Irish to follow their example. I think it will be advisable to call out and embody five thousand more Militia, making twenty thousand in all, and it would be best to bring over to England all the Irish regiments belonging to the Catholic counties, and to send English regiments to Ireland. Some of the Northern Irish regiments would be well left in Ireland. They are chiefly Protestants, and would be delighted to put down the Croppys if they should rise.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

When Marilyn Monroe, the American Venus, visited England, one London correspondent wrote that she looked like a million dollars. Fortunately, he did not write that she looked like a million pounds.

Now in my opinion, out of all the countries I have personally known, England is the one where public affairs are best conducted and regulated with least violence to the people. There no buildings are knocked down or demolished through war, and disaster and misfortune befall those who make war.

Philippe de Commines

I have positively identified this group as what I call the Black Nobility, which includes the Queen and Prince Phillip. By the time I get to Vancouver, I'll be able to reveal the true role of the Queen of England and the real facts around Lady Diana's death.

But what if it turns out, as it just possibly might, that William Shakespeare of Stratford was not the author of the plays ascribed to him? There is a theory, advanced by reputable scholars, seriously and, in my opinion, plausibly, that Shakespeare merely lent his name as a cover for the literary activities of another person, perhaps the Earl of Oxford. If, by some terrible chance, this theory should be proved, then straightway Stratford's tourist business would dwindle. It would become just one more, and honestly not one in the first ten, of England's picturesque small towns.

On having tackled his opposite number Phil Horrocks-Taylor during a game against England:

Horrocks went one way, Taylor went the other, and I was left holding his bloody hyphen.

It comes easily for the English people to mock. It's a very odd situation indeed in England; you try to address real facts of life that surround you and are treated with great hostility.

The art of biography seems to have fallen on evil times in England. … With us, the most delicate and humane of all the branches of the art of writing has been relegated to the journeymen of letters; we do not reflect that it is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to live one.

Lytton Strachey

A cordial and good understanding between France and England is essential to the peace and welfare of Europe.

Thus we see that though there are for instance in the England of today a variety of classes, and a variety of corresponding codes of public opinion and morality, one of these codes, namely that of the ruling class whose watchword is property, is strongly in the ascendant. And we may fairly suppose that in any nation from the time when it first becomes divided into well-marked classes this is or has been the case. In one age—the commercial age—the code of the commercial or money-loving class is dominant; in another—the military—the code of the warrior class is dominant; in another—the religious—the code of the priestly class; and so on.

Edward Carpenter

Drunkenness was in good repute in England till "Bloody Mary" frowned upon it; it remained popular in Germany. The French drank more stably, not being quite so cold.

I remember this, that King James had behind him the letter of the law just as completely as Mr. Asquith has now. He made sure of it. He got the judges on his side by methods not dissimilar from those by which Mr. Asquith has a majority in the House of Commons on his side. There is another point to which I would specially refer. In order to carry out his despotic intention the King had the largest army which had ever been seen in England. What happened? There was no civil war. Why? Because his own army refused to fight for him.

Andrew Bonar Law

Yes, but either way, shamed or not, I shall be Queen of England, and this is the last time you will sit in my presence.

Philippa Gregory

This is to be observed of the Bishop of London, that, though apparently of a spirit somewhat austere, there is in his idiosyncrasy a strange fund of enthusiasm, a quality which ought never to be possessed by an Archbishop of Canterbury, or a Prime Minister of England [sic]. The Bishop of London sympathies with everything that is earnest; but what is earnest is not always true; on the contrary error is often more earnest than truth.

Benjamin Disraeli

No clap of thunder in a fair frosty day could astonish the world more than [England's] declaration of war against Holland in 1672.

The pioneering instrument of reform was the Bank of England. Of all institutions concerned with economics none has for so long enjoyed such prestige. It is, in all respects, to money as St. Peter's is to Faith.

John Kenneth Galbraith

I can assure you that the class system is alive and well and living in people's minds in England.

In England a man is presoomed to be innocent till he's proved guilty an' they take it f 'r granted he's guilty. In this counthry a man is presoomed to be guilty ontil he's proved guilty an' afther that he's presoomed to be innocent.

Finley Peter Dunne

He genuinely looked terrified. The poor man, he's actually seen the books. In England we have this one-eyed Scottish idiot.

Jeremy Clarkson

In England, life is a long process of composing oneself...

Shirley Hazzard