English Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Otto Hahn

Carolyn Heilbrun

Jeremy Paxman

Robert Benchley

William Blackstone

Aleister Crowley

Roy Blount, Jr.

But the nature of my main work in chemistry can be better represented by more than 280 English publications, of which roughly 200 concern the theory of chemical reactions and related subjects.

Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth 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.

That the king can do no wrong, is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.

William Blackstone

In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.

I can not be a traitor, for I owe him no allegiance. He is not my Sovereign; he never received my homage; and whilst life is in this persecuted body, he never shall receive it. To the other points whereof I am accused, I freely confess them all. As Governor of my country I have been an enemy to its enemies; I have slain the English; I have mortally opposed the English King; I have stormed and taken the towns and castles which he unjustly claimed as his own. If I or my soldiers have plundered or done injury to the houses or ministers of religion, I repent me of my sin; but it is not of Edward of England I shall ask pardon.

William Wallace

At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language.

I board with a poor Scotchman: his wife can talk scarce any English.

I was well warned about English food, so it did not surprise me, but I do wonder sometimes, how they ever manage to prise it up long enough to get a plate under it.

Margaret Halsey

The number one secret of being a successful writer is this: marry an English major.

Stephen E. Ambrose

This is the criminal left that belongs not in a dormitory, but in a penitentiary. The criminal left is not a problem to be solved by the Department of Philosophy or the Department of English—it is a problem for the Department of Justice…. Black or white, the criminal left is interested in power. It is not interested in promoting the renewal and reforms that make democracy work; it is interested in promoting those collisions and conflict that tear democracy apart.

Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why.

Quoting, like smoking…is a dirty habit to which I am devoted. But then…I am a professor of English literature; it is an occupational hazard.

Carolyn Heilbrun

Many Continentals think life is a game; the English think cricket is a game.

The English approach to ideas is not to kill them, but to let them die of neglect.

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.

The English say, Yours Truly, and mean it. The Italians say, I kiss your feet, and mean, I kick your head.

The growth of art seems to be in cycles, and often its vigorous lifetime is restricted to a century or two. The periods of distinctive drama, Greek, English, Spanish, fall within such a limit; the schools of painting and sculpture likewise; and, in poetry, the Victorian age or the school of Pope will serve as examples.

George Edward Woodberry

The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself.

At first the English were very surprised by our disregarding the Hague Convention. But from 1916 onward they used at least as much poison as we did.

This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them.
Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War.
Above all I am not concerned with Poetry.
'My subject is War, and the pity of War.
The Poetry is in the pity.
Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.

Now one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle!

Why should not I call my works 'symphonies', 'arrangements', 'harmonies', and 'nocturnes'?... The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell. My picture of 'Harmony in Grey and Gold' is an illustration of my meaning – as snow scene with a single black figure and lighted tavern. I care nothing for the past, present, or future of the black figure, placed there because the black was wanted at that spot. All that I know is that my combination of grey and gold is the basis of the picture, Now this is precisely what my friends cannot grasp.

James McNeill Whistler

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth.

Malcolm Bradbury