English Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

I believe we were all glad to leave New Zealand. It is not a pleasant place. Amongst the natives there is absent that charming simplicity.... and the greater part of the English are the very refuse of society.

The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The English are busy; they don't have time to be polite.

Therefore, we should devote ourselves as a preparative to preparedness, alike in peace and war, to secure the three elemental things: one, a common language, the English language; two, the increase in our social loyalty citizenship absolutely undivided, a citizenship which acknowledges no flag except the flag of the United States and which emphatically repudiates all duality of intention or national loyalty; and third, an intelligent and resolute effort for the removal of industrial and social unrest, an effort which shall aim equally at securing every man his rights and to make every man understand that unless he in good faith performs his duties he is not entitled to any rights at all.

Theodore Roosevelt

A smattering of English is worse than useless; it is an unnecessary tax on our women.

We're a nation that speaks English. I think that, while we're in this nation, we should be speaking English... that's how we assimilate.

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).

It was Adam Smith, the father of free-market economics, who once said, They who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged. And for those of you who don't speak old-English let me translate. It means if you work hard, you should make a decent living. If you work hard, you should be able to support a family.

But Kate, dost thou understand thus much English? Canst thou love me?" Catherine: "I cannot tell." Henry: "Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? I'll ask them.

William Shakespeare

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.

Theodore Roosevelt

Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion...

Benjamin Franklin

Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organisation will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States

Winston Churchill

It was only after the Soviet régime became unmistakably totalitarian that English intellectuals, in large numbers, began to show an interest in it. Burnham, although the English russophile intelligentsia would repudiate him, is really voicing their secret wish: the wish to destroy the old, equalitarian version of Socialism and usher in a hierarchical society where the intellectual can at last get his hands on the whip.

No one, at any rate no English writer, has written better about childhood than Dickens. In spite of all the knowledge that has accumulated since, in spite of the fact that children are now comparatively sanely treated, no novelist has shown the same power of entering into the child's point of view.

It is now my opinion that in all Indian curricula of higher education there should be a place for Hindi, Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic and English, besides of course the vernacular.

All the rest of the world uses the word "electricity." They've borrowed the word from English. But we Chinese have our own word for it!

The English are mentioned in the Bible; Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

The whole strength of England lies in the fact that the enormous majority of the English people are snobs.

George Bernard Shaw

This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.

Winston Churchill

I quite understand the principle of confining employment as far as possible to the British without regard for efficiency. I think, however, that the Ministry is not applying the principle sufficiently widely. I know many Englishmen who have married foreigners, and many English potential wives who are out of a job. Would not a year be long enough to train an English wife to replace the existing foreign one in such cases?

Bertrand Russell

We got through all of Genesis and part of Exodus before I left. One of the main things I was taught from this was not to begin a sentence with And. I pointed out that most sentences in the Bible began with And, but I was told that English had changed since the time of King James. In that case, I argued, why make us read the Bible? But it was in vain. Robert Graves was very keen on the symbolism and mysticism in the Bible at that time.

Stephen Hawking

On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he speaks. And there is something of dignity in the way his trousers cling to those most English parts of him.

Seth Grahame-Smith

An English home—grey twilight poured
On dewy pasture, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep—all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient Peace.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Street design up to the time of the Regency will be found to be loyal, in principle, to what had been developed in Bath. The two most important names in English planning during the period are those of Robert Adam and George Dance II, whose careers will be dealt with in the chapters which follow. Both of them recognized the principle of the monumentally treated block of ordinary houses, with centre and wings emphasized, as the proper solution of the urban street problem.