Britain Quotes - Page 6

• I think 75% of the population of Great Britain are probably still de-churched. It's the younger end, the 25%, the merging generation, who have no church background at all.

  Nicky Gumbel

  Thinking, Church, Generations

  Source: www.theguardian.com

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• "Nationwide" featured an amazing collection of apprentice impersonators. From all over Britain, schoolchildren materialised via local studios to give us their imitations of the mighty. There were at least three uncannily accurate Margaret Thatchers, their eyelids fatigued with condescension and their voices swooping and whining like dive-bombers.

  Clive James

  Voice, America, Giving

  Clive James (2015). “The Crystal Bucket”, p.76, Pan Macmillan

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• But Friedman seemed to share Friedrich Hayek's extreme and inaccurate view that socialism of the sort that Britain embraced under the old Labour Party was incompatible with democracy, and I don't think that there is a good theoretical or empirical basis for that view. The Road to Serfdom flunks the test of accuracy of prediction!

  Richard Posner

  Party, Thinking, Views

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• I mean not to accuse any one, but to take the shame upon myself, in common, indeed, with the whole parliament of Great Britain, for having suffered this horrid trade to be carried on under their authority. We are all guilty—we ought all to plead guilty, and not to exculpate ourselves by throwing the blame on others; and I therefore deprecate every kind of reflection against the various descriptions of people who are more immediately involved in this wretched business.

  William Wilberforce

  Mean, Reflection, People

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• David Beckham is Britain's finest striker of a football not because of God-given talent but because he practises with a relentless application that the vast majority of less gifted players wouldn't contemplate.

  Alex Ferguson

  Inspirational, Football, Player

  "David Beckham exits as gracefully as one of his arcing crosses" by Daniel Taylor, www.theguardian.com. May 16, 2013.

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• The United States stands with our friends in Britain as they recover from today's shock of terrorism. These barbaric acts strengthen our resolve and remind us all of the danger of complacency during our continued war on terror.

  Mark Foley

  War, United States, Today

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• An independent Ireland would see its own independence in jeopardy the moment it saw the independence of Britain seriously threatened. Mutual self-interest would make the peoples of these two islands, if both independent, the closest possible allies in a moment of real national danger to either.

  Eamon de Valera

  Real, Independent, Islands

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• Housetops were covered with 'gazers'; all wharves that offered a view were jammed with people ... As British officers happily reminded one another, it was the largest fleet ever seen in American waters. In fact it was the largest expeditionary force of the 18th century, the largest, most powerful force ever sent forth by Britain or any other nation.

  David McCullough

  Powerful, Views, People

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• The United States may have retained more of the intellectual imprint of the British 18th century than Britain itself.

  William Rees-Mogg

  History, Intellectual, United States

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• Much of the world today, including the United States, is still living in the social, cultural, and political aftermath of Britain's cultural achievements, its industrial revolution, its government of checks and balances, and its conquests around the world.

  Thomas Sowell

  Government, History, Achievement

  Thomas Sowell (2008). “Conquests And Cultures: An International History”, p.67, Basic Books

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• We had to do what we had to do - Britain is great again.

  Margaret Thatcher

  History, British History

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• Almost everywhere else in Europe, the more military the state, the stronger the king - except in Britain. Here it was parliament, not the monarchy, who signed the cheques. The longer the war went on, the stronger parliament became, as the purse on which it sat grew bigger and bigger.

  Simon Schama

  Kings, Military, War

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• I live a perfectly happy and comfortable life in Blair's Britain, but I can't work up much affection for the culture we've created for ourselves: it's too cynical, too knowing, too ironic, too empty of real value and meaning.

  Jonathan Coe

  Real, Knowing, Cynical

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• Cordings make the best Covert coats, corduroys, moleskins and all the accoutrements. When I need a covert coat I get it from Cordings rather than make one myself and I'm a tailor so I should know! Cordings is without doubt, the best at what they do; they produce a quality which surpasses any other company of its kind in Britain.

  Mark Powell

  Doubt, Quality, Needs

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• The Welsh are not like any other people in Britain, and they know how separate they are. They are the Celts, the tough little wine-dark race who were the original possessors of the island, who never mixed with the invaders coming later from the east, but were slowly driven into the western mountains.

  Laurie Lee

  Wine, Dark, Islands

  Laurie Lee (2015). “I Can't Stay Long”, p.89, Penguin UK

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• The wisdom and spirit of Churchill not only saved Britain from the Third Reich but saved Western civilization from a Nazi Dark Ages when no other nation was willing to take up that defense. Churchill was the greatest military, political and spiritual leader of the 20th century.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Spiritual, Military, Dark

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• I look upon Virginia as a rib taken from Britain's side... While they both proceed as living under the marriage-compact, this Eve might thrive so long as her Adam flourishes. Whatever serpent shall tempt her to go astray etc [will only cause] her husband to rule more strictly over her.

  Alexander Spotswood

  Husband, Taken, Virginia

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• The Stamp Act imposed on the colonies by the Parliament of Great Britain is an ill-judged measure. Parliament has no right to put its hands into our pockets without our consent.

  George Washington

  Hands, Pockets, Revolution

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• The epithets of parent and child have been long applied to Great Britain and her colonies, [but] we rarely see anything from your side of the water except the authoritative style of a master to a school-boy.

  George Mason

  Children, School, Boys

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• Has the grim savage rushed again from the wilderness? Or does some fiend... twang her deadly arrows at our breast? No, none of these: it is the hand of Britain that inflicts the wound.

  Joseph Warren

  Hands, Arrows, Doe

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• We are really doing our very best. There are no doubt many mistakes and shortcomings. A lot of things are done none too well. Some things that ought to be done have not yet been done...[But Britain's effort has] justly commanded the wonder and admiration of every friendly nation in the world.

  Winston Churchill

  War, Mistake, Effort

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• ...the discovery, that at no time did this man (Hitler) pose or intend a real threat to Britain or the Empire.

  David Irving

  Real, War, Men

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• We should be working towards a carbon-neutral Britain by 2050. We should be working towards the elimination of petrol-driven motor cars, we should be really radical in what we do - the urgency of the problem is really enormous

  Menzies Campbell

  Car, Problem, Driven

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• Britain has squandered its windfall of natural resources from North Sea oil and gas. Instead of prudently investing the 'unearned income' from nature, to build a safe, clean and green energy supply for the nation, we face unnecessary shortages. But there is still a chance to put the proceeds from liquidating our fossil fuel assets to better and more appropriate use. Instead of oil companies profiteering from climate change and oil depletion, a windfall tax could establish an Oil Legacy Fund to pay for Britain's urgent transition to a sustainable, decentralised energy system

  Andrew Simms

  Oil, Sea, Pay

  "Fund clean energy with oil tax" by Terry Macalister, www.theguardian.com. October 22, 2006.

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• I shall endeavor to marshal British opinion against a course of action which would bring in my opinion the greatest evils upon the people of India, upon the people of Great Britain and upon the British Empire itself.

  Winston Churchill

  People, Evil, India

  Winston Churchill, Robert Rhodes James (1980). “Churchill speaks: Winston S. Churchill in peace and war : collected speeches, 1897-1963”, Atheneum

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