British History Quotes - Page 2

• This book has been a catalogue of mistakes by politicians, moral and practical disasters which led to wars, enslavement and wretchedness on a scale which no previous age could have dreaded or dreamed of.

  A. N. Wilson

  War, Mistake, Book

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• Jacobitism involved much more than a debate about the merits of a particular dynasty. Men and women were well aware that its success was almost certain to involved them in civil war. And the more politically educated knew that the Stuart Pretender was a pawn in a worldwide struggle for commercial and imperial primacy between Britain and France.

  Linda Colley

  War, Struggle, Men

  Linda Colley (2005). “Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837”, p.79, Yale University Press

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• Labour leaders lead us all, though we know they bleed us all. Cheer our new Decline and Fall, Gibbon might have dreamed it all.

  Noel Coward

  Cheer, Fall, History

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• We fight to exist. Personally, I am not ashamed of fighting to exist. We are doing no very extraordinary thing to fight simply because we do not wish to be enslaved or exterminated.

  Donald Woods Winnicott

  Fighting, History, Wish

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• No people in the world other than the English would have had the courage, in the midst of war, to tell the people such unvarnished truth.

  Anton Walbrook

  War, People, History

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• A country scratching a lazy irritation at sagging doorjambs and late trains, whose greatest attribute is a collective, smelly tolerance, where a chap will put up with almost everything, which means he won't care about anything enough to get out of a chair.A country of public insouciance and private, grubby guilt, where you can believe anything as long as you don't believe it too fervently. A country where the highest aspiration is for a quiet life.

  A. A. Gill

  Country, Believe, Mean

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• The pre-war empire had been sufficiently informal and sufficiently cheap for Parliament to claim authority over it without having to concern itself too much about what this authority entailed. The post-war empire necessitated a much greater investment in administrative machinery and military force. This build-up of control had to be paid for, either by British taxpayers or by their colonists.

  Linda Colley

  Military, War, Empires

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• Most of our people have never had it so good.

  Harold MacMillan

  People, History

  Speech, Bedford, England, 20 July 1957.

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• Your loss we count as our loss. Your struggle we take as our struggle.

  Tony Blair

  Struggle, Loss, History

  "Profiles of Lance Armstrong, Tony Blair, Osama bin Laden". “CNN People In The News”, www.cnn.com. July 16, 2005.

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• Charles was constitutionally incapable of being a constitutional monarch.

  Simon Schama

  History, Incapable, Monarchs

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• These men were very much in the minority, but of course, being the 'Elect', they expected to be in a minority - the party of redemption. In fact they glorified in the slightness of their numbers, the self-purifying troop of Gideon's army... stormtroopers in the front line of the Reformation.

  Simon Schama

  Party, Army, Men

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

  Margaret Thatcher

  History, Britain

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• I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government an official note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o'clock, that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and consequently this country is at war with Germany.

  Neville Chamberlain

  Country, Morning, War

  "Neville Chamberlain's declaration of war". www.theguardian.com. September 03, 1939.

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• There is a golden thread which runs through British history of the individual, standing firm against tyranny and then of the individual participating in his society

  Gordon Brown

  Running, Golden, Economics

  Gordon Brown (2006). “Moving Britain Forward: Selected Speeches, 1997-2006”, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Egyptologists, skilled in piecing together the papyri of lost civilisations, suddenly discovered that the same talent could be applied to working out the pattern of German radio traffic.

  Robert Harris

  History, Work Out, Together

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• Thirty resolute men in your House of Commons could save the world.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Men, History, House

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• England totally disarmed and an easy prey to hostile forces! Can you think of anything more likely to excite cupidity and hostile intention? We should sink to the level of a fifth rate Power, our Colonies would be stripped from us, our commerce would decline, famine and unemployment would stalk the land... I have yet to learn that the cause of peace can be served by rendering our country impotent.

  Stanley Baldwin

  Country, Thinking, Land

  "Semi-detached Idealists: The British Peace Movement and International Relations". Book by Martin Ceadel, p. 271, 2000.

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• I am a man of peace. I am longing and working and praying for peace, but I will not surrender the safety and security of the British constitution. You placed me in power eighteen months ago by the largest majority accorded to any party for many, many years. Have I done anything to forfeit that confidence? Cannot you trust me to ensure a square deal to secure even justice between man and man?

  Stanley Baldwin

  Party, Men, Squares

  Speech on BBC radio on the General Strike on May 08, 1926. "Baldwin: A Biography". Book by Keith Middlemas and John Barnes, p. 415, 1969.

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• The male clerk with his quill pen and copper-plate handwriting had gone for good. The female short-hand typist took his place. It was a decisive moment in women's emancipation.

  A. J. P. Taylor

  Hands, History, Clerks

  A. J. P. Taylor (2001). “English History 1914-1945”, p.38, Oxford Paperbacks

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• We, while noting many things amiss about Victorian society, more often sense them judging us.

  A. N. Wilson

  History, Judging, Victorian

  "The Victorians". Book by A. N. Wilson, 1970.

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• Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep... For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that an' Chuck him out, the brute! But it's Saviour of his country, when the guns begins to shoot!

  Rudyard Kipling

  Country, Sleep, Gun

  Rudyard Kipling, “Tommy”

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• I knew a bit but we don't study a lot of British history at school in Australia. We have our own 50-year period to concentrate on.

  Eric Bana

  School, Years, Australia

  "The Other Boleyn Girl - Eric Bana interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the Revolution of 1688 is this that this was our last Revolution.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  History, Eulogy, Lasts

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• Compare the scale and magnifcence of Versailles with St James's - the brick-built hovel in which the 18th-century kings of England lived. What was then the most powerful monarchy in the world housed its sovereigns in a converted leper hospital, yet, at the same time, parliament provided the magnificent palaces of Chelsea and Greenwich as hospitals for retired soldiers and sailors.

  David Starkey

  Kings, Powerful, History

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• Let valour end my life!

  Walter Raleigh

  History, Ends, Valour

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