British Quotes - Page 15

• I went back in British history. Some 204 people died there after a mine collapsed in 1838. In 1866, 361 miners died in Britain. In an explosion in 1894, 290 people died there.

  Recep Tayyip Erdogan

  People, Usual, Offensive

  "Turkey’s Many Occupational Hazards" by Ozan Varol, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 16, 2014.

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• In the context of the great debates about identity politics - are you gay or straight, nationalist or republican, British or English and so on - I would ask, "Do you ride a bike?" I love everything about the machine - the sensation of the tyres on the road, the mobility - and I love the fact that you have this intimate relationship with the elements, and the landscape.

  Beatrix Campbell

  Gay, Cycling, Identity Politics

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• I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British instead of the other way around, I might have gotten here on my own.

  Winston Churchill

  Mother, Father, Government

  Sir Winston Churchill (1966). “Irrepressible Churchill: a treasury of Winston Churchill's wit”

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• More than 80 per cent of the British casualties of the Great War were English. More than 80 per cent of the taxation is paid by the English taxpayers. We are entitled to mention these facts, and to draw authority and courage from them.

  Winston Churchill

  War, Facts, Taxation

  Sir Winston S. Churchill (2013). “Never Give In!: Winston Churchill's Speeches”, p.84, A&C Black

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• Many people worked with the inspiration to free the country by throwing the British out. After formal departure of the British this inspiration slackened. In fact there was no need to have this much inspiration. We should remember that in our pledge we have talked of the freedom of the country through defending religion and culture. There is no mention of departure of the British in that.

  M. S. Golwalkar

  Country, Inspiration, People

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• The relation of eugenics to British psychiatry bears examination. The primary controlling body for psychiatry in England is the British National Association for Mental Health (NAMH), formed in 1944, and initially run by the mentally unstable Montagu Norman, previously of the Bank of England. The group originally met at Norman's London home, where he and Nazi Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht had met in the 1930s to arrange financing for Hitler.

  Jim Keith

  Running, Home, Eugenics

  Jim Keith (2003). “Mass Control: Engineering Human Consciousness”, p.16, Adventures Unlimited Press

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• It has been suggested by some people in this country that I and my government will be a "soft touch" in the [European] Community. In case such a rumour may have reached your ears, Mr Chancellor... it is only fair that I should advise you frankly to dismiss it (as my own colleagues did, long ago). We shall judge what British interests are and we shall be resolute in defending them.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Country, Government, Long Ago

  Margaret Thatcher's speech at dinner in honour of West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, www.margaretthatcher.org. May 10, 1979.

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• We weren't getting a fair deal on the budget and I wasn't going to have it. There's a great strand of equity and fairness in the British people - this is our characteristic. There's not a strand of equity and fairness in Europe - they're out to get as much as they can. That's one of those enormous differences. So I tackled it on that basis.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Europe, Differences, People

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• Most correspondents came from the former colonial powers - there were British, French, and a lot of Italians, because there were a lot of Italian communities there. And of course there were a lot of Russians.

  Ryszard Kapuscinski

  Italian, Eyebrows, Community

  "An Interview with Ryszard Kapuscinski: Writing about Suffering". Interview With Thomas Wolfe, quod.lib.umich.edu. 1998.

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• The British Red Cross asked me to help them spearhead a fundraising campaign for the victims of the war in Nicaragua. It was a turning point in my life. It began my commitment to justice and human rights issues.

  Bianca Jagger

  War, Commitment, Rights

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• You know of our sympathetic interest in this country in Iran's desire to control its natural resources. From this point of view we were happy to see that the British Government has on its part accepted the principle of nationalization.

  Harry S. Truman

  Country, Government, Views

  United States. President (1945-1953 : Truman), Harry S. Truman (1965). “Harry S. Truman: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, 1945-53”

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• The House is composed of very good men, not shining, but honest and reasonably well-informed, and in time will be found to improve, and not much inferior in eloquence, science, and dignity, to the British Commons. They are patriotic enough, and I believe there are more stupid (as well as more shining) people in the latter, in proportion.

  Fisher Ames

  Stupid, Believe, Patriotic

  Fisher Ames, John Thornton Kirkland (1854). “Works of Fisher Ames: With a Selection from His Speeches and Correspondence”, p.45, Burt Franklin

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• I do believe that General Washington had not a firm confidence in the durability of our government. He was naturally distrustful of men, and inclined to gloomy apprehensions; and I was ever persuaded that a belief that we must at length end in something like a British constitution, had some weight in his adoption of the ceremonies of levees, birthdays, pompous meetings with Congress, and other forms of the same character, calculated to prepare us gradually for a change which he believed possible, and to let it come on with as little shock as might be to the public mind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Believe, Character, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.237

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• But, you know, the Stones were my opening act in the Sixties. I loved those British guys, the way they just stood there and shook their hair.

  Ronnie Spector

  Hair, Guy, Stones

  "Ronnie's spectre". Interview With Sean O'Hagan, www.theguardian.com. March 26, 2006.

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• Possessed with a full confidence of the certain success which British valor must gain over such enemies, I have led you up these steep and dangerous rocks, only solicitous to show you the foe within your reach.

  James Wolfe

  Confidence, Rocks, Enemy

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• When I was younger, I was in love with everything about the British Isles, from British folklore to Celtic music. That was always where my passions were as a young girl, and so I studied folklore as a college student in England and Ireland.

  Terri Windling

  Love, Girl, Passion

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• But we had a fantastic coach, Simon Clifford, who runs a British football youth game which teaches Brazilian techniques; which is what we wanted to incorporate into the film. And some of those things we eventually got in.

  Parminder Nagra

  Football, Running, Games

  Interview with Steve Head, www.ign.com. August 7, 2003.

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• The British like any kind of music so long as it is loud.

  Thomas Beecham

  Kindness, Long, Loud

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• Amazingly, 85 percent of prescribed standard medical treatments across the board lack scientific validation, according to the New York Times. Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal, suggests that this is partly because only one percent of the articles in medical journals are scientifically sound, and partly because many treatments have never been assessed at all.

  Kenny Ausubel

  New York, Medicine, Editors

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• ...should We consent to an order of Cincinnati consisting of all the Officers of the Army & Citizens of Consiquence in the united States; how easy the Transition from a Republican to any other Form of Government, however despotic! & how rediculous to exchange a british Administration, for one that would be equally tyrannical, perhaps much more so? this project may answer the End of Courts that aim at making Us subservient to their political purposes, but can never be consistent with the Dignity or Happiness of the united States.

  Elbridge Gerry

  Army, Government, Order

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• I'm a big fan of British journalists like 'The Independent”s Robert Fisk, but it's hard to find voices like his in the U.S.

  Jackson Browne

  Independent, Voice, Fans

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• I even got a letter from a young woman in British Columbia that began as follows: 'Today I am eighteen. I am sitting at the window, looking out at the rain, and thinking how much I love you.'

  Isaac Asimov

  Rain, Love You, Thinking

  Isaac Asimov (2009). “I, Asimov: A Memoir”, p.426, Bantam

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• What do you call that nice, shiny white metal they use to make sidings and airplanes out of? Aluminum, right? Aluminum, pronounced 'uh-LOO-mih-num', right? Anybody knows that! But do you know how the British spell it? 'Aluminium', pronounced 'Al-yoo-MIH-nee-um'. Ever hear anything so ridiculous? The French and Germans spell it 'aluminium', too, but they're foreigners who don't speak Earth-standard. You'd think the British, however, using our language, would be more careful

  Isaac Asimov

  Nice, Airplane, Thinking

  Isaac Asimov (1975). “Of matters great and small”

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• Lahore, the second largest city of Pakistan, ancient capital of the Punjab, home to nearly as many people as New York, layered like a sedimentary plain with the accreted history of invaders from the Aryans to the Mongols to the British.

  Mohsin Hamid

  New York, Home, Cities

  Mohsin Hamid (2007). “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, p.7, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In this instance of the fire-arms, the Asiatic has been most improperly bracketed with the native. The British Indian does not need any such restrictions as are imposed by the Bill on the natives regarding the carrying of fire-arms. The prominent race can remain so by preventing the native from arming himself. Is there a slightest vestige of justification for so preventing the British Indian?

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Fire, Race, Doe

  "The Indian Opinion" Newspaper, March 25, 1905.

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