British Quotes - Page 21

• I know the British press is very attached to the lobby system. It lets the journalists and the politicians feel proud of their traditional freedoms while giving the reader as much of the truth as they think is good for him.

  Tom Stoppard

  Thinking, Giving, Proud

  "Fictional character: Mageeba". "Night and Day", 1978.

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• There is something in human history like retribution; and it is a rule of historical retribution that its instrument be forged not by the offended, but by the offender himself. The first blow dealt to the French monarchy proceeded from the nobility, not from the peasants. The Indian revolt does not commence with the ryots, tortured, dishonoured and stripped naked by the British, but with the sepoys, clad, fed and petted, fatted and pampered by them.

  Karl Marx

  Blow, Historical, Firsts

  Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Ilʹich Lenin (1986). “India, National Liberation and Class Struggles: A Collection of Classical Marxist Writings”

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• All I'm saying is we got plenty of Texans, and people from Montana, and New Jersey, and Wyoming, or Kansas City. We got plenty of actors. So we don't need some cat from Cardiff-upon-Rosemary-upon-Thyme, or whatever the hell it is, playing people from Montana. And in the reverse, they got plenty of people from Cardiff-upon-Rosemary-upon-Thyme that they don't need our asses coming over there trying to do British accents.

  Billy Bob Thornton

  Cat, Cities, Kansas City

  Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

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• I do think British and American politics rhyme. They go in cycles. They go in Thatcher-Reagan cycles, Blair-Clinton cycles.

  David Brooks

  Thinking, Clinton, Blair

  "Brooks and Marcus on Cameron's victory, Senate vote to review Iran deal". "PBS NewsHour" with Judy Woodruff, www.pbs.org. May 8, 2015.

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• The rest of Europe tends to be very comfortable with sexuality. The British and the Americans are kind of hung up about it.

  Steve Coogan

  Europe, Kind, Sexuality

  "Q&A: Steve Coogan on Sex, Drugs & Bad Press". Interview with Eric Spitznagel, www.esquire.com. July 9, 2013.

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• The British often shy away from any cinematic interpretation of real sex. They sometimes have what I call "subtle sex," which is really introspective and has soft music in the background. Either that or it's played for comedy. The British are kind of hung up about sex. They find it kind of titillating and they make jokes about it because they're nervous.

  Steve Coogan

  Sex, Real, Shy

  "Q&A: Steve Coogan on Sex, Drugs & Bad Press". Interview with Eric Spitznagel, www.esquire.com. July 9, 2013.

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• I find it hard to see how my northern cousins could get so worked up about counties created by British imperialists.

  Colm O'Rourke

  Cousin, County, Hard

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• Sometimes the British press is maybe a little bit racist.

  Vincent Tan

  Racist, Littles, Sometimes

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• There is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Yield, Connections

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State”, p.203

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• When you look at my life, you can go back to the late 1930s, what I saw was, first of all, Hitler, he was going to live forever. Mussolini was in for 10,000 years. You had the Soviet Union, which was, by definition, going to last forever. There was the British empire -- nobody imagined it could come to an end. So why should one believe in any kind of permanence?

  Doris Lessing

  Believe, Years, Forever

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• I miss my grandmother every day. I miss her vitality, her interest in the lives of others, her courage and determination, her perceptive wisdom, her calm in the face of all difficulties, her steadfast belief in the British people and above all her unstoppable sense of mischievous humour.

  Prince Charles

  Determination, Grandmother, People

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• Keynes was chief economic adviser to the British government and largely responsible for keeping the British economy afloat at a time when more than half of our gross national product, and all of our foreign exchange, was being spent on the war. I was lucky to be present at one of his rare appearances in Cambridge, when he gave a lecture with the title "Newton, the Man." Four years later he died of heart failure, precipitated by overwork and the hardships of crossing the Atlantic repeatedly in slow propeller-driven airplanes under wartime conditions.

  Freeman Dyson

  War, Heart, Airplane

  "The Scientist As Rebel". Book by Freeman Dyson, 2006.

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• I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.

  Muhammad Iqbal

  Destiny, Government, Self

  Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1978). “Letters of Iqbal”

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• The British Labour movement is today, and for many years has been, working in a narrow circle of strikes that are looked upon, not as an expedient, and not as a means of propaganda, but as an ultimate aim.

  Friedrich Engels

  Mean, Labour Movement, Circles

  1878 Letter to Eduard Bernstein, 17 Jul.

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• I look forward to a time when Irish patriotism will as easily combine with British patriotism as Scottish patriotism combines now.

  Arthur Balfour

  Looks, Scottish

  1889 Speech, Glasgow, Dec.

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• You don't realize that when you're young, and you're surprised there's a lot of people at your gig - you just think it's general British-press hype.

  Stephen Malkmus

  Thinking, Hype, People

  "Stray Slack: Stephen Malkmus and Spiral Stairs Talk New Pavement Reissue Series". Interview with Stuart Berman, pitchfork.com. June 18, 2015.

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• In the field of Artificial Intelligence there is no more iconic and controversial milestone than the Turing Test, when a computer convinces a sufficient number of interrogators into believing that it is not a machine but rather is a human. It is fitting that such an important landmark has been reached at the Royal Society in London, the home of British Science and the scene of many great advances in human understanding over the centuries. This milestone will go down in history as one of the most exciting.

  Kevin Warwick

  Believe, Home, Numbers

  "Computer Simulating 13-year-old Boy Becomes First to Pass Turing Test". www.reading.ac.uk. June 09, 2014.

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• I have two Filipino nannies who have British passport and not me. I don't need British passport. When you were running around in an animal skin, my ancestors were building the pyramids.

  Mohamed Al-Fayed

  Running, Animal, Two

  "Pharaoh's revenge" by Stephen Armstrong, www.theguardian.com. April 14, 2006.

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• It sometimes occurs to me that the British have more heritage than isgood for them.

  Bill Bryson

  Heritage, Sometimes

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• Warriors! and where are warriors found, If not on martial Britain's ground? And who, when waked with note of fire, Love more than they the British lyre?

  Walter Scott

  Warrior, Fire, Notes

  Sir Walter Scott (1838). “Poetical works”, p.81

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• According to a British poll, you've only got a one in five chance of achieving your childhood career ambition. Which probably explains why you don't run into that many cowboys, princesses, or space rangers.

  Jay Leno

  Running, Princess, Ambition

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• A new study published by The British Medical Journal found that inactivity can kill you. I mean, these are the kind of findings that just scare the hell out of Congress.

  Jay Leno

  Mean, Scare, Medical

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• British scientists say they have developed a super broccoli that can help fight heart disease. You know, if you want to fight heart disease, why don't you come up with a food people will actually eat? Like a super glazed doughnut.

  Jay Leno

  Heart, Fighting, People

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• I cook British food, but it doesn't mean I'm jingoistic about it. People can cook very good fusion food.

  Fergus Henderson

  Mean, People, Fusion

  "Table talk". Interview with Rachel Dixon, www.theguardian.com. August 26, 2008.

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• After my grandfather's plane took enemy fire, he was denied permission to land at the first available airstrip. In that classic British bureaucratic way, they said he had to go back to your own airbase in the Midlands. They crashed between the coast and the airfield.

  Tom Hooper

  Fire, Land, Enemy

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