Britons Quotes

• Poor Britons, there is some good in them after all - they produced an oyster.

  Sallust

  Oysters, Culture, Poor

  8 Copy quote

• I'm embarrassed when I see Brits abroad; they have their tops off, wear flip flops, and shout at the top of their voices.

  Noel Gallagher

  Voice, People, Musician

  51 Copy quote

• No one can be as calculatedly rude as the British, which amazes Americans, who do not understand studied insult and can only offer abuse as a substitute.

  Paul Gallico

  Inspirational, Rude, Insulting

  The New York Times, January 14, 1962.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• From the time of the North Briton of the unprincipled Wilkes , a notion has been entertained that the moral spine in Scotland is more flexible than in England. The truth however is, that an elementary difference exists in the public feelings of the two nations quite as great as in the idioms of their respective dialects. The English are a justice-loving people, according to charter and statute; the Scotch are a wrong-resenting race, according to right and feeling: and the character of liberty among them takes its aspect from that peculiarity.

  John Galt

  Character, Scotland, Two

  7 Copy quote

• Moreover it is becoming the Britons, whether scientific or unscientific, who boast at all fitting occasions of their aptitude to rule the waves, should know something of the population of their saline empire, especially of those parts of it immediately in contact with their terrestrial domain, and the coasts of the Continent to which our United Kingdom appertains.

  Edward Forbes

  Ocean, Kingdoms, Empires

  Edward Forbes (1859). “The Natural History of the European Seas...”, p.3

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have a confession to make. Yesterday, I was responsible for the deaths of millions of Britons. What happened is that MI5 asked me to trail Mehan Asnik, a suspected terrorist, through the streets of London. He had escaped from our security services while infected with a plague virus. Tracking him on CCTV, I swear I had him but then, in the rush-hour bustle, lost him. When the secure mobile rang, it was Harry Pearce at Thames House, chewing me out for the slaughter that had been caused by my mistake.

  Mark Lawson

  Mistake, Yesterday, House

  "TV matters: Spooks Interactive" by Mark Lawson, www.theguardian.com. October 18, 2007.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• We who have lived before railways were made belong to another world. It was only yesterday, but what a gulf between now and then! Then was the old world. Stage-coaches, more or less swift, riding-horses, pack-horses, highwaymen, knights in armor, Norman invaders, Roman legions, Druids, Ancient Britons painted blue, and so forth -- all these belong to the old period. But your railroad starts the new era, and we of a certain age belong to the new time and the old one. We who lived before railways, and survive out of the ancient world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Horse, Father, Blue

  56 Copy quote

• When we fled from the oppressions of kings and parliaments in Europe, to found this great Republic in America, we brought with us the laws and the liberties, which formed a part of our heritage as Britons.

  Caleb Cushing

  Kings, Europe, Law

  6 Copy quote

• The British public like a Briton with personality, someone who comes out on court and isn't dour and down on themselves.

  Jo Durie

  Personality, Court, British

  3 Copy quote

• Most Britons still lived and died without encountering anyone whose skin colour was different from their own. Slaves, in short, did not threaten, at least as far as the British at home were concerned. Bestowing freedom upon them seemed therefore purely an act of humanity and will, an achievement that would be to Great Britain's economic detriment, perhaps, but would have few other domestic consequences.

  Linda Colley

  Home, Achievement, Humanity

  7 Copy quote

• In the last quarter of the 20th century, Britons have been understandably obsessed with the problem of having too little power in the world. In the third quarter of the 18th century, by contrast, their forebears were perplexed by the problem of having acquired too much power too quickly over too many people.

  Linda Colley

  People, World, Littles

  4 Copy quote

• I propose that 100,000 degenerate Britons should be forcibly sterilized and others put in labour camps to halt the decline of the British race.

  Winston Churchill

  Race, Degenerates, Decline

  Winston Churchill's remarks as Home Secretary in a 1910 Departmental Paper (the original document is in the collection of Asquith's papers at the Bodleian Library in Oxford); later quoted in Clive Ponting "Churchill", 1995.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• The better class of Briton likes to send his children away to school until they're old and intelligent enough to come home again. Then they're too old and intelligent to want to.

  Malcolm Bradbury

  Children, Home, School

  Malcolm Bradbury (2012). “Rates of Exchange”, p.184, Pan Macmillan

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• If one takes pleasure in calling the gold standard a "barbarous relic," one cannot object to the application of the same term to every historically determined institution. Then the fact that the British speak English - and not Danish, German, or French - is a barbarous relic too, and every Briton who opposes the substitution of Esperanto for English is no less dogmatic and orthodox than those who do not wax rapturous about the plans for a managed currency.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Speak English, Gold, Facts

  "The Gold Standard". Excerpt from chapter 17 of "Human Action, The Scholar's Edition", book by Ludwig von Mises, mises.org. 1949.

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even the lowest of the Hindus, the Pariah, has less of the brute in him than a Briton in a similar social status.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Social, Pariahs, Brutes

  Swami Vivekananda (1974). “Awakened India”

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• England is no longer controlled by Britons, we are under the invisible Jewish dictatorship, a dictatorship that can be felt in every sphere of life

  Nesta Helen Webster

  Spheres, England, Jewish Life

  20 Copy quote

• If Britons were left to tax themselves, there would be no schools, no hospitals, just a 500-mile-high statue of Diana, Princess of Wales.

  Andy Zaltzman

  Princess, School, Would Be

  "Not amused by Jimmy Carr? Check out these comedians instead" by Hazel Davis, www.theguardian.com. December 29, 2009.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Britons are good, though often brutal, colonists where they come into relations with entirely uncivilized tribes whose past is so remote as to be forgotten. But they trample with their heavy boots over the sensitive, delicate susceptibilities of an ancient, highly civilized and cultured nation, such as India.

  Annie Besant

  Past, India, Boots

  7 Copy quote

• Note for Americans and other aliens: Milton Keynes is a new city approximately halfway between London and Birmingham. It was built to be modern, efficient, healthy, and, all in all, a pleasant place to live. Many Britons find this amusing.

  Neil Gaiman

  Cities, Healthy, London

  Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett (2011). “Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch”, p.44, Harper Collins

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Be Briton still to Britain true,
  Among oursel's united;
  For never but by British hands
  Maun British wrangs be righted.

  Robert Burns

  Hands, Patriotism, British

  6 Copy quote

• So the British, of all ages, still walk the course. On trips to Florida or the American desert, they still marvel, or shudder, at the fleets of electric carts going off in the morning like the first assault wave at the Battle of El Alamein. It is unlikely, for some time, that a Briton will come across in his native land such a scorecard as Henry Longhurst rescued from a California club and cherished till the day he died. The last on its list of local rules printed the firm warning "A Player on Foot Has No Standing on the Course."

  Alistair Cooke

  Morning, Golf, Player

  3 Copy quote

• Even the lowest of the Hindus, the Pariah, has less of the brute in him than a Briton in a similar social status. This is the result of an old and excellent religious civilization. This evolution to a higher spiritual state is possible only through discipline and education.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Spiritual, Religious, Civilization

  Swami Vivekananda (1974). “Awakened India”

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Other nations use 'force' we Britons alone use 'Might'.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Use, Might, Force

  Scoop (1938) bk. 2, ch. 5

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Britons seem to have given up on assimilating their Muslim population, with many British elites patting themselves on the back for their tolerance and multiculturalism.

  Linda Chavez

  Tolerance, Population, Literature

  6 Copy quote

• Representative institutions are as much a part of the true Briton as his language and his literature.

  Annie Besant

  Literature, Language, Institutions

  Annie Besant (1915). “How India Wrought for Freedom: The Story of the National Congress Told from Official Records”

  3 Copy quote

  Show source