English Speaking Quotes

• I look at myself, and I see a Spanish person who's trying to be understood by an English-speaking audience and is putting a lot of energy into that, instead of into expressing himself freely and feeling comfortable.

  Javier Bardem

  Feelings, Trying, Energy

  "'Why am I doing this absurd job?'". Interview with Kristin Hohenadel, www.theguardian.com. March 21, 2001.

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• I believed that English-speaking people had a divine mission to civilize the world by making it western, democratic and Christian.

  Luke Ford

  Christian, People, World

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• Our common language is English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language.

  William Bennett

  Children, Political, Tasks

  William John Bennett (1994). “The De-valuing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children”, p.54, Simon and Schuster

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• It is always a taut moment in a foreign country waiting to see if your English-speaking guide speaks English.

  Peg Bracken

  Country, Travel, Speak English

  Peg Bracken (1973). “But I Wouldn't Have Missed it for the World!: The Pleasures and Perils of an Unseasoned Traveler”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

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• It is the English-speaking nations who, almost alone, keep alight the torch of Freedom.

  Winston Churchill

  Torches, Nations

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• French is, in many ways, more difficult for an English-speaking person to sing. It is so full of complex and trying vowels. It requires the utmost subtlety.

  Alma Gluck

  Trying, Vowels, Way

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• All people who have reached the point of becoming nations tend to despise foreigners, but there is not much doubt that the English-speaking races are the worst offenders. One can see this from the fact that as soon as they become fully aware of any foreign race they invent an insulting nickname for it.

  George Orwell

  Race, Racism, People

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.24, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Everywhere among the English-speaking race criminal justice was rude, and punishments were barbarous; but the tendency was to do away with special privileges and legal exemptions.

  Albert Bushnell Hart

  Race, Punishment, Justice

  Albert Bushnell Hart, Ph.D. (1909). “Epochs of American History”

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• I hope the English-speaking world can see that I'm not only an Israeli actress.

  Hani Furstenberg

  World, Actresses, Israeli

  "FUTURES: 'The Loneliest Planet' Star Hani Furstenberg Movies Beyond the Israeli Stage". Interview with Eric Kohn, www.indiewire.com. October 25, 2012.

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• We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.

  Winston Churchill

  Men, Rights, Expression

  The Sinews of Peace, delivered 5 March 1946 Westminster College, Fulton Missouri

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• I grew up in New York in an English-speaking environment.

  Erik Estrada

  New York, Environment, Grew Up

  "‘Chips’ Star Erik Estrada Preps For Dance Competition, Takes Our Pop Quiz". Interview With Erin Clements, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 8, 2011.

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• I would love to occasionally do English-speaking films, but the script is as important for me as the director.

  Audrey Tautou

  Important, Directors, Scripts

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• I've received some English-speaking scripts, but I was not interested in them.

  Audrey Tautou

  Scripts, Not Interested

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• I think the world's a little smaller these days. With the Internet and the availability of people, the pool of English speaking actors - not just American actors, but Brits, Australians, New Zealanders, Irish. We're all up for grabs.

  Sonya Walger

  Thinking, Availability, People

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• An important United Nations environmental conference went past 6:00 in the evening when the interpreters' contracted working conditions said they could leave. They left, abandoning the delegates unable to talk to each other in their native languages. The French head of the committee, who had insisted on speaking only in French throughout the week suddenly demonstrated the ability to speak excellent English with English-speaking delegates.

  Daniel Yergin

  Past, Native Language, Environmental

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• The only imaginative prose writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past.

  George Orwell

  Past, Race, Years

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.139, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I come from the state of Michigan. We were the first English-speaking government in the world to outlaw the death penalty, back in the 1840s. We have never had, as a state, the death penalty in Michigan. I was raised with that, and even Republicans in Michigan, nobody would even think of putting a measure on the ballot to have the death penalty.

  Michael Moore

  Thinking, Government, Firsts

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• China is starting an English-speaking television network around the world, Russia is, Al Jazeera. And the BBC is cutting back on its many language services around the world.

  Hillary Clinton

  Cutting, Russia, Television

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• I finished my first book seventy-six years ago. I offered it to every publisher on the English-speaking earth I had ever heard of. Their refusals were unanimous: and it did not get into print until, fifty years later; publishers would publish anything that had my name on it.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Book, Years, Names

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• An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.

  Edith Wharton

  Music, Artist, Italian

  The Age of Innocence ch. 1 (1920)

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• We know from our recent history that English did not come to replace U.S. Indian languages merely because English sounded musical to Indians' ears. Instead, the replacement entailed English-speaking immigrants' killing most Indians by war, murder, and introduced diseases, and the surviving Indians' being pressured into adopting English, the new majority language.

  Jared Diamond

  War, Musical, Majority

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• Indeed I do not think we should be justified in using any but the more sombre tones and colours while our people, our Empire, and indeed the whole English-speaking world are passing through a dark and deadly valley.

  Winston Churchill

  War, Dark, Thinking

  Winston Churchill (1951). “War speeches”

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• Canada is the linchpin of the English-speaking world. Canada, with those relations of friendly, affectionate intimacy with the United States on the one hand and with her unswerving fidelity to the British Commonwealth and the Motherland on the other, is the link which joins together these great branches of the human family, a link which, spanning the oceans, brings the continents into their true relation and will prevent in future generations any growth of division between the proud and the happy nations of Europe and the great countries which have come into existence in the New World.

  Winston Churchill

  Country, Ocean, Hands

  Winston Churchill (1952). “War Speeches: From June 25, 1941 to September 6, 1943”

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• If you just compare South Africans to the rest of the world, I think that white South Africans, and especially English-speaking white South Africans, are exactly the same as Brits or Australians or New Zealanders or Canadians or Americans.

  Neill Blomkamp

  Thinking, White, World

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Most English-speaking people, for instance, will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful', especially if dissociated from its sense (and its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. Well then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Beautiful, Doors, Sky

  J. R. R. Tolkien (1963). “Angles and Britons”, Cardiff, University of Wales Press

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