Quotes Archive

Set in this stormy Northern sea, Queen of these restless fields of tide, England! what shall men say of thee, Before whose feet the worlds divide? Oscar Wilde, Ave Imperatrix Favorite0

Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent. Voltaire, Description of the English Nation Favorite0

A shopkeeper will never get the more custom by beating his customers, and what is true of a shopkeeper is true of a shopkeeping nation. Josiah Tucker, Four Tracts on Political and Commercial Subjects. (The words are said to have been used by Dr. Tucker, in a sermon, some years before they

There is no land like England, Where’er the light of day be; There are no hearts like English hearts, Such hearts of oak as they be; There is no land like England, Where’er the light of day be: There are no men like Englishmen, So tall and bold as they be! And

There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles. George Bernard Shaw,

Oh, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim, Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame? In living medals see her wars enroll’d, And vanquished realms supply recording gold? Alexander Pope, Moral Essays, Epistle to Addison, line 53 Favorite0

[King Edward] was careful not to tear England violently from the splendid isolation in which she had wrapped herself. Poincaré, speech at Cannes (April 13, 1912). Favorite0

Not only England, but every Englishman is an island. [Non seulement l’Angleterre, mais chaque Anglais est une ile.] Novalis, Fragments (1799). Favorite0

Whether splendidly isolated or dangerously isolated, I will not now debate; but for my part, I think splendidly isolated, because this isolation of England comes from her superiority. Sir Wilfred Laurier, speech in the Canadian House of Assembly (Feb. 5, 1896) Favorite0

The English race is the best at weeping and the worst at laughing. (The English take their pleasures sadly). [Anglica gens est optima flens et pessima ridens.] Thomas Hearne, Reliquiæ Hearnianæ (Ed. 1857), Volume I, p. 136. (Source referred to Chamberlayne, Anglicæ Notitia (1669). From old Latin saying quoted in Kornmannus, De