England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is situated on the island of Great Britain and located in the northwest Europe. The largest city of England is London. The population of England number around 56 million making up the bulk of the United Kingdom's populace. The English language is the primary language of most inhabitants. England was formerly a sovereign country, until it joined with Scotland in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, which in turn became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.

A

 * England was unique among nations when it made the breakthrough to sustained economic growth in the seventeenth century. Major economic changes were preceded by a political revolution that brought a distinct set of economic and political institutions, much more inclusive than those of any previous society. These institutions would have profound implications not only for economic incentives and prosperity, but also for who would reap the benefits of prosperity. They were based not on consensus but, rather, were the result of intense conflict as different groups competed for power, contesting the authority of others and attempting to structure institutions in their own favor. The culmination of the institutional struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were two landmark events: the English Civil War between 1642 and 1651, and particularly the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
 * Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012)
 * The technological advances, the drive of businesses to expand and invest, and the efficient use of skills and talent were all made possible by the inclusive economic institutions that England developed. These in turn were founded on her inclusive political institutions. England developed these inclusive political institutions because of two factors. First were political institutions, including a centralized state, that enabled her to take the next radical—in fact, unprecedented—step toward inclusive institutions with the onset of the Glorious Revolution. While this factor distinguished England from much of the world, it did not significantly differentiate it from Western European countries such as France and Spain. More important was the second factor. The events leading up to the Glorious Revolution forged a broad and powerful coalition able to place durable constraints on the power of the monarchy and the executive, which were forced to be open to the demands of this coalition. This laid the foundations for pluralistic political institutions, which then enabled the development of economic institutions that would underpin the Industrial Revolution.
 * Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012)
 * Neither my father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, great grandfather or great grandmother, nor any other relation that I know of, or care a farthing for, has been in England these one hundred and fifty years; so that you see I have not one drop of blood in my veins but what is American.
 * John Adams, to a foreign ambassador (1785), as quoted in The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Autobiography (1851), by Charles F. Adams, p. 392
 * Citations on Google Books


 * No man had once a greater veneration for Englishmen than I entertained. They were dear to me as branches of the same parental trunk, and partakers of the same religion and laws.
 * Samuel Adams, speech at the State House in Philadelphia (1 August 1776)


 * I shall begin with a very earnest and serious Exhortation to all my well disposed Readers, that they would return to the Food of their Forefathers, and reconcile themselves to Beef and Mutton. This was the Diet which bred that hearty Race of Mortals who won the Fields of Cressy and Agincourt.
 * Joseph Addison, The Tatler, No. 148 (21 March 1709), quoted in The Tatler, Volume II, ed. Donald Frederic Bond (1987), p. 335


 * I look upon it as a peculiar blessing that I was born an Englishman.
 * Joseph Addison, The Spectator, No. 135 (4 August 1711), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Volume III (1811), p. 318


 * BE IT DECLARED and enacted by this present Parliament and by the Authoritie of the same: That the People of England and of all the Dominions and Territoryes thereunto England a Commonwealth. belonging are and shall be and are hereby constituted, made, established, and confirmed to be a Commonwealth and free State And shall from henceforth be Governed as a Commonwealth and Free State by the supreame Authoritie of this Nation, the Representatives of the People in Parliament and by such as they shall appoint and constitute as Officers and Ministers under them for the good of the People and that without any King or House of Lords.
 * An Act declaring England to be a Commonwealth (19 May 1649)


 * And so Britain is now called England, taking the name of the victors.
 * Æthelweard, The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. Alan Campbell (1962), p. 9


 * An Englishman's home is his castle.
 * Anonymous proverb, seventeenth century


 * God is English.
 * John Aylmer, An Harborowe for Faithful and True Subjects (1559), quoted in G. R. Elton, 'English National Self-consciousness and the Parliament in the Sixteenth Century', Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government, Volume 4: Papers and Reviews 1982–1990 (1992), p. 134

B

 * The characteristic danger of great nations, like the Romans or the English which have a long history of continuous creation, is that they may at last fail from not comprehending the great institutions which they have created...
 * Walter Bagehot, Lord Althorpe and the Great Reform Act of 1832, 1876.


 * England! my country, great and free! Heart of the world, I leap to thee!
 * Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene The Surface, line 376


 * To me, England is the country, and the country is England. And when I ask myself what I mean by England, when I think of England when I am abroad, England comes to me through my various senses... The sounds of England, the tinkle of the hammer on the anvil in the country smithy, the corncrake on a dewy morning, the sound of the scythe against the whetstone, and the sight of a plough team coming over the brow of a hill, the sight that has been in England since England was a land, and may be seen in England long after the Empire has perished and every works in England has ceased to function, for centuries the one eternal sight of England.
 * Stanley Baldwin, speech to The Royal Society of St George (6 May 1924), quoted in Stanley Baldwin, On England, And other Addresses (1926), pp. 6-7


 * Let Pitt then boast of his victory to his nation of shopkeepers—(Nation Boutiquiere).
 * Bertrand Barère, speech in the National Convention (16 June 1794). Attributed to Napoleon, Scott's Life of Napoleon. Claimed as a saying of Francis II to Napoleon, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * Shall our people, our nation, bear You to go hence with our gold? You that have come so far Unfought with, into our country, carrying war! Think you to get tribute softly and fair?
 * The Battle of Maldon (c. 1000), quoted in James Reeves, The Poets' World: An Anthology of English Poetry (1948), p. 34


 * The south-west wind roaring in from the Atlantic.... is, I think the presiding genius of England.
 * Hilaire Belloc, Places, 1940


 * Quoique leurs chapeaux sont bien laids, Goddam! j'aime les anglais.
 * In spite of their hats being very ugly, Goddam! I love the English.
 * Pierre-Jean de Béranger, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * Whenever I think of Hell I cannot visualise it as a place of eternal fire, but as one of your English industrial towns on a day when the rain is pattering on the slate roofs and the wind is moaning up the street; a place where the horizon is bounded by dark factory chimneys, with crowds of women muffled up in waterproofs slipping in the puddles in their galoshes, with red noses peering out of heavy mufflers.
 * Colonel Bertolini, The Waveless Plain, 1938


 * I will not cease from mental fight, not shall my sword sleep in my hand. Till we have built Jerusalem, in England's green and pleasant land.
 * William Blake, From "Milton" - Preface, 1804.


 * Beef is a good meate for an Englysshe man... it doth make an Englysshe man stronge.
 * Andrew Boorde, Compendyous Regyment or Dyetary of Health (1542), quoted in Glyn Hughes, The Lost Foods of England (2017), p. 11


 * Good ale, the true and proper drink of Englishmen. He is not deserving of the name of Englishman who speaketh against ale, that is good ale.
 * George Borrow, Lavengro, 1851.


 * The enemies of the people of England who would have them considered in the worst light represent them as selfish, beef-eaters, and cruel. In this view I resolved today to be a true-born Old Englishman. I went into the City to Dolly's Steak-house in Paternoster Row and swallowed my dinner by myself to fulfill the charge of selfishness; I had a large fat beef-steak to fulfil the charge of beef-eating; and I went at five o'clock to the Royal Cockpit in St. James's Park and saw cock-fighting for about five hours to fulfill the charge of cruelty.
 * James Boswell, journal entry (15 December 1762), quoted in Boswell's London Journal, 1762–1763, ed. Frederick A. Pottle (1950), p. 86


 * Ah! la perfide Angleterre!
 * Ah! the perfidious English!''
 * Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Sermon on the Circumcision, preached at Metz. Quoted by Napoleon on leaving England for St. Helena, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is forever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
 * Rupert Brooke, The Soldier, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * Oh, to be in England, Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf, Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England—now.
 * Robert Browning, Home Thoughts from Abroad (1845), quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * An Englishman is the unfittest person on Earth to argue another Englishman into slavery.
 * Edmund Burke, as quoted in Paul Revere's Ride (1995), by David Hackett Fischer, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 30


 * The men of England—the men, I mean of light and leading in England.
 * Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790); phrase used by Benjamin Disraeli in a speech (Feb. 28, 1859).


 * England is a paradise for women, and hell for horses: Italy is a paradise for horses, hell for women.
 * Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III, Section III. Memb. 1. Subsect. 2.


 * One of the paradoxes of history has been the way in which the name of England has come to be so closely associated with liberty on the one hand and tradition on the other hand.
 * Herbert Butterfield, Liberty in the Modern World (1952), p. 21

C

 * Men of England! who inherit Rights that cost your sires their blood.
 * Thomas Campbell, Men of England, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * Britannia needs no bulwarks No towers along the steep; Her march is o'er the mountain wave, Her home is on the deep.
 * Thomas Campbell, Ye Mariners of England, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * The meteor flag of England Shall yet terrific burn, Till danger's troubled night depart, And the star of peace return.
 * Thomas Campbell, Ye Mariners of England


 * Il y a en Angleterre soizante sectes religieuses différentes, et une seule sauce.
 * In England there are sixty different religions, and only one sauce.
 * Marquis Caraccioli, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * A certain man has called us, "of all peoples the wisest in action," but he added, "the stupidest in speech."
 * Thomas Carlyle, The Nigger Question, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * O England, little mother, by the sleepless Northern tide, Having bred so many nations to devotion, trust, and pride, Very tenderly we turn With welling hearts that yearn Still to love you and defend you, - let the sons of men discern Wherein your right and title, might and majesty, reside.
 * Bliss Carman, Ode on the Coronation of King Edward (1902); partly mentioned in Our Empire Story (1903) by H. E. Marshall


 * Where are the rough brave Britons to be found With Hearts of Oak, so much of old renowned?
 * Mrs. Centilivre, Cruel Gift. Epilogue written by Nicholas Rowe. He was … a heart of oak, and a pillar of the land. Wood—Ath. Oxon. (1691), II. 221. Yonkers that have hearts of oake at fourscore yeares. Old Meg of Hertfordshire. (1609). Those pigmy tribes of Panton street, / Those hardy blades, those hearts of oak, / Obedient to a tyrant's yoke. A Monstrous good Lounge. (1777), p. 5, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * England, which is like a huge Fortress or Garrisoned Town, fenced not only with strong Works, her Port-Towns, with a wide and deep Ditch the Sea, but guarded also with excellent Out-Works, the strongest and best-built Ships of War in the World; then so furnisht within with Men and Horse, with Victuals and Ammunition, with Clothes and Money, that if all the Potentates of Europe should conspire (which God forbid) they could hardly distress it.
 * Edward Chamberlayne, Anglicæ Notitia or The Present State of England (1669), p. 123


 * I know an Englishman. Being flattered, is a lamb; threatened, a lion.
 * George Chapman, Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany before 1636.


 * I have the principles of an Englishman, and I utter them without apprehension or reserve...this is not the language of faction; let it be tried by that criterion, by which alone we can distinguish what is factious, from what is not—by the principles of the English constitution. I have been bred up in these principles, and I know that when the liberty of the subject is invaded, and all redress denied him, resistance is justifiable... The constitution has its political Bible, by which if it be fairly consulted, every political question may, and ought to be determined. Magna Charta, the Petition of Rights and the Bill of Rights, form that code which I call the Bible of the English constitution. Had some of His Majesty's unhappy predecessors trusted less to the commentary of their Ministers, and been better read in the text itself, the Glorious Revolution might have remained only possible in theory, and their fate would not now have stood upon record, a formidable example to all their successors.
 * Lord Chatham, speech in the House of Lords (22 January 1770), quoted in The Speeches of the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham in the Houses of Lords and Commons: With a Biographical Memoir and Introductions and Explanatory Notes to the Speeches (1848), p. 98


 * And specially from every shires ende Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende
 * Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, General Prologue, lines 15-16


 * The strangest country I ever visited was England; but I visited it at a very early age, and so became a little queer myself. England is extremely subtle; and about the best of it there is something almost secretive; it is an amateur even more than aristocratic in tradition; it is never official.
 * G. K. Chesterton, Autobiography (1936)


 * Be England what she will, With all her faults, she is my country still.
 * Charles Churchill, The Farewell, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * I am a great admirer of the Scots. I am quite friendly with the Welsh. I must confess to some sentiment about Old Ireland. But there is a forgotten, nay, almost a forbidden word, which means more to me than any other. That word is 'England'.
 * Winston Churchill, quoted in Winston Churchill and Jack Fishman, If I Lived My Life Again (1974), p. 11


 * When I warned them that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, 'In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken'. Some chicken! Some neck!
 * Winston Churchill, speech to the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa (30 December 1941), as quoted in The Yale Book of Quotations, by Fred R. Shapiro, Yale University Press (2006), p. 153.


 * I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.
 * Winston Churchill, speech, Lord Mayor's luncheon, London (November 10, 1942); in Robert Rhodes James,, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963 (1974), vol. 6, p. 6695.


 * The late M. Venizelos observed that in all her wars England—he should have said Britain, of course—always wins one battle—the last.
 * Winston Churchill, speech, Lord Mayor's luncheon, London (November 10, 1942); in Robert Rhodes James,, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963 (1974), vol. 6, p. 6693. Eleuthérios Venizélos was a Greek statesman who championed the cause of the Allies in World War I


 * God and nature have joined England and Ireland together. It is impossible to separate them.
 * Earl of Clonwell, L.C.J. (Ir.), Case of Glennan and others (1796), 26 How. St. Tr. 460


 * All that I can boast of in my birth, is, that I was born in Old England.
 * William Cobbett, Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine (1796), p. 1


 * What, for instance, induced me, when so far distant from my country, voluntarily to devote myself to her cause? Her commerce? I neither knew nor cared any thing about it. Her funds? I was so happy as hardly to understand the meaning of the word. Her lands? I could, alas! lay claim to nothing but the graves of my parents.—What, then, was the stimulus? What was I proud of? It was the name and fame of England. Her laws, her liberties, her justice, her might; all the qualities and circumstances that had given her renown in the world, but above all her deeds in arms, her military glory.
 * William Cobbett, Political Register (27 October 1804)


 * ENGLAND is my country: I must share in all her glory and in all her disgrace; and when it is a question of her honour and well-being, I must cast aside all private recollections and feelings. ... I always said...I never would rest until I saw the Americans acknowledge, explicitly our right to dominion on the seas. I wish them all the happiness that men can enjoy in this world; but a nation may be very happy without being permitted to swagger about and be saucy to England.
 * William Cobbett, Political Register (2 June 1832), p. 545


 * When poor England stood alone, and had not the access of another kingdom, and yet had more and as potent enemies as now it hath, and yet the King of England prevailed.
 * Edward Coke, speech to the committee of the House of Commons (2 April 1628)


 * People in England are the most illiterate in the developed world with many students graduating with only a basic grasp of English and math.
 * Brendan Cole, "Young people in England have 'lowest literacy levels' in developed world says OECD" (29 January 2016), International Business Times, United Kingdom.


 * 'Tis a glorious charter, deny it who can, That's breathed in the words, "I'm an Englishman."
 * Eliza Cook, An Englishman, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * Bind her, grind her, burn her with fire, Cast her ashes into the sea,— She shall escape, she shall aspire, She shall arise to make men free; She shall arise in a sacred scorn, Lighting the lives that are yet unborn, Spirit supernal, splendour eternal, England!
 * Helen Gray Cone, Chant of Love for England (1915).


 * I hope for nothing in this world so ardently as once again to see that paradise called England. I long to embrace again all my old friends there.
 * Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Quoted in The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici by Christopher Hibbet, page 292


 * England, with all thy faults, I love thee still— My Country! and, while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrained to love thee.
 * William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book II, line 206, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * Without one friend, above all foes, Britannia gives the world repose.
 * William Cowper, To Sir Joshua Reynolds, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * I hope to render the English name as great and formidable as ever the Roman was.
 * Oliver Cromwell, quoted in The London Magazine (April 1750), p. 196


 * Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the same, unto whom a body politic compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of spirituality and temporalty, be bounden and owe to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience.
 * Thomas Cromwell's preamble to the Act in Restraint of Appeals to Rome (1533), quoted in The Tudor Constitution: Documents and Commentary, ed. G. R. Elton (1960; 2nd edn, 1982), p. 353


 * You often hear that the English climate has had a profound effect upon the English temperament. I don't believe it.  I believe they were always like that.
 * Will Cuppy in W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman, Garden Rubbish and Other Country Bumps (1937)


 * Of England the nation Is Englishman there in common. The speech that man with most may speed Most therewith to speak was need. Seldom was for any chance Praised English tongue in France.
 * Cursor Mundi (c. 1300), lines 241–6, quoted in M. T. Clanchy, England Its Rulers, 1066–1307 (2014), p. 328

D

 * The Scot, Pict, Britain, Roman, Dane, submit, And with the English-Saxon all Unite: And these the mixture have so close pursu'd, The very Name and Memory's subdu'd: No Roman now, no Britain does remain; Wales strove to separate, but strove in Vain: The silent Nations undistinguish'd fall, And Englishman’s the common Name for all. Fate jumbled them together, God knows how; What e'er they were they're True-Born English now... A True-Born Englishman’s a Contradiction, In Speech an Irony, in Fact a Fiction.
 * Daniel Defoe, 'The True Born Englishman', A True Collection of the Writings of the Author of The True Born English-man. Corrected by Himself (1703), pp. 11-12


 * O Noble England, fall down upon thy knee, And praise thy God with thankfull hart, which still maintaineth thee. The forraine forces, that seekes thy utter spoile: Shall then through his especiall grace be brought to shamefull foile. With mightie power they come unto our coast: To over runne our countrie quite, they make their brags and boast. In strength of men they set their onely stay, But we upon the Lord our God will put our trust alway.
 * Thomas Deloney, ballad during the Spanish Armada (1588), quoted in J. Woodfall Ebswoth (ed.), The Roxburghe Ballads: Illustrating the last Years of the Stuarts, Vol. VI. Part I (1886), p. 384


 * I am neither Whig nor Tory. My politics are described by one word, and that word is ENGLAND.
 * Benjamin Disraeli, England and France; Or, A Cure for the Ministerial Gallomania (1832), p. 13


 * We are indeed a nation of shopkeepers.
 * Benjamin Disraeli, The Young Duke, Book I, Chapter XI, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * The search for wisdom in precedent flourished as if naturally among a people whom foreign observers at a later date have praised especially for its reliance upon tradition rather than upon those wide general theories which claim universal validity.
 * David C. Douglas, 'The Development of English Medieval Scholarship between 1660 and 1730', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 21 (1939), p. 32


 * Charge of inferiority is an old dodge. It has been made available for oppression on many occasions...When England wants to set the heel of her power more firmly in the quivering heart of old Ireland, the Celts are an “inferior race.”
 * Frederick Douglass, "What the Black Man Wants", speech in Boston, Massachusetts (1865)


 * Look at England, whose mighty power is now felt, and for centuries has been felt, all around the world. It is worthy of special remark, that precisely those parts of that proud island which have received the largest and most diversified populations, are to day the parts most distinguished for industry, enterprise, invention and general enlightenment. In Wales, and in the Highlands of Scotland the boast is made of their pure blood, and that they were never conquered, but no man can contemplate them without wishing they had been conquered. They are far in the rear of every other part of the English realm in all the comforts and conveniences of life, as well as in mental and physical development. Neither law nor learning descends to us from the mountains of Wales or from the Highlands of Scotland. The ancient Briton, whom Julius Caesar would not have as a slave, is not to be compared with the round, burly, amplitudinous Englishman in many of his qualities of desirable manhood.
 * Frederick Douglass, Our Composite Nationality (7 December 1869), Boston, Massachusetts


 * Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail, Our lion now will foreign foes assail.
 * John Dryden, Astræa Redux, line 117, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25

E

 * Our progenitors, the kings of England, have before these times been lords of the English sea on every side...and it would very much grieve us if in this kind of defence our royal honour should be lost.
 * Edward III, letter to his admirals (18 August 1336), quoted in Ian Mortimer, The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation (2008), p. 130


 * I am already bound unto an husband, which is the kingdom of England... for every one of you, and as many as are English, are my children and kinsfolks.
 * Elizabeth I, speech to Parliament (10 February 1559), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), p. 59


 * I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.
 * Elizabeth I, speech to the troops at Tilbury (9 August 1588), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), p. 326


 * For even our enemies hold our nation resolute and valiant, which though they will not outwardly show, they invariably know.
 * Elizabeth I, speech to Parliament (10 April 1593), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), p. 332


 * You were kind of an outlier if you even liked football and you were a girl in England.
 * Jill Ellis, as quoted in "U.S. Coach Jill Ellis' choices put her on the path to Women's World Cup" (1 June 2015), by Kevin Baxter, The Los Angeles Times, California


 * England, a country where people cry in their hearts and not with their eyes
 * Buchi Emecheta, Head Above Water  (1994)

F

 * When mighty Roast Beef was the Englishman's food, It ennobled our veins and enriched our blood. Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good Oh! the Roast Beef of old England, And old English Roast Beef!
 * Henry Fielding, The Roast Beef of Old England (1731)


 * In these troublesome days when the great Mother Empire stands splendidly isolated in Europe.
 * Hon. George Eulas Foster, speech in the Canadian House of Commons (Jan. 16, 1896), quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * Ils s'amusaient tristement selon la coutume de leur pays.
 * They [the English] amuse themselves sadly as is the custom of their country.
 * Attributed to Froissart. Not found in his works. Same in Duc de Sully's Memoirs (1630). ("l'usage" instead of "coutume.") See Emerson—English Traits, Chapter VIII. Hazlitt—Sketches and Essays. Merry England. ("se rejouissoient" instead of "s'amusaient."), quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * England is a prison for men, a paradise for women, a purgatory for servants, a hell for horses.
 * Thomas Fuller, The Holy State and the Profane State (1642), Referred to as a proverb.

G

 * With lantern jaws, and cooking guy, See how the half-starved Frenchmen strut, And call us English dogs! But soon we'll teach these bragging foes, That beef and beer give heavier blows, Than soup and roasted frogs.
 * David Garrick, poem printed in Hogarth's The Invasion, Plate 1, 'France' (1756), quoted in The Works of William Hogarth, Containing One Hundred and Fifty-nine Engravings, Vol. I (1821), p. 128


 * Hearts of oak are our ships, Jolly tars are our men, We always are ready, steady, boys, steady, We'll fight and will conquer again and again.
 * David Garrick, Heart of Oak (1759), quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * [L]et those malignant spirites confesse the renowned value of our nation in the olde time, and grant...that we are the sonnes of those our Fathers, whose strength and courage in martiall acitivite neither Scots, French, nor Spanyards, were able to resist... [T]he olde English valiancy is not so extinguished in the English nation through long securitie, and corrupt idleness, but it is soone stirred up to a double force, when it hath acquainted it selfe with the exercise in the field.
 * Geoffrey Gates, The Defence of Militarie Profession (1579), pp. 57-58


 * Our fathers have vanquished forreine Princes: and shall not wee fight for our owne Prince? Our fathers have conquered other Realmes: and shall not wee defend our owne Realme? Our fathers have been Lords of other Countries: and shall we be slaves in our owne Countrie? What an alteration (or rather degeneration) would this bee in us? how dishonourable to the English name and Nation? ... [L]et us link togither in one mind, in one faith, in one force, let us sticke togither, fight togither, die togither, like men, like Englishmen, like true-harted Englishmen. ... Wherein if we joyne all, our hartes, armes, and forces togither, like true and faithful subjects, I am fully perswaded our, forrein invadors, whensoever they come, shall find England the hotest country that ever they set foote in: We are likely inough to measure their Spanish Cassocks with our English bowes.
 * G.D., A briefe discoverie of Doctor Allens seditious drifts (1588), pp. 124, 126-127


 * England in effect is insular, she is maritime, she is linked through her exchanges, her markets, her supply lines to the most diverse and often the most distant countries; she pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities, and only slight agricultural ones. She has in all her doings very marked and very original habits and traditions. In short, the nature, the structure, the very situation that are England's differ profoundly from those of the continentals.
 * Charles de Gaulle, press conference in Paris explaining his rejection of Britain's application to join the European Economic Community (14 January 1963), quoted in The Times (15 January 1963), p. 6


 * Englishmen are patriots with their whole body. Not only in their heart, their stomach also seems here to feel for the native land. And I have often seen Englishmen round their dinner-table, busy with their roast beef in as quiet and proud a felicity as if they felt the whole worth of their favoured island on their tongues.
 * Erik Gustaf Geijer, Impressions of England, 1809–1810, ed. Anton Blanck (1932), p. 113


 * Wake up England.
 * King George V, when Prince of Wales. Speech at Guildhall after a trip around the world, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * He is an Englishman! For he himself has said it, And it's greatly to his credit, That he's an Englishman!


 * For he might have been a Rooshian A French or Turk or Proosian, Or perhaps Itali-an. But in spite of all temptations To belong to other nations, He remains an Englishman.
 * W. S. Gilbert, H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * The whole [English] nation, beyond all other mortal men is most given to banquetting and feasts.
 * Paolo Giovio, Hist, Book II. Translation by Burton, Anatomy of a Melancholy, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * Go into the length and breadth of the world, ransack the literature of all countries, find, if you can, a single voice, a single book—find, I would almost say, as much as a single newspaper article, unless the product of the day, in which the conduct of England towards Ireland is anywhere treated except with profound and bitter condemnation.
 * William E. Gladstone, speech on home rule (June 7, 1886); in A. W. Hutton and H. J. Cohen, eds., The Speeches of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone (1902), vol. 9, p. 127.


 * We shall treat England like a beautiful flower, but we shan't water the pot.
 * Hermann Goering, 1940. Quoted by Cyril Connolly, Ideas and Places.


 * The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms.
 * Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller (1764), line 356, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * Blessed mother, handmaiden of old To Arthur, Edward, Henry, by whose deeds Of valour could their strength of faith be told.
 * Luis de Góngora, On the Armada that sailed for England 1588, quoted in Bertrand T. Whitehead, Brags and Boasts: Propaganda in the Year of the Armada (1994), p. 55


 * We have stood alone in that which is called isolation—our splendid isolation, as one of our Colonial friends was good enough to call it.
 * Lord Goschen, speech at Lewes (Feb. 26, 1896), quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * Non Angli sed Angeli (Not Angles but Angels).
 * Pope Gregory I, commenting on the beauty of English captives exposed for sale in Rome.

H

 * To harpe no longer upon this string, & to speake a word of that just commendation which our nation doe indeed deserve: it can not be denied, but as in all former ages, they have bene men full of activity, stirrers abroad, and searchers of the remote parts of the world, so in this most famous and peerless government of her most excellent Majesty, her subjects through the speciall assistance, and blessing of God, in searching the most opposite corners and quarters of the world, and to speake plainly, in compassing the vaste globe of the earth more then once, have excelled all the nations and people of the earth.
 * Richard Hakluyt, 'The Epistle Dedicatorie', The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, Vol. I [1589] (1885), p. 6


 * Living in England, provincial England, must be like being married to a stupid, but exquisitely beautiful wife.
 * Margaret Halsey, With Malice Toward Some (1938)


 * England hath been accounted hitherto the most renowned kingdom for valour and manhood in all Christendom; and shall we now lose our old reputation? If we should, it had been better for England we had never been born.
 * Christopher Hatton, speech to the opening of Parliament (4 February 1589), quoted in J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, 1584–1601 (1957), p. 201


 * Anglica gens est optima flens et pessima ridens.
 * The English race is the best at weeping and the worst at laughing. (The English take their pleasures sadly).
 * 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 Linea Amoris, Chapter II, p. 47. (Ed. 1610). Binder, Novus Thesaurus Adagiorum Latinorum. No. 2983. Neander's Ethic Vetus et Sapiens (1590). (With "sed" not "et," "Rustica" not "Anglica."), quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * What have I done for you, England, my England? What is there I would not do, England, my own?
 * William Ernest Henley, England, My England, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * This, the most celebrated of islands, formerly called Albion, later Britain, and now England.
 * Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, quoted in Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon: Historia Anglorum (The History of the English People), ed. Diana Greenway (1996), p. 13


 * Thy own red-cross, proud England, leads me on, To fields where glory, freedom, shall be won; Fit emblem ours to consecrate the fight... Land of my sires! thy blest deliverer be, And, Christ me aiding, give thee liberty, Or lifeless on thy blood-stained soil to lie, For thee to conquer, or for thee to die.
 * Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, quoted in The Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon, ed. Thomas Forester (1853), p. 290


 * They are powerful in the field, successful against their enemies, impatient of anything like slavery; vastly fond of great noises that fill the ear, such as the firing of cannon, drums, and the ringing of bells.
 * Paul Hentzner, quoted in 'Extracts from Paul Hentzner's Travels in England. 1598', William Brenchley Rye, England As Seen By Foreigners in the Days of Elizabeth and James the First (1865), p. 111


 * His home!—the Western giant smiles, And turns the spotty globe to find it;— This little speck the British Isles? 'Tis but a freckle,—never mind it.
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., A Good Time Going, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * The Parliament of England...is that whereupon the very essence of all Government within this Kingdom doth depend; it is even the body of the whole Realm; it consisteth of the King, and of all that within the Land are subject unto him.
 * Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie (1594), Book VIII, quoted in The Works of that learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker, in Eight Books of Ecclasiastical Polity (1682), p. 458


 * Sir, there was never, since England was England, such a stratagem and mask made to deceive England withal as this of the treaty of peace.
 * Howard of Effingham to Francis Walsingham (27 January 1587), quoted in John Knox Laughton, State Papers Relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, Anno 1588, Volume I (1894), p. 49


 * Old England is our home and Englishmen are we, Our tongue is known in every clime, our flag on every sea.
 * Mary Howitt, Old England is Our Home, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * The courage of bull-dogs and game-cocks seems peculiar to England.
 * David Hume, 'Essay XXI: Of National Characters', quoted in David Hume, Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary (1741–1777), ed. Eugene Miller (1985), p. 202


 * Hail England, dear England, true Queen of the West. With thy fair swelling bosom and ever-green vest. How nobly thou sittst in thine own steady light, on the left of thee Freedom, and Truth on the right. While the clouds at thy smile, break apart and turn bright! The Muses, full voiced, half encircle the seat, and Ocean comes kissing thy princely white feet. All hail! All hail! All hail to the beauty immortal and free. The only true goddess that rose from the sea.
 * Leigh Hunt, National Song in the Examiner, 1815.

J

 * The pleasantness of the English... comes in great measure from the fact of their each having been dipped into the crucible, which gives them a sort of coating of comely varnish and colour. They have been smoothed and polished by mutual social attrition. You see Englishmen here in Italy to particularly good advantage. In the midst of these false and beautiful Italians they glow with the light of the great fact, that after all they love a bathtub and hate a lie.
 * Henry James, Letter to Mrs Henry James Sr, 1869.


 * We I hope shall be left free to avail ourselves of the advantages of neutrality: and yet much I fear the English, or rather their stupid king, will force us out of it. (...) Common sense dictates therefore that they should let us remain neuter: ergo they will not let us remain neuter. I never yet found any other general rule for foretelling what they will do, but that of examining what they ought not to do.
 * Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams, then ambassador to Great Britain. (28 September 1789)


 * Our laws, language, religion, politics, & manners are so deeply laid in English foundations, that we shall never cease to consider their history as a part of ours, and to study ours in that as it’s origin.
 * Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Duane (12 August 1810)


 * The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, and the final expulsion of England from the American continent.
 * Thomas Jefferson, statement during an early stage of the War of 1812, in a letter to William Duane (4 August 1812).


 * She discovered the seasons. No other country has such seasons or complexions in a year. And every place is beautiful in its way, from Cornwall to Cumberland. The people are as peculiar as the place, not the Normans, but the silent, staring English. Slaves in their own country. What do they make of it? Perhaps, I'm cooler than the others. There was no heat at my conception. But I love this cool, green country. So old, so deceptively deep.
 * King John, BBC television series The Devil's Crown, 1978


 * The habeas corpus is the single advantage which our government has over that of other countries.
 * Samuel Johnson's remarks to James Boswell (September 1769), quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, Vol. II (1799), p. 70


 * English superiority and American obedience.
 * Samuel Johnson, as quoted in The Life of Samuel Johnson (1994), by Robert DeMaria, Jr., Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 252–256


 * He spoke of the English, a noble race, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster, silent as deathless gods.
 * James Joyce, Ulysses, 1922


 * England's innermost truth and at the same time her most valuable contribution to the assets of the human family is the "gentleman", rescued from the dusty chivalry of the early Middle Ages and now penetrating into the remotest corner of modern English life. It is an ultimate principle hat never fails to carry conviction, the shining armour of the perfect knight in soul and body, and the miserable coffin of poor natural feelings.
 * C. G. Jung, The Complications of American Psychology, 1930


 * The government of England is a government of law. We betray ourselves, we contradict the spirit of our laws, and we shake the whole system of English jurisprudence, whenever we entrust a discretionary power over the life, liberty, or fortune of the subject to any man, or set of men, whatsoever, upon a presumption that it will not be abused.
 * Junius, letter no. 46 (25 May 1771)


 * The liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman.
 * Junius, Dedication to the English Nation (added the collection of letters published in 1772)


 * England is the only country in Europe that can boast of having improved its agriculture and the cultivation of its soil beyond that of any other European nation. The condition of English agriculture, compared with that of our own, is like light contrasted with shade.
 * Von denen Hinternissen einer bluhenden Landwirtschaft, 1761

K

 * The Englishmen understand almost better than any other people the art of properly roasting a joint... which also is not to be wondered at; because the art of cooking as practised by most Englishmen does not extend much beyond roast beef and plum pudding.
 * Pehr Kalm, Kalm's Account of His Visit to England on His Way to America in 1748, translated by Joseph Lucas (1892), p. 15


 * Scientific progress over the past years has been amazing. Man through his scientific genius has been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains, so that today it's possible to eat breakfast in New York City and supper in London, England.
 * Martin Luther King, Jr., Rediscovering Lost Values, sermon delivered at Detroit's Second Baptist Church (28 February 1954)


 * Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone, But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.
 * Rudyard Kipling, English Flag, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * Winds of the World give answer! They are whimpering to and fro— And what should they know of England who only England know?—
 * Rudyard Kipling, English Flag, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25

L

 * English people ... never speak, excepting in cases of fire or murder, unless they are introduced.
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The Book of Beauty, 1833 (1832), Experiments.


 * 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), quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * The real tragedy of England as I see it, is the tragedy of ugliness. The country is so lovely: the man-made England is so vile.
 * D. H. Lawrence, Nottingham and the Mining Countryside, 1936.


 * [I]n France the people sing to amuse themselves, and here they pass their time in boxing.
 * Jean-Bernard, abbé Le Blanc, Letters on the English and French Nations, Vol. II (1747), p. 138


 * The trewe processe of Englysh polycye Of utterwarde to kepe thys regne in rest Of oure England, that no man may denye Ner say of soth but it is one the best, Is thys, as who seith, south, north, est and west Cheryshe marchandyse, kepe thamyralte, That we bee maysteres of the narowe see.
 * The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye (c. 1436), quoted in The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye: A Poem on the Use of Sea-Power, 1436, ed. George Warner (1926), p. 1


 * May God punish England.
 * Ernst Lissauer, German Army.


 * Being sheltered, as it were, within a Citadel, she there reigns over a Nation which is the better entitled to her favours as it endeavours to extend her Empire, and carries with it, to every part of its dominions, the blessings of industry and equality. Fenced in on every side, to use the expressions of Chamberlayne, with a wide and deep ditch, the sea, guarded with strong outworks, its ships of war, and defended by the courage of her Seamen, she preserves that important secret, that sacred fire, so difficult to be kindled, and which, if it were once extinguished, would perhaps never be lighted again. When the World shall have again been laid waste by Conquerors, she will still continue to shew Mankind, not only the principle that ought to unite them, but what is of no less importance, the form under which they ought to be united. And the Philosopher, when he considers the constant fate of civil Societies amongst Men, and observes the numerous and powerful causes which seem as it were unavoidably to conduct them all to a state of incurable political Slavery, takes comfort in seeing that Liberty has at length disclosed her secret to Mankind, and secured an Asylum to herself.
 * Jean-Louis de Lolme, The Constitution of England; Or, an Account of the English Government [1771], ed. David Lieberman (2007), pp. 341-342


 * I have studied History and seen most of the Republics of Europe, and I do not hesitate to affirm that there is, or has been, no Government upon Earth where the property, and especially the person, of the Subject, is by far so secure as it is [in England].
 * Jean-Louis de Lolme, A Parallel Between the English Constitution and the Former Government of Sweden (1772), p. 26


 * The New World's sons from England's breast we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came, Proud of her past wherefrom our future grew, This window we inscribe with Raleigh's fame.
 * Lowell. Inscription on the Window presented to St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, London, by American citizens in honor of Sir Walter Raleigh. (1882), quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * An Englishman hath three qualities, he can suffer no partner in his love, no stranger to be his friend, nor to be dared by any.
 * John Lyly, Euphues and his England (16th century).


 * There'll always be an England, while there's a country lane. Wherever there's a cottage small, beside a field of grain... There'll always be an England... England shall be free if England means as much to you as England means to me.
 * Vera Lynn, "There'll Always Be An England" (1939), lyrics by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles.

M

 * Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be.
 * Thomas Macaulay, The Armada, l. 34 (1833)


 * We do not intend to part from the Americans and we do not intend to be satellites. I am sure they do not want us to be so. The stronger we are, the better partners we shall be; and I feel certain that as the months pass we shall draw continually closer together with mutual confidence and respect.
 * Harold Macmillan, broadcast to the nation, London (January 17, 1957); in Vital Speeches of the Day (February 1, 1957), p. 247. This was his first broadcast as prime minister.


 * The English take their pleasures sadly after the fashion of their country.
 * Maximillian, Duc de Sully, (1559-1641), Memoirs


 * Wool and flesh are the primitive foundations of England and the English race; ere becoming the world's manufactory of hardware and tissues, England was a victualling-shop; before they became a commercial, they were a breeding and a pastoral people,—a race fatted on beef and mutton; hence their freshness of tint, their beauty and strength: their greatest man, Shakspeare, was originally a butcher.
 * Jules Michelet, quoted in Louis Raymond Véricour, Modern French Literature (1842), pp. 82-83


 * Continental people have sex lives; the English have hot-water bottles.
 * George Mikes, How to be an Alien.


 * England our native countrey one of the most renowned monarchies in the world.
 * Walter Mildmay, speech in the House of Commons (22 February 1587), quoted in Proceedings in the Parliaments of Elizabeth I, Vol. 2 1585-1589 (1981), p. 272


 * There is now scarcely any outlet for energy in this country except business. The energy expended in that may still be regarded as considerable. What little is left from that employment, is expended on some hobby; which may be a useful, even a philanthropic hobby, but is … generally a thing of small dimensions. The greatness of England is now all collective: individually small, we only appear capable of anything great by our habit of combining; and with this our moral and religious philanthropists are perfectly contented. But it was men of another stamp than this that made England what it has been; and men of another stamp will be needed to prevent its decline.
 * John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Henry Holt, New York: 1895), Chapter 3, p. 125.


 * I am American bred; I have seen much to hate here - much to forgive. But in a world where England is finished and dead, I do not wish to live.
 * Alice Duer Miller, The White Cliffs (1940)


 * Lords and Commons of England, consider what Nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors: a Nation not slow and dull, but of quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, suttle and sinewy to discours, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that humane capacity can soar to.
 * John Milton, Aeropagitica (1644)


 * [T]he English Cookes, in comparison with other Nations, are most commended for roasted meates.
 * Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary Containing His Ten Yeeres Travell, Vol. 4 (1617), p. 172


 * The Pleasures of the Table in this happy Nation, may be put in the same Rank with the ordinary, every one is accustom'd to good eating. It consist chiefly in a variety of Puddings, Golden-Pippins, which is an excellent kind of Apples, delicious green Oysters, and Roast-Beef, which is the favourite Dish as well at the King's Table as at a Tradesman's; 'tis common to see one of these Pieces weigh from twenty to thirty Pound, and from thirty to forty: And this may be said to be (as it were) the Emblem of the Prosperity and Plenty of the English.
 * Béat Louis de Muralt, Letters Describing the Character and Customs of the English and French Nations (1726), pp. 39-40


 * Their Dogs are, I believe, the boldest in the World... They neither bark nor bite; they fight to Death without any Noise. One may see some of these Creatures dragging along a broken Leg, and returning to the Charge. I am assur'd that one of them, in King Charles II's time, kill'd a Lion, and that it has been proved by Experience, that such as are of a true breed will suffer their Legs to be cut off, one after another, without letting go their hold. If I durst, I would readily say, that there's a strong Resemblance in many things between the English and their Dogs. Both are silent, head-strong, lazy, unfit for Fatigue, no way quarrelsome, intrepid, eager in fight, insensible of blows, and incapable of parting.
 * Béat Louis de Muralt, Letters Describing the Character and Customs of the English and French Nations (1726), p. 41

N

 * The historical development of England is based upon the fact that her frontiers against Europe are drawn by Nature, and cannot be the subject of dispute; that she is a unit sufficiently small for coherent government to have been established and maintained even under very primitive conditions; that since 1066 she has never suffered serious invasion; that no big modern armies have succeeded her feudal levies; and that her senior service is the navy, with which foreign trade is closely connected. In short, a great deal of what is peculiar in English history is due to the obvious fact that Great Britain is an island.
 * Lewis Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolution (1930), pp. 6-7


 * England is a nation of shopkeepers.
 * Napoleon, (borrowing a phrase from Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations) from Napoleon at St Helena by O'Meara.


 * To be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is.
 * Ogden Nash, England Expects.


 * England expects every man to do his duty.
 * Horatio Nelson, Signal to the Fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar, 1805.


 * Non seulement l'Angleterre, mais chaque Anglais est une ile.
 * Not only England, but every Englishman is an island.
 * Novalis, Fragments (1799), quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25

O

 * [Britons] would rather take the risk of civilizing communism than being kicked around by the unlettered pot-bellied money magnates of the United States.
 * Tom O'Brien, M.P., as quoted by The New York Times (August 23, 1949), p. 4.


 * England has not had the time, nor made the effort, to develop an inclusive, civic, progressive nationalism. It is left with a nationalism that is scarcely articulated in positive terms at all and that thus plugs into the darker energies of resentment and xenophobia.
 * Fintan O'Toole, "England unprepared for how deeply divided it is" (June 2016), The Irish Times, Ireland


 * England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare’s much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control - that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.
 * George Orwell, England Your England


 * In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought. England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always anti-British. It is questionable how much effect this had, but it certainly had some. If the English people suffered for several years a real weakening of morale, so that the Fascist nations judged that they were ‘decadent’ and that it was safe to plunge into war, the intellectual sabotage from the Left was partly responsible. Both the New Statesman and the News Chronicle cried out against the Munich settlement, but even they had done something to make it possible. Ten years of systematic Blimp-baiting affected even the Blimps themselves and made it harder than it had been before to get intelligent young men to enter the armed forces. Given the stagnation of the Empire, the military middle class must have decayed in any case, but the spread of a shallow Leftism hastened the process.
 * George Orwell, England Your England

P

 * I have left there a true Englishman's hand.
 * William Page's remark after his hand had been cut off as a punishment for publishing John Stubbs's Gaping Gulf (3 November 1579), quoted in John Stubbs's Gaping Gulf: With Letters and Other Relevant Documents, ed. Lloyd Eason Berry (1968), p. xxxvi and John Harington, Nugæ Antiquæ, Vol. III (1792), p. 183


 * Freedom has been haunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her.  Europe regards her like a stranger, and England has given her warning to depart.
 * Thomas Paine, in Common Sense (1776)


 * I hold that the real policy of England—apart from questions which involve her own particular interests—is to be the champion of justice and right; pursuing that course with moderation and prudence, not becoming the Quixote of the world, but giving the weight of her moral sanction and support wherever she thinks that justice is, and wherever she thinks that wrong has been done.
 * Lord Palmerston, remarks in the House of Commons defending his foreign policy (March 1, 1848); in Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 3d series, vol. 97, col. 122.


 * The common law of England is the common law of Ireland, where the latter is not altered by statute.
 * Perrin, J., Queen v. O'Connell (1843), 5 St. Tr. (N. S.) 63


 * You are, and have beene feared over all, England's an Isle, of stoute and hardie men: Be stronge in faith, your foes downe right shall fall, For one of you, in armes shall vanquish ten.
 * John Phillips, A Commemoration of the Life and Death of Sir Christopher Hatton, knight, Lord Chancellor of England (1591), p. 6


 * I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me; but Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.
 * William Pitt the Younger, speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet at Guildhall, November 9, 1805. This was Pitt's last public utterance.


 * [ 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), quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * 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, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25

R

 * Dieu et mon droit.
 * God and my right.
 * Password of the day given by Richard I, to his army at the battle of Gisors. In memory of the victory it was made the motto of the royal arms of England, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * The martial airs of England Encircle still the earth.
 * Amelia B. Richards, The Martial Airs of England, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * England is a well goodland; in the stead best Set in the one end of the world, and reigneth west. The sea goeth him all about, he stint as an yle.
 * Robert of Gloucester, quoted in William Camden, Remaines Concerning Britaine (1636), p. 8


 * Be favourable and gracious O Lord to this thy English Sion... O Lord we thy Servants humbly beseeche thee, to bless and prosper not only our Sea causes, but also all our land service, her Majesty's most honourable General, Marshal, Captains, Officers, and English soldiers whatsoever, strengthen them with courage and manliness, that they may suppress the slights of Antichrist, with all the force and power of foreign enemies, and papistical practices, that dare pre­sume to attempt any harm or hurt to her royal Majesty, their honours, her English people, or to this noble Realm of England.
 * Henry Roberts, A prayer for assistance against the Armada (1588), quoted in Bertrand T. Whitehead, Brags and Boasts: Propaganda in the Year of the Armada (1994), pp. 94-95


 * Love of England is very nearly the strongest emotion that I possess.
 * Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography

S

 * Politics in this country seem to interest everyone. I suppose this taste is cultivated by the liberty which the government affords, and in which Englishmen take great pride, for they value this gift more than all the joys of life, and would sacrifice everything to retain it. Even the populace will make proof of this, and will give you to understand that there is no country in the world where such perfect freedom may be enjoyed as in England.
 * César-François de Saussure, A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I. & George II. The Letters of Monsieur César de Saussure to His Family (1902), p. 179


 * It may be said with entire justice that Englishmen are very brave; they give a convincing proof of this in seeming to fear neither death nor danger. Their soldiers fight with the greatest valour.
 * César-François de Saussure, A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I. & George II. The Letters of Monsieur César de Saussure to His Family (1902), p. 179


 * England undoubtedly is, in my opinion, the most happily governed country in the world.
 * César-François de Saussure, A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I. & George II. The Letters of Monsieur César de Saussure to His Family (1902), p. 336


 * Those proud Islanders whom many unduly honour, know no watchword but gain and enjoyment. Their zeal for knowledge is only a sham fight, their worldly wisdom a false jewel, skilfully and deceptively composed, and their sacred freedom itself too often and too easily serves self-interest. They are never in earnest with anything that goes beyond palpable utility. All knowledge they have robbed of life and use only as dead wood to make masts and helms for their life's voyage in pursuit of gain.
 * Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, J. Oman, trans. (1898), pp. 9-10


 * This England never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true.
 * William Shakespeare, King John (c. mid-1590s), Act V, Scene VI


 * This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,— This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
 * William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595) Act 2, scene 1, line 40


 * O England! model to thy inward greatness, Like little body with a mighty heart, What might'st thou do, that honour would thee do, Were all thy children kind and natural! But see thy fault!
 * William Shakespeare, Henry V (c. 1599), Act II. Chorus, line 16


 * Oh, Britannia the pride of the ocean The home of the brave and the free, The shrine of the sailor's devotion, No land can compare unto thee.
 * Davis Taylor Shaw, Britannia. Probably written some time before the Crimean War, when it became popular. Changed to "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean" when sung by Shaw in America. Claimed that Thomas à Becket wrote words for Shaw. See Notes and Queries. (Aug. 20, 1899). Pp. 164, 231


 * There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find an Englishman 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, Man of Destiny, one act play, in his Complete Plays with Prefaces, vol. 1, p. 743 (1962)


 * And in my mind I have comprised. Of the proud Scot, King Jemmy, To write some little tragedy, For no manner consideration Of any sorrowful lamentation, But for the special consolation Of all our royal English nation.
 * John Skelton, 'When the Scot was Slain' (c. 1513), The Complete Poems of John Skelton, ed. Philip Henderson (1931), p. 166


 * Well of all dogs it stands confess'd, Your English bull dogs are the best
 * Christopher Smart, 'The English Bull Dog, Dutch Mastiff, and Quail', Fables (1755), lines 41-42


 * To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a nation of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers, but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.
 * Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Volume II, Book IV, Chapter VII, Part III.


 * The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and to common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants, and the fatuity of idiots.
 * Sydney Smith, Two Letters on the Subject of the Catholics (1807), Letter 2, p. 23


 * The most high and absolute power of the realme of Englande, consisteth in the Parliament... [There] is the force and power of Englande.
 * Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum (1583), p. 34


 * [T]he prince is the life, the head, and the authoritie of all thinges that be downe in the realme of England.
 * Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum (1583), p. 47


 * Saint George shalt called bee, Saint George of mery England, the sign of victoree.
 * Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1589-96), Book I, Canto X, Stanza 61.

T

 * 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 these will strike for England, And man and maid be free To foil and spoil the tyrant Beneath the greenwood tree.
 * Alfred Tennyson, Foresters, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * First drink a health, this solemn night, A health to England, every guest; That man's the best cosmopolite, Who loves his native country best. May Freedom's oak forever live With stronger life from day to day; That man's the true Conservative Who lops the moulder'd branch away. Hands all round!  God the tyrant's hope confound! To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends, And the great name of England round and round.
 * Alfred Tennyson, Hands all around. In Memoirs of Tennyson by his son, Volume I, p. 345


 * I think England is the very place for a fluent and fiery writer. The highest hymns of the sun are written in the dark. I like the grey country. A bucket of Greek sun would drown in one colour the crowds of colour I like trying to mix for myself out of grey flat insular mud.
 * Dylan Thomas, Letter to Lawrence Durrell, December 1938


 * When Britain first at Heaven's command, Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sung this strain; "Rule Britannia! rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves."
 * James Thomson, Masque of Alfred. Written by Thompson and Mallet. Mallet rearranged the Masque Alfred for the stage, and introduced Thompson's Song. See Dr. Dinsdale's edition of Mallet. (1851), p. 292


 * A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth--science--which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth.
 * Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, (1865-1869). Book 9, Chapter 10.


 * People in Scotland don't enjoy having decisions made for them in England any more than the English like having decisions made for them in Belgium. Nationalism in Britain cut both ways.
 * Michael Totten, "History Returns to Europe" (27 June 2016), Dispatches, World Affairs Journal


 * In the Middle Ages, the economic and social position of the village clergy had been identified with that of the peasants. Parish priests took an active part in Wat Tyler’s rising against the proprietary classes, the wealthy monasteries and the great princes of the Church.
 * George Macaulay Trevelyan,England Under Queen Anne Vol I


 * 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 appeared in print).


 * Lord, open the eyes of the king of England.
 * William Tyndale, The Watchtower magazine, 2013, 2/15, WOL

V

 * In every war England wins one battle. The last one.
 * Eleftherios Venizelos on his belief that the Allies would win in WWI.


 * On the other side, the English troops, assembled from all parts of the neighbourhood, took post at a place which was anciently called Senlac, many of them personally devoted to the cause of Harold, and all to that of their country, which they were resolved to defend against the foreigners... The English, on their side, made a stout resistance, each man straining his powers to the utmost... At length the indomitable bravery of the English threw the Bretons...into confusion... Towards the evening, the English finding that their king and the chief nobles of the realm, with a great part of their army, had fallen...they had recourse to flight as expeditiously as they could... There the flower of the youth and nobility of England covered the ground far and near stained with blood.
 * Orderic Vitalis on the Battle of Hastings, quoted in Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, Volume I, ed. Thomas Forester (1853), pp. 483-487


 * Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.
 * Voltaire, Description of the English Nation, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25

W

 * The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.
 * Horace Walpole, English art historian, writer, antiquarian and politician in a letter to Sir Horace Mann (24 November 1774)


 * Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
 * "Time" on The Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd, 1973, lyrics by Roger Waters)


 * To me England means great courage, great standards and great wit. I could move to England in a second.
 * Sigourney Weaver (b. 1949), American actress. 'The World According To Sigourney Weaver', an interview in Live magazine, The Mail on Sunday (UK) newspaper, 24 October 2010


 * 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, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25


 * That fatal day for England, the sad destruction of our dear country [dulcis patrie].
 * William of Malmesbury on the Battle of Hastings, Gesta Regum Anglorum (1125), quoted in M. T. Clanchy, England and Its Rulers: 1066–1272 (1998), p. 24


 * I travelled among unknown men, in lands beyond the sea; nor, England! did I know till then, what love I bore to thee.
 * William Wordsworth, composed 1801


 * [T]he Gospels of Christ, written in English, to most learning of our nation.
 * John Wycliffe, 'A Treatise of John Wycliffe Against Orders of Friars', in Tracts and Treatises of John de Wycliffe: With Selections and Translations from His Manuscripts and Latin Works (1845), p. 247