Home / Quotes / Quote by Linda Colley

Quote by Linda Colley

“Can it be entirely accidental that the most famous fictional spy of them all, James Bond, Number 007, deadly marksman, intriguer, the ultimate man behind the curtain, sexual athlete and ruthless patriot, is also a Scot, as was the author, whose wish-fulfilment he was?”

Quote by Linda Colley

Book:Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

Work

Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

This book delves into the political, social, and cultural transformations that shaped modern Britain during the 18th and early 19th centuries, focusing on key events and figures that contributed to the nation's formation. more

Author

Linda Colley is a prominent historian specializing in British history, with a particular focus on the history of the British Empire. Born on September 13, 1949, she has made significant contributions to the field with her insightful analyses and scholarly writings. more

You May Also Like

“In the past, the British had signally failed to build an effective structure of royal authority and administration in their American colonies. As a result, no possibility existed of soothing and winning over influential and talented Americans, in the way that influential and talented Scotsmen were increasingly being won over, by giving them increased access to state employment.”

Source: Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

“Chilvalry's essential function, Maurice Keen has written, is always to hold up an idealised image of armed conflict in defiance of the harsh realities of actual warfare. By definition, chivalry also reaffirms the paramount importance of custom, hierarchy and inherited rank.”

Reality Written Conflict Essentials Function Importance Definitions Customs Warfare Harsh Hierarchy Defiance Chivalry Paramount British History Harsh Reality Armed Conflict

Author:Linda Colley

“Virtually every war fought since the Act of Union had gone badly at some stage, but before 1783 none had ended in defeat. Nor would any major war in which Britain was involved after this date end in defeat. Those who are curious about this country's peculiar social and political stability probably need look no further than this for essential cause.”

Needs Looks War Ends Country Political Social Causes Gone Stage Involved Essentials Majors Unions Defeat Curious Britain Stability Peculiar British History

Author:Linda Colley

“The strength and vitality of an empire is frequently due to the new aristocracy from the periphery.”

Dues Empires Vitality Aristocracy British History Periphery

Author:Ronald Syme

“These developments - a massive transfer of land by way of inheritance and purchase, an unprecedented rise in the profitability of land and increasing intermarriage between Celtic and English dynasties - helped to consolidate a new unitary ruling class in place of the more separate and specific landed establishments that had characterised England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland in the Tudor and Stuart eras.”

Source: Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

“I myself spent nine years in an insane asylum and I never had the obsession of suicide, but I know that each conversation with a psychiatrist, every morning at the time of his visit, made me want to hang myself, realizing that I would not be able to cut his throat.”

Knows Want Years Made Able Time Realizing Morning Cutting Conversation Suicide Nine Obsession Insane Throat Every Morning Psychiatry Psychiatrist Asylums Nine Years Insane Asylum

Author:Antonin Artaud

“As a freshman in college, I was having a lot of trouble adjusting. I took a meditation class to handle anxiety. It really helped. Then as a grad student at Harvard, I was awarded a pre-doctoral traveling fellowship to India, where my focus was on the ancient systems of psychology and meditation practices of Asia.”

Class Practice Psychology Focus Meditation Trouble Students College Anxiety India Ancient Handle Asia Fellowship Harvard Adjusting Freshman Meditation Practice Grad

Author:Daniel Goleman

“Human beings are many-layered creatures, and do not succumb to the hegemony of others as easily as historians and politicians sometimes imply. Those Welsh, Scottish and Anglo-Irish individuals who became part of the British Establishment in this period did not in the main sell out in the sense of becoming Anglicised look-alikes. Instead, they became British in a new and intensely profitable fashion, while remaining in their own minds and behavior Welsh, or Scottish, or Irish aswell.”

“Today a Scot is leading a British army in France [Field Marshall Douglas Haig], another is commanding the British Grand Fleet at sea [Admiral David Beatty], while a third directs the Imperial General Staff at home [Sir William Roberton]. The Lord Chancellor is a Scot [Viscount Finlay]; so are the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Foreign Secretary [Bonar Law and Arthur Balfour]. The Prime Minister is a Welshman [David Lloyd George], and the First Lord of the Admiralty is an Irishman [Lord Carson]. Yet no one has ever brought in a bill to give home rule to England!”

“In virtually every Continental state at this time, aristocracies had to live with the risk that their property might be pillaged or confiscated. Only in Great Britain did it prove possible to float the idea that aristocratic property was in some magical and strictly intangible way the people's property also. The fact that hundreds of thousands of men and women today are willing to accept that privately owned country houses and their contents are part of Britain's national heritage is one more proof of how successfully the British elite reconstructed its cultural image in an age of revolution.”

Source: Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837