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Brexit Quotes

Browse 72 quotes about Brexit.

Brexit Quotes

“NoMarch felt the forces of fate closing about him and pushing him to a decision. He feebly fought them off till he could have another look at the flat. Then, baked and subdued still more by the unexpected presence of Mrs. Grosvenor Green herself, who was occupying it so as to be able to show it effectively, he took it. He was aware more than ever of its absurdities; he knew that his wife would never cease to hate it; but he had suffered one of those eclipses of the imagination to which men of his temperament are subject, and into which he could see no future for his desires. He felt a comfort in irretrievably committing himself, and exchanging the burden of indecision for the burden of responsibility.”

IndecisionBrexitResponsibilities
Book:A Hazard of New Fortunes
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“In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind. She stood apart from moral interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt; no more smile with the household joy, nor mourn with the kindred sorrow; or, should it succeed in manifesting its forbidden sympathy, awakening only terror and horrible repugnance. These emotions, in fact, and its bitterest scorn besides, seemed to be the sole portion that she retained in the universal heart. It was not an age of delicacy; and her position, although she understood it well, and was in little danger of forgetting it, was often brought before her vivid self-perception, like a new anguish, by the rudest touch upon the tenderest spot. The poor, as we have already said, whom she sought out to be the objects of her bounty, often reviled the hand that was stretched forth to succor them. Dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart; sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes, also, by a coarser expression, that fell upon the sufferer's defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound.”

ShameIsolationBrexit
Book:The Scarlet Letter
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“Niekedy mám dojem, že sme globálna „kindergarten“. Sme v stave akejsi infantilizácie ľudskej rasy. To obrovské vymývanie mozgov, ktoré sledujeme, je iné, ako bolo vymývanie mozgov v komunizme či nacizme. Dnešné vymývanie mozgov sa zakrýva ideou šťastia jedinca, humanity. Hovorí o tom, že život je príjemná hra, všetko je krásne a všetko je ako v škôlke hravé. Ale pritom nám chce globálny svet všetko predať, to, čo reálne nepotrebujeme, ponúknuť nám zábavu, ktorá nás robí detskými. Ale deti sú najlepší zákazníci, lebo nepremýšľajú, nechajú sa rýchlo zviesť a ľahko sa udržia vo svojej naivite. Kdekoľvek v Amerike, v Európe, na Blízkom východe sa nechávame zabávať. Ľudia prestávajú čítať noviny, knihy, nepozerajú televízne správy, nevedia, čo sa deje. Hrajú hry na svojich smartfónoch, vlastné vzťahy riešia ako spoločenskú hru. Je to globálna tendencia byť infantilným. A to sa reflektuje aj v politike: ľudia volia zabávačov, ľudia volia klaunov, volia tak, akoby voľby boli zábavný program. Ľudia v Británii hlasovali za brexit preto, že čakali, aký z toho bude škandál, ak sa to podarí. Keby nehlasovali za brexit, bola by to nuda a oni sa chceli zabávať. Vôbec netušili o ekonomických vzťahoch s EÚ, čo to spraví s medzinárodným obchodom, ako to zasiahne do života miliónov ľudí. Len čakali, že to bude isto vtipné, keď budú hlasovať za brexit.”

BrainwashingBrexitInfantilization
Author:Amos Oz
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“He parted from him on the usual terms outwardly, but he felt obscurely abused by Fulkerson in regard to the Dryfooses, father and son. He did not know but Fulkerson had taken an advantage of him in allowing him to commit himself to their enterprise with out fully and frankly telling him who and what his backer was; he perceived that with young Dryfoos as the publisher and Fulkerson as the general director of the paper there might be very little play for his own ideas of its conduct. Perhaps it was the hurt to his vanity involved by the recognition of this fact that made him forget how little choice he really had in the matter, and how, since he had not accepted the offer to edit the insurance paper, nothing remained for him but to close with Fulkerson. In this moment of suspicion and resentment he accused Fulkerson of hastening his decision in regard to the Grosvenor Green apartment; he now refused to consider it a decision, and said to himself that if he felt disposed to do so he would send Mrs. Green a note reversing it in the morning. But he put it all off till morning with his clothes, when he went to bed, he put off even thinking what his wife would say; he cast Fulkerson and his constructive treachery out of his mind, too, and invited into it some pensive reveries of the past, when he still stood at the parting of the ways, and could take this path or that. In his middle life this was not possible; he must follow the path chosen long, ago, wherever, it led. He was not master of himself, as he once seemed, but the servant of those he loved; if he could do what he liked, perhaps he might renounce this whole New York enterprise, and go off somewhere out of the reach of care; but he could not do what he liked, that was very clear. In the pathos of this conviction he dwelt compassionately upon the thought of poor old Lindau; he resolved to make him accept a handsome sum of money—more than he could spare, something that he would feel the loss of—in payment of the lessons in German and fencing given so long ago. At the usual rate for such lessons, his debt, with interest for twenty-odd years, would run very far into the hundreds. Too far, he perceived, for his wife's joyous approval; he determined not to add the interest; or he believed that Lindau would refuse the interest; he put a fine speech in his mouth, making him do so; and after that he got Lindau employment on 'Every Other Week,' and took care of him till he died.”

IndecisionBrexit
Book:A Hazard of New Fortunes
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“Now was the moment and the moment was now. For in perhaps as little as twenty weeks' time, ill-informed voters, stuffed with incoherent arguments, like hissing geese force-fed nostalgia and hate to produce an idelible pâté of groundless opinion, would be asked to decide nothing less than what sort of country we want to live in and bequeath to those who come after us.”

PoliticsSatireUnited KingdomBrexit
Book:Content Provider: Selected Short Prose Pieces, 2011–2016
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“It may seem strange to call this slow collapse invisible since so much of it is obvious: the deep uncertainties about the union after the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament the following year; the consequent rise of English nationalism; the profound regional inequalities within England itself; the generational divergence of values and aspirations; the undermining of the welfare state and its promise of shared citizenship; the contempt for the poor and vulnerable expressed through austerity; the rise of a sensationally self-indulgent and clownish ruling class. But the collective effects of these inter-related developments seem to have been barely visible within the political mainstream until David Cameron accidentally took the lid off by calling the EU referendum and asked people to endorse the status quo. What we see with the mask pulled back and the fog of fantasies at last beginning to dissipate is the revelation that Brexit is much less about Britain's relationship with the EU than it is about Britain's relationship with itself. It is the projection outwards of an inner turmoil. An archaic political system carried on even while its foundations in a collective sense of belonging were crumbling. Brexit in one way alone has done a real service: it has forced the old system to play out its death throes in public. The spectacle is ugly, but at least it shows that a fissiparous four-nation state cannot be governed without radical social and cconstitutional change.”

United KingdomBrexit
Book:Scotland the Brave? Twenty Years of Change and the Future of the Nation
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“Like many, he’d been watching the country tear itself apart over Brexit and whilst he’d never had any real interest in politics, it was fairly clear that the growing social tension was not only fuelling resentment and division, it was creating a political vacuum. If Billy knew one thing, it’s that any kind of vacuum equalled opportunity and whilst he had no idea how that might manifest itself, he’d suspected that working with the veterans and having a group of lads at his beck and call might well prove advantageous at some point. All he had to do was make sure that whatever form that opportunity might take, he had to be ready to grab it with both hands when the time came.”

SeriesThrillerGangCrime FictionTrilogyCrime ThrillerBrexitPolitical Thriller
Book:In the Know
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“It’s not that I hate everyone outside of England. I don’t. I don’t hate people from Syria, Afghanistan or Somalia. How could I? I don’t know them. How could I hate someone I don’t even know? That would take a special kind of madness. But if they refuse to make a useful contribution to society then we should send them back where they came from because we just can’t afford them anymore. It’s 10.30 p.m. and my front door’s locked. Why? Certainly not because I hate everyone OUTSIDE the front door, but because I love everyone INSIDE. Nobody’s telling me not to not to lock my front door. Or are they? The EU certainly is.”

HatredImmigrationEuropean UnionBrexitHatred QuotesImmigration IssuesHatred Of Others
Book:Gunpowder Soup
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“I talked to Llewellyn and got a thick briefing packet with the key arguments on both sides. The problem, for those who wanted to stay in the EU, was that many of the arguments for Brexit were built on lies: about how much the UK paid into the European Union; about how Brexit wouldn’t hurt the British economy. Another problem was that the Brexit campaign was tapping into the same sense of nationalism and nostalgia that the Trump campaign was promoting back home: the days of Churchill, the absence of immigrants and intrusive international institutions. The arguments for staying in the EU were grounded in facts, not emotion: The EU was Britain’s largest market. The EU offered Britain a stronger voice in global affairs. Even the name of the campaign—Remain—sounded like a concession that life wasn’t going to be all that you hoped it would be.”

UsaBritainObamaBrexit
Book:The World As It Is: Inside the Obama White House
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“But nevertheless, what remains - very broadly diffused through the modern British consciousness - is a warmish afterglow generated by a sense that Britain's record in the last two hundred years is on the whole a source of legitimate pride. This in turn nourishes a sense that Britain deserves a special place in the pantheon of the world - that we are not just a small country at the European end of the Eurasian landmass.”

Brexit
Book:Brexit and the British: Who Are We Now?
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