Best British History Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 3

“We can find common qualities and common values that have made Britain the country it is. Our belief in tolerance and liberty which shines through British history. Our commitment to fairness, fair play and civic duty.”

Made Country Play Values Belief Common Quality Liberty Duty Commitment Fairs Shining British Tolerance Britain Fairness Civics British History Civic Duty Fair Play

Author:Gordon Brown

“The great theme of modern British history is the fate of freedom. The 18th century inherits, after the Civil War, this very peculiar political animal. It's not a democracy, but it's not a tyranny. It's not like the rest of the world, the rest of Europe. There is a parliament, laws have to be made, elections are made.”

World Made War Law Political Animal History Democracy Fate Modern Century Europe Election British Tyranny Civil War Theme Peculiar Parliament British History 18th Century Political Animals

Author:Simon Schama

“To collude in the minimisation of British history on the grounds of its imagined irrelevance to our rebranded national future, or from a suspicion that it does no more than recycle patriotic pieties unsuited to a global marketplace, would be an act of appallingly self-inflicted collective memory loss.”

Doe Self Would Be Memories Loss History British Collectives Patriotic Suspicion Marketplace Piety British History Memory Loss Irrelevance Self Inflicted Collective Memory

Book:A History of Britain: At the edge of the world? 3000 BC-AD 1603

Source: A History of Britain: At the edge of the world? 3000 BC-AD 1603

“Much of the world today, including the United States, is still living in the social, cultural, and political aftermath of Britain's cultural achievements, its industrial revolution, its government of checks and balances, and its conquests around the world.”

Source: Conquests And Cultures: An International History

“There is no other Parliament like the English. For the ordinary man, elected to any senate, from Perisa to Peru, they may be a certain satisfaction in being elected... but the man who steps into the English Parliament takes his place in a pageant that has ever been filing by since the birth of English history... York or Lancaster, Protestant or Catholic, Court or Country, Roundhead or Cavalier, Whig or Tory, Liberal or Conservative, Labour or Unionist, they all fit into that long pageant that no other country in the world can show.”

“Out of the chaos of post-Roman Dark Age Britain, the English had created the world's first nation-state: One king, one country, one church, one currency, one language and a single unified representative national administration. Never again in England would sovereignty descend to the merely regional level. Never again would the idea of England and the unity of England ever be challenged.”

“For William Cecil and others in Elizabeth's Council, whose sense of Catholic conspiracy and threat governed their political thinking, England's security lay in the creation of a united and Protestant British Isles, which could stand alone, ready to resist invaders. Divine providence had set the islands apart from the rest of the world by encircling seas, 'a little world by itself'.”

“Let valour end my life!”

Ends History British History Valour

Author:Walter Raleigh

“If there is a single trait in our character that has historically set us apart from other nations, it is our determination to limit the authority of those who rule over us.”

Ifs Character Nations History Limits Authority Determination Traits British History

Book:The Progressive Patriot

Source: The Progressive Patriot

“Armed Soldier, terrible as Death, relentless as Doom; doing God's judgement on the Enemies of God. It is a phenomenon not of joyful nature; no, but of awful, to be looked at with pious terror and awe.”

Enemy History Terrible Soldier Terror Awful Judgement Awe Phenomenon Joyful Doom Relentless Pious British History

Book:Works

Source: Works

“There was no more dangerous a time in a nation's life than the passing of a ruler when the succession was in doubt.”

Nations History Doubt Dangerous Passing Passings Rulers Succession British History

Author:Leanda de Lisle

“He had done that which could never be forgiven; he was in the grasp of one who never forgave.”

Done History Forgiven British History

Author:Thomas B. Macaulay

“The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the Revolution of 1688 is this that this was our last Revolution.”

Lasts History Revolution Highest Eulogy British History

Author:Thomas B. Macaulay

“A bottomless pit of violence, a Tower of Babel where all are speakers and no hearers.”

History Violence Speakers Towers Pits British History Babel Tower Of Babel

Author:Alexander Smith

“When a Man is tried of London, he is tired of life.”

Men Travel Tired London British History Tired Of Life

Author:Samuel Johnson

“Compare the scale and magnifcence of Versailles with St James's - the brick-built hovel in which the 18th-century kings of England lived. What was then the most powerful monarchy in the world housed its sovereigns in a converted leper hospital, yet, at the same time, parliament provided the magnificent palaces of Chelsea and Greenwich as hospitals for retired soldiers and sailors.”

“The unweary, unostentatious, and inglorious crusade of England against slavery may probably be regarded as among the three or four perfectly virtuous pages comprised in the history of nations.”

May Three Nations History Four Pages England Slavery Virtuous Crusades British History

Book:History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne

Source: History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne

“We, while noting many things amiss about Victorian society, more often sense them judging us.”

History Judging Victorian British History

Author:A. N. Wilson

“Those Victorians: endlessly fascinating, broad in their learning, heroic in their achievements, in parts completely mad.”

History Achievement Mad Fascinating Broads Heroic British History

Author:Simon Heffer

“The Victorians pioneered numbers of commercial rackets about which their descendants complain (the manufacturers of Bovril, it appears, were virtually official sponsors of the Boer War).”

War Numbers History Complaining Officials Descendants Sponsors British History Racket Boers

Author:D. J. Taylor

“Of the 664 men who rode into the Valley of Death about 540 eventually got out of it again. By far the highest casualty rate was among the horses. Compared with the Somme or an evening in the Blitz, the Valley of Death was a piece of cake.”

Men History Pieces Highest Horse Rate Evening Cake Valleys Casualties British History Blitz Valley Of Death

Author:Simon Heffer

“The most stirring battle-poem in English is about a brigade of cavalry which charged in the wrong direction.”

History Battle Stirring British History Wrong Direction Cavalry

Book:Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays

Source: Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays

“Nine English traditions out of ten date from the latter half of the nineteenth century.”

Half History Century Ten Tradition Nine Latter 19th Century British History

Author:C.P. Snow

“Disraeli was now at the height of his fame and popularity. He still had his enemies... But the people as a whole now admired and respected him deeply... His unscrupulous past and cynical opportunism were being largely forgotten or forgiven. He was gradually becoming recognized not only as the prophet of a new Conservatism, at once compassionate at home and positive abroad, but as a great statesmen whom the Queen did well to honour. Power had brought responsibility. By 1878 the transformation in public attitudes towards Disraeli was complete.”

“There is little doubt that, until 1846 when he helped to engineer the resignation of Robert Peel, Disraeli was driven by an ambition to make his mark rather than by any consistent political purpose, and that his attacks on Peel would have not have been so mounted had he been given in 1841 the office for which he had asked.”

Littles Has Beens Political Purpose Given History Doubt Office Ambition Mark Driven Consistent Engineers Resignation British History Disraeli

Author:Christopher Hibbert

“Jews show so near an affinity to you... Where is your Christianity if you do not believe in their Judaism?”

Ifs Believe Shows Christianity History Jew Judaism Affinity British History

Author:Benjamin Disraeli

“The Germans could not get over the perfidy of it. It was unbelievable that the English, having degenerated to the stage where suffragettes heckled the Prime Minister and defied the police, were going to fight.”

Fighting History Stage Police Ministers Prime Get Over Prime Minister Unbelievable British History Suffragettes Perfidy

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep... For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that an' Chuck him out, the brute! But it's Saviour of his country, when the guns begins to shoot!”

Country Sleep History Gun Uniforms Brutes Saviour Mock Chuck British History

Author:Rudyard Kipling

“Britain, the first industrial nation, had offered the world a remarkable public experiment in liberal, capitalist democracy whose success was premised upon free trade and world peace. Tuesday, 4 August 1914 brought that experiment to an abrupt halt.”

World Firsts Nations History Democracy Trade Experiments Britain Remarkable Capitalist August Halt Tuesday Free Trade British History

Book:The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain

Source: The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain

“The male clerk with his quill pen and copper-plate handwriting had gone for good. The female short-hand typist took his place. It was a decisive moment in women's emancipation.”

Moments Hands History Gone Female Males Pens Plates Emancipation Clerks British History Handwriting Copper Quills Decisive Moments

Book:English History 1914-1945

Source: English History 1914-1945

“I am a man of peace. I am longing and working and praying for peace, but I will not surrender the safety and security of the British constitution. You placed me in power eighteen months ago by the largest majority accorded to any party for many, many years. Have I done anything to forfeit that confidence? Cannot you trust me to ensure a square deal to secure even justice between man and man?”

“England totally disarmed and an easy prey to hostile forces! Can you think of anything more likely to excite cupidity and hostile intention? We should sink to the level of a fifth rate Power, our Colonies would be stripped from us, our commerce would decline, famine and unemployment would stalk the land... I have yet to learn that the cause of peace can be served by rendering our country impotent.”

“Thirty resolute men in your House of Commons could save the world.”

Men World House History Thirty World History Save The World Resolute British History House Of Commons

Author:Felix Frankfurter

“Egyptologists, skilled in piecing together the papyri of lost civilisations, suddenly discovered that the same talent could be applied to working out the pattern of German radio traffic.”

Together Lost History Talent Patterns Radio Work Out Traffic Civilisation British History

Author:Robert Harris

“I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government an official note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o'clock, that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and consequently this country is at war with Germany.”

“We fight to exist. Personally, I am not ashamed of fighting to exist. We are doing no very extraordinary thing to fight simply because we do not wish to be enslaved or exterminated.”

Fighting Wish History Extraordinary Ashamed Extraordinary Things British History

Author:Donald Woods Winnicott

“No people in the world other than the English would have had the courage, in the midst of war, to tell the people such unvarnished truth.”

People World War History Midst British History

Author:Anton Walbrook

“Labour leaders lead us all, though we know they bleed us all. Cheer our new Decline and Fall, Gibbon might have dreamed it all.”

Knows Might Fall Leader History Labour Cheer Decline British History

Author:Noel Coward

“This book has been a catalogue of mistakes by politicians, moral and practical disasters which led to wars, enslavement and wretchedness on a scale which no previous age could have dreaded or dreamed of.”

Has Beens Book War Age Mistake Moral History Politician Disaster Scales Practicals Enslavement British History Wretchedness Catalogues

Author:A. N. Wilson

“England will still be England, an everlasting animal, stretching into the future and the past and like all living things having the power to change out of all recognition and yet remain the same.”

Stills Past Animal History England Recognition Everlasting Living Things Stretching British History Power To Change

Book:The Complete Works of George Orwell: A patriot after all, 1940-1941

Source: The Complete Works of George Orwell: A patriot after all, 1940-1941

“A country scratching a lazy irritation at sagging doorjambs and late trains, whose greatest attribute is a collective, smelly tolerance, where a chap will put up with almost everything, which means he won't care about anything enough to get out of a chair.A country of public insouciance and private, grubby guilt, where you can believe anything as long as you don't believe it too fervently. A country where the highest aspiration is for a quiet life.”

“We had to do what we had to do - Britain is great again.”

History Britain British History

Author:Margaret Thatcher

“Your loss we count as our loss. Your struggle we take as our struggle.”

Loss History Struggle British History Your Loss

Author:Tony Blair

“These men were very much in the minority, but of course, being the 'Elect', they expected to be in a minority - the party of redemption. In fact they glorified in the slightness of their numbers, the self-purifying troop of Gideon's army... stormtroopers in the front line of the Reformation.”

Men Self Facts Courses Lines Party Numbers History Fronts Army Expected Redemption Minorities Reformation British History Gideon Purifying Stormtroopers

Author:Simon Schama

“Charles was constitutionally incapable of being a constitutional monarch.”

History Incapable Monarchs British History

Author:Simon Schama

“The irony about Charles II is not that he came to the throne because England needed a successor to Charles I, but because England needed a successor to Oliver Cromwell.”

History Needed England Irony Thrones Successors British History Cromwell Charles I

Author:Simon Schama

“Almost everywhere else in Europe, the more military the state, the stronger the king - except in Britain. Here it was parliament, not the monarchy, who signed the cheques. The longer the war went on, the stronger parliament became, as the purse on which it sat grew bigger and bigger.”

War States History Military Grew Kings Europe Bigger Stronger Sat Britain Parliament Monarchy Purses British History Cheques

Author:Simon Schama

“Taxation, the very thing that had triggered the British civil wars, would do so again, this time in America. The taxes may have been different, but the result would once again be disaster. What happened in America was really round two of those wars - the civil war of the British Empire, with the Hanoverians playing the part of the Stuarts, and the Americans the heirs of the revolutionaries, of Cromwell and of William III, the inheritors of a true British liberty, that had somehow got lost in its own motherland.”

“I went back in British history. Some 204 people died there after a mine collapsed in 1838. In 1866, 361 miners died in Britain. In an explosion in 1894, 290 people died there.”

People Mines Died British Britain Usual Offensive Explosions British History Miners

Author:Recep Tayyip Erdogan

British History Quotes

Related topics

British History Quotes