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British Literature Quotes

Browse 24 quotes about British Literature.

British Literature Quotes

“Can you read?" the boy said at last. "Of course," said Arrietty. "Can't you?" "No," he stammered. "I mean--yes. I mean I've just come from India." "What's that got to do with it?" asked Arrietty. "Well, if you're born in India, you're bilingual. And if you're bilingual, you can't read. Not so well." Arrietty stared up at him: what a monster, she thought, dark against the sky. "Do you grow out of it?" she asked. He moved a little and she felt the cold flick of his shadow. "Oh yes," head said, "it wears off. My sisters were bilingual; now they aren't a bit. They could read any of those books upstairs in the schoolroom." "So could I," said Arrietty quickly, "if someone could hold them, and turn the pages. I'm not a bit bilingual. I can read anything.”

ChildrenLiteracyBilingualBilingualismBritish Literature
Book:Borrowers
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“Serve Britannia (The Sonnet) Let us build a new Britain, A Britain with actual heart's beauty, Where we shall right our wrongs, Instead of boasting our atrocities. Let us build a new Britain, Where commoners are king and queen, Where unlike our tribal ancestors, Our habit is not occupation but caring. Let us herald a new Britain, Where there is no exit only inclusion, Where no one bows to no one for honor, And each lives with self-determination. Serve Britannia! Britannia, serve as aid. Britain never again shall make others slave.”

ColonialismBritish EmpireBritish HistoryUnited KingdomBrexitDivide And ConquerBritish PoliticsAbolish MonarchyBritish ImperialismBritish Literature
Book:Making Britain Civilized: How to Gain Readmission to The Human Race
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“The slow discovery of the seventh sense, by which both men and women contrive to ride the waves of a world in which there is war, adultery, compromise, fear, stultification and hypocrisy—this discovery is not a matter for triumph... And at this stage we begin to forget that there ever was a time when we lacked the seventh sense. We begin to forget, as we go stolidly balancing along, that there could have been a time when we were young bodies flaming with the impetus of life. It is hardly consoling to remember such a feeling, and so it deadens in our minds. But there was a time when each of us stood naked before the world, confronting life as a serious problem with which we were intimately and passionately concerned. There was a time when it was of vital interest to us to find out whether there was a God or not... Further back, there were times when we wondered with all our souls what the world was, what love was, what we were ourselves. All these problems and feelings fade away when we get the seventh sense. Middle-aged people can balance between believing in God and breaking all the commandments, without difficulty. The seventh sense, indeed, slowly kills all the other ones, so that at last there is no trouble about the commandments. We cannot see any more, or feel, or hear about them. The bodies which we loved, the truths which we sought, the Gods whom we questioned: we are deaf and blind to them now, safely and automatically balancing along toward the inevitable grave, under the protection of our last sense.”

Arthurian LegendPolitical SatireBritish Literature
Book:CliffsNotes on White's the Once and Future King
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“The horse’s hooves crashed out on the stone floor, echoing in the arched entrance. Ahead, the nave stretched, vast, empty, bathed in colour; the winter sun streaming through stained glass between great arches. The horse snorted, its measured steps ringing out on the flagstones and tombs.”

ReligionAdventureHistorical FictionRenaissance17th CenturyRealistic FictionBritish LiteratureCivil War FictionEnglish Civil WarWar Fiction
Book:Desecration: Winchester 1642
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“The gun stood on its platform, staring out over the breastwork of earth and timber, out across the steep valley to the hill beyond; a flat-topped hill, a great field of wheat laid over it, ripening and shimmering in the late afternoon sun; a cornfield filled with an army, a Cornish army, a superstitious, idolatrous army; an army of half-wild, barbarous heathens; a cornfield and an army to be cut down; a sacrifice to be reaped. 'For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”

ReligionAdventureHistorical FictionRenaissance17th CenturyRealistic FictionBritish LiteratureCivil War FictionEnglish Civil WarWar Fiction
Book:The Keys of Hell and Death
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“Grenville's line of Cornishmen swayed and lurched, a low growl running through the ranks like a storm far out at sea, the boulders grinding as the waves built. And then it burst, men yelling, shaking their weapons in the air, the pikes clashing, thumping the ground, shouting, demanding, exclaiming, 'Kernow vedn keskerras!' Cornwall will march!”

AdventureHistorical FictionRenaissance17th CenturyRealistic FictionCornwallBritish LiteratureCivil War FictionEnglish Civil WarWar Fiction
Book:The Keys of Hell and Death
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“But God knew how he missed the sea. He missed it in the sun, in the wind and the dark. He even missed the hiss of rain sweeping across it. He missed the dancing sunlight, its ever-shifting tint and hue, scudding cloud and shadow – dappled, ruffled, heaving, waves ridden by white horses, spume streaked, fierce and shrieking. He missed its limitless, open call, its ungoverned, unchecked freedom, the pull of the horizon, an unknown shore, clarity and unfathomable deep. Most of all he missed the 'mordroz': the sound of the sea, its soothing whisper, its pounding drum, its howling fury. For the sea called to him still; it was in his blood, wanted him back, sucked at his soul, clawing, smothering, dragging him down, a restless lover, a shining temptress that could never be sated.”

SeaHistorical FictionRenaissance17th CenturyRealistic FictionCornwallBritish LiteratureEnglish Civil WarWar FictionCornish
Book:The Keys of Hell and Death
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“Men call you fayre, and you doe credit it, For that your self ye daily such doe see: But the trew fayre, that is the gentle wit, And vertuous mind, is much more praysd of me. For all the rest, how ever fayre it be, Shall turne to nought and loose that glorious hew: But onely that is permanent and free From frayle corruption, that doth flesh ensew. That is true beautie: that doth argue you To be divine and borne of heavenly seed: Deriv'd from that fayre Spirit, from whom al true And perfect beauty did at first proceed. He onely fayre, and what he fayre hath made, All other fayre lyke flowres untymely fade.”

PoetrySonnetBritish LiteratureEdmund SpenserAmoretti
Book:Amoretti And Epithalamion
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