William Donaldson > Quotes

“Bottom dogs have to be persuaded of the desirability of inequality.”
― william donaldson

“King- Hamilton, Judge Alan ( b 1900 )'...I think he erred on the side of severity when he gave Janie Jones, the notorious madame, seven years after the jury had acquitted her'. 'Well, these things are relative of course. It all depends on what you've been acquitted of. Miss Jones was innocent of a very serious offence.”
― William Donaldson

“Later the place was as deserted as Malcolm Muggeridge's Christmas party of fellow intellectuals.”
― William Donaldson

“Power is the best shield that the disordered personality can conceive against being revealed as the laughing stock he secretly suspects himself to be.”
― William Donaldson

“Carlton, Sydney (1949-), painter and decorator. Those who argue that bestiality should be treated with understanding had a setback in 1998 when Carlton, a married man from Bradford, was sentenced to a year in prison for having intercourse with a Staffordshire bull terrier, named Badger. His defence was that Badger had made the first move. 'I can't help it if the dog took a liking to me,' he told the court. This was not accepted.”
― William Donaldson

“...a large and ridiculous gunner told me that I looked like an out-of-work chorus boy. He was very startled when I told him that was exactly what I was, but that I found it easier to get work as a naval officer, a job requiring considerably less talent.”
― william donaldson

“The cream of a generation was lost in the mud of Flanders. Etonians went over the top with the Illiad in their knapsacks and Athens in their hearts. To protest that such men were statistically not even a trace among the British soldiers killed is to miss the point. At all times the great majority of people have been ignorant of the classics; but the men who mattered; who governed, declared wars and resisted innovation have always had Latin and Greek.”
― William Donaldson, From Winchester to This

“Questions, Hypothetical: Needn't be answered. No one knows why.
Schools, Public: They teach you to stand on your own two feet. 'No doors on the lavatories. That sorts the men from the boys'.
Snobbery, Inverted: The worst kind. No need to explain why.”
― William Donaldson

“I expect you (William Whitelaw) were as impressed as I was to read of the recent electrocution in Florida of a character called John Spenkelink in the electric chair. It seems that a full six minutes passed before Spenkelink was dead, during which time he hopped about like a prawn on a hot plate.”
― William Donaldson

“We have to keep asserting that people committ crimes not because they come from so-called deprived backgrounds, but because they're wicked. The statistics showing that only .00137% of all crimes of senseless violence are carried out by stockbrokers from Sunningdale prove only that folk are stockbrokers because they have a sense of right and wrong - not vice versa.”
― william donaldson

“...mere tabloid journalists, obliged to choose between the word of a Tory MP and that of a common prostitue, have been far too stupid to see that you can put your mortgage on the latter being true.”
― william donaldson

“Born 4th January 1935. Left school at 16 with one 'O' level in geography ( so I know my way round the world), but continued my education at the University of Real Life, than which, you will agree, there is none better.”
― William Donaldson

“Dear Mr Worsthorne,
My attention has only been drawn to an astonishing attack you made some months ago in 'The Sunday Telegraph' on that fine man Lord Longford.
'That Lord Longford should team up with Janie Jones, the convicted procuress,' you wrote, 'may not at first glance seem to be a matter meriting much adverse comment. It might even be thought desirable, and a mark of a civilised society, for such a universally execrated wretch to have at least one friend in high places'.
Well! Calling Lord Longford a universally execrated wretch is irresponsible journalism at it's worst, in my opinion, and I would strenuously dispute that Miss Janie Jones moves in high places.”
― William Donaldson, The Complete Henry Root Letters

“I locate Essential Spain at last - the cruel winds, the grinding poverty, the unforgiving landscape. It could be Wales.”
― william donaldson

“Even Mahatma Gandhi - hardly a comfortable character - always wore a bowler hat with his loin cloth when practising as a barrister in London.”
― William Donaldson

“This afternoon I was sitting quietly with some twenty roughs when I noticed a sudden hush come over the room. I glanced nervously round and observed that forty pairs of eyes were on me...I was reading a book. They had never seen someone read a book before. They were like natives watching a white man shave.”
― william donaldson

“Only a shallow mind would be puzzled by the fact that Original Sin appears to be distributed so much more noticeably among the deprived...than among merchant bankers living in Surrey's green belt.”
― William Donaldson

“I read recently that 60% of all drugs on the black-market had been put there by the police. No sooner are drugs seized, it seems, than they are recycled onto the streets by the arresting officers! I know our Leader, Mrs Thatcher, is in favour of private enterprise, but this is the free market gone mad!...Yours for the Market Economy Within Reasonable Limits!”
― William Donaldson

“I wish to protest most strongly about everything.”
― William Donaldson

“The Queen is so poor she has to spend her own money.”
― William Donaldson

“At Winchester we were discouraged from standing too close, from making, or seeking, personal disclosure. The other day I met a fellow Wykhamist - someone I'd known for forty years - and after the preliminaries, I said: 'Are you happy?'He took a pace back and squinted with surprise: 'Are you pulling my wire?' he said. 'That's none of your business'.
At Winchester we were none of us each others business. We cracked on.”
― William Donaldson

“To sit a fine Christian gentleman down in close proximity to an unsavoury crowd of prostitutes was bad enough. Even worse was to allow him to be humiliated intellectually by the afore-mentioned rabble. (When you must have know perfectly well that it is not given to mere policemen, as it is to street-walkers, to think coherently on their feet).”
― William Donaldson

“For my sins I recently went on a fact-finding tour of the North East...They're no longer whineing and snivelling about social justice and the right to work. They've given up completely.”
― william donaldson

“A recent study shows that one hundred per cent of youngsters on hard drugs had at some time in their lives listened to so-called pop music”
― William Donaldson

“I was sorry to read in yesterday's evening papers that your house was recently burglarised while you were elsewhere propounding the moral virtues of private enterprise.
I'm sure you'll be able to see the funny side of it!
I expect your mistake was to inform the robbery squad at your local police station that your house would be empty. That's always asking for trouble.”
― William Donaldson, The Complete Henry Root Letters

“Politicians.Their first thoughts are always with the loved ones of the British serviceman tragically killed in action.
And whether they'll vote New Labour at the next election.
There's no need to be cynical, Susan.
Why not?
You've got me there.”
― William Donaldson

“Freedom to do as we're told under the law!”
― William Donaldson

“drugs, hard. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the law was changed in the United Kingdom to ensure that the production and supply of dangerous drugs should henceforth be in the hands of criminal organisations. Some people have argued that this is not an ideal arrangement.”
― william donaldson

“Utilitarianism: If we Britiash were Utilitarians we would have to believe that imprisoning the innocent and torturing suspects was justified if the Home Secretary thought it a good thing for our peace of mind.”
― William Donaldson

“Under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the law was changed in the United Kingdom to ensure that the production and supply of dangerous drugs should henceforth be in the hands of criminal organisations. Some people have argued that this is not an ideal arrangement.”
― William Donaldson, Brewer's Rogues, Villains & Eccentrics