United Kingdom Quotes

“Americans may say they love our accents (I have been accused of sounding 'like Princess Di') but the more thoughtful ones resent and rather dislike us as a nation and people, as friends of mine have found out by being on the edge of conversations where Americans assumed no Englishmen were listening.

And it is the English, specifically, who are the targets of this. Few Americans have heard of Wales. All of them have heard of Ireland and many of them think they are Irish. Scotland gets a sort of free pass, especially since Braveheart re-established the Scots' anti-English credentials among the ignorant millions who get their history off the TV.”
― Peter Hitchens

“The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything.”
― Charles Moore

“Everything in London is great and adorable,
apart from the weather which is so unpredictable.”
― Mouloud Benzadi

“Now, I have always wanted to agree with Lady Bracknell that there is no earthly use for the upper and lower classes unless they set each other a good example. But I shouldn't pretend that the consensus itself was any of my concern. It was absurd and slightly despicable, in the first decade of Thatcher and Reagan, to hear former and actual radicals intone piously against 'the politics of confrontation.' I suppose that, if this collection has a point, it is the desire of one individual to see the idea of confrontation kept alive.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports

“London is one of the world's centres of Arab journalism and political activism. The failure of left and right, the establishment and its opposition, to mount principled arguments against clerical reaction has had global ramifications. Ideas minted in Britain – the notion that it is bigoted to oppose bigotry; 'Islamophobic' to oppose clerics whose first desire is to oppress Muslims – swirl out through the press and the net to lands where they can do real harm.”
― Nick Cohen

“This historic general election, which showed that the British are well able to distinguish between patriotism and Toryism, brought Clement Attlee to the prime ministership. In the succeeding five years, Labor inaugurated the National Health Service, the first and boldest experiment in socialized medicine. It took into public ownership all the vital (and bankrupted) utilities of the coal, gas, electricity and railway industries. It even nibbled at the fiefdoms and baronies of private steel, air transport and trucking. It negotiated the long overdue independence of India. It did all this, in a country bled white by the World War and subject to all manner of unpopular rationing and controls, without losing a single midterm by-election (a standard not equaled by any government of any party since). And it was returned to office at the end of a crowded term.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“What if, I never tire of asking, we said 'Secret Council' instead of the archaic and therefore cuddly 'Privy Council'?”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Today, as a result of the policy of Macmillan's Government, Great Britain presents in the United Nations the face of Pecksniff and in Katanga the face of Gradgrind.”
― Conor Cruise O'Brien

“So there comes a moment when we turn and look at each other - England and Scotland - and realise we just want different things. The Union is an unhappy marriage. I think it's time we both sat down and said it out loud - it's over.”
― David Greig

“Genghis Miliband roars up to the despatch box like a caged donkey.”
― Andy Zaltzman

“Nice mix of Tory MPs saying this issue shouldn't be used for petty political pointscoring, & Tory MPs trying to score petty political points.”
― Andy Zaltzman

“the updated 2016 State of Nature report discovered that the UK has lost significantly more biodiversity over the long term than the world average. Ranked twenty-ninth lowest out of 218 countries, we are among the most nature-depleted countries in the world.”
― Isabella Tree, Wilding

“When a philandering ass is declared head of state, and the other woman sleeps her way to the throne, it's not a moment of national pride, it's an outlandish declaration of national pestilence.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“Better britain begins with a better brit, an inclusive brit, a decolonized brit - a brit who knows no king and queen - a brit who celebrates no tomfoolery of coronation - a brit who knows but one race, the human race - a brit who knows but one religion, love - a brit who knows but one tradition, integration.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“As British governments do, Kings James appointed a committe to investigate. It reported that things were very bad, and offered many explanations. It said something must be done, and then the king did nothing.”
― Nick Bunker, Mayflower Pilgrims

“Bradford tells us about another lusty youth, Howland's ungodly double, a 'proud ... & profane' seaman who jeered and cursed the seasick passengers, saying that he expected to dump half of them over the side before journey's end. It pleased God to smite the young man with disease, and he was tossed overboard himself.”
― Nick Bunker, Mayflower Pilgrims

“When natives are treated alien,
and aliens take over as master,
cultures uprooted by legal decree,
honor is stolen as spoils of war,
defying the delirium of king and country,
rise and stand human against imperial larceny.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“Alien Native
(The Sonnet)

When natives are treated alien,
and aliens take over as master,
cultures uprooted by legal decree,
honor is stolen as spoils of war,

empires erected on blood and bones,
when prosperity is rooted in plunder,
homes are stripped of hopes and dreams,
violations feed the palace of blunder,

when baboons are adorned with bootleg,
each rock is drenched in bloodshed,
when festivities thrive on thievery,
correction is cursed as blasphemous,

defying the delirium of king and country,
rise and stand human against imperial larceny.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“Baa Baa White Sheep
(The Sonnet)

Baa baa white sheep,
have you any wool!
Yes sir, yes sir,
London tower full.

Pull it over your eyes,
or weave it into blanket.
All stink of blood and blunder,
a scent second not even to crumpet.

Imperials rise upon indigenous fall,
declaring themselves as light-bringer.
Native tears form kohinoor on the crown,
Blood is but cologne to the colonizer.

Not all of colonial descent are colonizer,
but those who take pride in the past are.
To these animal ghosts of the human world,
no matter your ethnicity send a get well card.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“Carry on Up The Tower (The Sonnet)

British museum is not a repository of relics,
it's a time capsule of british barbarism.
It's a classic case of cannibalism, narcissism,
kleptomania and psychopathy combined in one.

Tower of London is not a heritage site,
it's the Bedlam of the british.
The title of "heritage site" belongs
to memories of pride, not primitives.

Buckingham palace is not a noble home,
it's the national zoo of England,
where they coddle massacre 'n stagnation,
with no civil initiative for atonement.

Nobility of blood is nobility of the jungle,
modern nobility involves substance of character,
whose identity isn't anchored in transgressions,
bloodline defines chimps, humans by behavior.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“British museum is not a repository of relics, it's a time capsule of british barbarism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“British museum is not a repository of relics, it's a time capsule of british barbarism. It's a classic case of cannibalism, narcissism, kleptomania and psychopathy combined in one.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“Tower of London is not a heritage site, it's the Bedlam of the british.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“More to life than king and country,
More to love than crumpet and nookie.
Rise above all mindless swag,
Break the spell of heartless shag,
Life begins outside the vault of vanity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“Humpty Dumpty (Colonial Sonnet)

Humpty Dumpty sat on a throne,
he made a career of divide-n-rule.
Whole west found a savior in a fool,
as he was anointed the royal mule.

He smuggled food from starving natives,
for fighting troops were far more worthy.
Adolf was designated the villain supremo,
while he was the free world's beloved Humpty.

It's fault of the natives to "breed like rabbits",
he was right to be their judge and executioner.
After all, human rights mean rights of the pale,
freedom and equality don't apply to the darker.

Humpty Dumpty was ready with his cigar,
to fight the invaders on the beaches.
Sure he was the right nut for the job,
expertise lies in centuries of practice.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“NATO was born an 'illegitimate child,' the product of four dubious fathers—now adopted by 28 more nations.”
― Mohammed Zaki Ansari, "Zaki's Gift Of Love"

“Funny," Will said, as they picked their way through. "Things are absolutely awful, and yet people look much happier than usual. Look at them all. Bubbling."

"They are English," Merriman said.

"Quite right," said Will's father. "Splendid in adversity, tedious when safe. Never content, in fact. We're an odd lot.”
― Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising

“We may even conclude it to be an evidence of strength, rather than of weakness, that the Scots language and the Scottish literature did not maintain a separate existence. Scottish, throwing in its luck with English, has not only much greater chance of survival, but contributes important elements of strength to complete the English...”
― T.S. Eliot

“Scott found himself caught between a deep-seated loyalty to, and knowledge of, his country and an equally fundamental commitment to the Union with England. He sought to find a way for Scotland to accommodate its sense of identity with the economic and other benefits of being a partner in the greatest empire the world had yet seen, This was both a deliberate and a subconscious for a highly intelligent, complex, energetic and emotional man. To complete it successfully, the Scottish past had to b turned into a kind of serious playground, rich in possibility except for the possibility that it might inform the future in some disruptive way. Scott well knew, because of the way he himself was affected by it, that Scottish history had the potential to release grear energy: fascinated by it, he nevertheless felt a need to keep it, like a wild animal, behind a barrier of time. It was therefore fitting to his purpose that he should make the extraordinary claim to his tens of thousands of readers - in a book aimed particularly at the young - that nothing worth drawing to ther attention had occurred in Scotland in the pasr eighty years.”
― James Robertson, Finding Out the Rest: History and Scotland Now

“In both Marriage and Inheritance Ferrier reaffirms national identity differences between Scotland and England by deliberately bifurcating characters and settings between the two nations. Even her very titles - Marriage, Inheritance, Destiny - project a telescoping of the national tale whereby the 'culminating acts of union become frought with unresolved tensions, leading to prolonged courtship complications, to marital crisis, and even to national divorce'. We would do well to reconsider Ferrier's relegation to a lesser novelist working in the shadow of Austen.”
― Charles Snodgrass, The International Companion to the Scottish Novel