Nine English traditions out of ten date from the latter half of the nineteenth century. — C.P. Snow Copy Share Image
A bottomless pit of violence, a Tower of Babel where all are speakers and no hearers. — Alexander Smith Copy Share Image
In Great Britain, woman was subordinate and confined. But at least she was also safe. — Linda Colley Copy Share Image
Thirty resolute men in your House of Commons could save the world. — Felix Frankfurter Copy Share Image
The strength and vitality of an empire is frequently due to the new aristocracy from the periphery. — Ronald Syme Copy Share Image
At one level Great Britain at the beginning of the 18th century was like the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, both three… — Linda Colley Copy Share Image
If there is a single trait in our character that has historically set us apart from other nations, it is our determination… — Billy Bragg Copy Share Image
We fight to exist. Personally, I am not ashamed of fighting to exist. We are doing no very extraordinary thing to fight… — Donald Woods Winnicott Copy Share Image
The black presence in our British history has sometimes wilfully, sometimes neglectfully, been whitewashed out of our national tale. — Paterson Joseph Copy Share Image
No people in the world other than the English would have had the courage, in the midst of war, to tell the… — Anton Walbrook Copy Share Image
“Then you are no longer afraid of death, Your Majesty?” the lady asked, awed at the queen’s adventures. “No, I am no… — Constance Jagodzinski Copy Share Image
Jews show so near an affinity to you... Where is your Christianity if you do not believe in their Judaism? — Benjamin Disraeli Copy Share Image
To collude in the minimisation of British history on the grounds of its imagined irrelevance to our rebranded national future, or from… — Simon Schama Copy Share Image
It is impossible not to be moved by the verve, courage and elan with Churchill attacked his last and ultimately invincible enemy,… — David Cannadine Copy Share Image
In 1688 England contracted to the Netherlands the highest debt that one nation can owe to another. Herself not knowing how to… — George Bancroft Copy Share Image
Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep... For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that an' Chuck him out,… — Rudyard Kipling Copy Share Image
Contrary to received wisdom, the British are not an insular people in the conventional sense - far from it. For most of… — Linda Colley Copy Share Image
The Germans could not get over the perfidy of it. It was unbelievable that the English, having degenerated to the stage where… — Barbara Tuchman Copy Share Image
No medieval monarch in the whole of British history ever had such power as every modern British Prime Minister has in his… — Tony Benn Copy Share Image
A fundamental reason why Britain was not torn apart by civil war after 1688 was that its inhabitants' aggression was channelled so… — Linda Colley Copy Share Image
There are important arguments to be made about the relative merits of an hereditary or an elected head of state: but not… — David Cannadine Copy Share Image
Charitable endeavour exalts the prestige and the status of the giver. This may sound unduly cynical but as with all philantrophic activity,… — David Cannadine Copy Share Image
For women to be supplying the soldiery with banners, flannel shirts and other material comforts was, superficially, all of a piece with… — Linda Colley Copy Share Image
“Sir Winston Churchill was born into the respected family of the Dukes of Marlborough. His mother Jeanette, was an attractive American-born British… — Captain Hank Bracker Copy Share Image
For William Cecil and others in Elizabeth's Council, whose sense of Catholic conspiracy and threat governed their political thinking, England's security lay… — Susan Brigden Copy Share Image
“The period of which I write was an overshadowed one in British history, and especially in the history of the northern provinces.… — Charlotte Brontë Copy Share Image
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… — David Starkey Copy Share Image
Most Britons still lived and died without encountering anyone whose skin colour was different from their own. Slaves, in short, did not… — Linda Colley Copy Share Image
I was born a Scotsman and a bare one. Therefore I was born to fight my way in the world. — Walter Scott Copy Share Image
Charles was constitutionally incapable of being a constitutional monarch. — Simon Schama Copy Share Image
You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you.… — Oliver Cromwell Copy Share Image
“The Royal Navy had not built its magnificent reputation over the centuries by avoiding battle.” — Arthur Nicholson Copy Share Image
