"A nation which has forgotten
its past can have no future."
w. e. henley
"Ever the faith endures,
England, my England."
the anglo-saxon chronicle
"…but it was most
hateful to all to fight against their own race’s men, for there was
little else who could achieve anything much on either side except for
the English."
the anglo-saxon chronicle
“A greater slaughter
was not ever yet in this island slain by an army before this with swords
blades – as books tell us, ancient scribe, since here from the east
the Angles and Saxons came over across the broad sea, they sought Britain,
the paid war makers overcame the Welsh… the keen heroes won a homeland."
drinking song (circa 1757)
"Should the French dare
invade us, thus armed with our poles, We’ll bang their
bare ribs, make their lantern jaws ring: For your beef-eating, beer-drinking
Britons are souls Who will shed their last blood for their country and
King."
oscar wilde
"If one could only teach
the English how to talk and the Irish how to listen, society would be
quite civilized."
alice duer miller
"...I am American bred.
I have seen much to hate here, much to forgive. But in a
world where England is finished and dead, I do not wish to live."
The White Cliffs (1940)
alexander woollcott
"The English have an
extraordinary ability for flying into a great calm."
evelyn waugh (Scoop)
"Other nations use “force”
- we Britons alone use “Might”.
charles dickens
"There is in the Englishman
a combination of qualities, a modesty, an independence, a responsibility,
a repose, combined with an absence of anything calculated
to call a blush into the cheek of a young person, which one would seek
in vain among the Nations of the Earth."
