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England

country in north-west Europe, part of the United Kingdom
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is situated on the island of Great Britain and located in the northwest Europe. The largest city of England is London.  The population of England number around 56 million making up the bulk of the United Kingdom's populace. The English language is the primary language of most inhabitants. England was formerly a sovereign country, until it joined with Scotland in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, which in turn became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.

The late M. Venizelos observed that in all her wars England—he should have said Britain, of course—always wins one battle—the last. ~ Winston Churchill
There'll always be an England... England shall be free, if England means as much to you as England means to me. ~ Vera Lynn
The greatness of England is now all collective: individually small, we only appear capable of anything great by our habit of combining. ~ John Stuart Mill

Quotes

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England, with all thy faults, I love thee still. ~ William Cowper
 
Lords and Commons of England, consider what Nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors: a Nation not slow and dull, but of quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, suttle and sinewy to discours, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that humane capacity can soar to. ~ John Milton
 
England means great courage, great standards and great wit. I could move to England... ~ Sigourney Weaver
 
England, dear England, true Queen of the West. With thy fair swelling bosom and ever-green vest. How nobly thou sittst in thine own steady light, on the left of thee Freedom, and Truth on the right. ~ Leigh Hunt
 
An American writer referred to England as a soggy, miserable little island. And he wasn't wrong. ~ Tim Baker
 
I will not cease from mental fight, not shall my sword sleep in my hand. Till we have built Jerusalem, in England's green and pleasant land. ~ William Blake
 
An Englishman's home is his castle. ~ 17th century proverb
 
England expects every man to do his duty. ~ Horatio Nelson
 
England is a paradise for women, and hell for horses: Italy is a paradise for horses, hell for women. ~ Robert Burton
 
I hope for nothing in this world so ardently as once again to see that paradise called England. I long to embrace again all my old friends there. ~ Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany
 
Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example. ~ William Pitt
 
Oh! What an error! What an awful moment for Rob Green and for England! ~ Clive Tyldesley
 
England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. ~ George Orwell
 
You will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles. ~ George Bernard Shaw
 
God and nature have joined England and Ireland together. It is impossible to separate them. ~ Earl of Clonwell

6th–10th century

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  • Non Angli sed Angeli.
    • Not Angles but Angels.
    • Pope Gregory I (d. 604), commenting on the beauty of English captives exposed for sale in Rome.
  • And so Britain is now called England, taking the name of the victors.
    • Æthelweard, The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. Alan Campbell (1962), p. 9

11th century

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  • On the other side, the English troops, assembled from all parts of the neighbourhood, took post at a place which was anciently called Senlac, many of them personally devoted to the cause of Harold, and all to that of their country, which they were resolved to defend against the foreigners... The English, on their side, made a stout resistance, each man straining his powers to the utmost... At length the indomitable bravery of the English threw the Bretons...into confusion... Towards the evening, the English finding that their king and the chief nobles of the realm, with a great part of their army, had fallen...they had recourse to flight as expeditiously as they could... There the flower of the youth and nobility of England covered the ground far and near stained with blood.

12th century

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  • That fatal day for England, the sad destruction of our dear country [dulcis patrie].
  • Thy own red-cross, proud England, leads me on,
    To fields where glory, freedom, shall be won;
    Fit emblem ours to consecrate the fight...
    Land of my sires! thy blest deliverer be,
    And, Christ me aiding, give thee liberty,
    Or lifeless on thy blood-stained soil to lie,
    For thee to conquer, or for thee to die.
    • Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, quoted in The Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon, ed. Thomas Forester (1853), p. 290
  • This, the most celebrated of islands, formerly called Albion, later Britain, and now England.
    • Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, quoted in Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon: Historia Anglorum (The History of the English People), ed. Diana Greenway (1996), p. 13
  • Dieu et mon droit.

14th century

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  • Our progenitors, the kings of England, have before these times been lords of the English sea on every side...and it would very much grieve us if in this kind of defence our royal honour should be lost.
    • Edward III, letter to his admirals (18 August 1336), quoted in Ian Mortimer, The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation (2008), p. 130
  • [T]he Gospels of Christ, written in English, to most learning of our nation.
    • John Wycliffe, 'A Treatise of John Wycliffe Against Orders of Friars' (c. 1380), in Tracts and Treatises of John de Wycliffe: With Selections and Translations from His Manuscripts and Latin Works (1845), p. 247
  • Of England the nation
    Is Englishman there in common.
    The speech that man with most may speed
    Most therewith to speak was need.
    Seldom was for any chance
    Praised English tongue in France.
    • Cursor Mundi (c. 1300), lines 241–6, quoted in M. T. Clanchy, England Its Rulers, 1066–1307 (2014), p. 328

15th century

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  • Ils s'amusaient tristement selon la coutume de leur pays.
    • They [the English] amuse themselves sadly as is the custom of their country.
    • Attributed to Froissart. Not found in his works. Same in Duc de Sully's Memoirs (1630). ("l'usage" instead of "coutume.") See Emerson—English Traits, Chapter VIII. Hazlitt—Sketches and Essays. Merry England. ("se rejouissoient" instead of "s'amusaient."), quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25
  • Anglica gens est optima flens et pessima ridens.
    • The English race is the best at weeping and the worst at laughing. (The English take their pleasures sadly).
    • Thomas Hearne, Reliquiæ Hearnianæ (Ed. 1857), Volume I, p. 136. (Source referred to Chamberlayne, Anglicæ Notitia (1669). From old Latin saying quoted in Kornmannus, De Linea Amoris, Chapter II, p. 47. (Ed. 1610). Binder, Novus Thesaurus Adagiorum Latinorum. No. 2983. Neander's Ethic Vetus et Sapiens (1590). (With "sed" not "et," "Rustica" not "Anglica."), quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25
  • The trewe processe of Englysh polycye
    Of utterwarde to kepe thys regne in rest
    Of oure England, that no man may denye
    Ner say of soth but it is one the best,
    Is thys, as who seith, south, north, est and west
    Cheryshe marchandyse, kepe thamyralte,
    That we bee maysteres of the narowe see.

16th century

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  • I have left there a true Englishman's hand.
    • William Page's remark after his hand had been cut off as a punishment for publishing John Stubbs's Gaping Gulf (3 November 1579), quoted in John Stubbs's Gaping Gulf: With Letters and Other Relevant Documents, ed. Lloyd Eason Berry (1968), p. xxxvi and John Harington, Nugæ Antiquæ, Vol. III (1792), p. 183
  • An Englishman hath three qualities, he can suffer no partner in his love, no stranger to be his friend, nor to be dared by any.
    • John Lyly, Euphues and his England (16th century).
  • Beef is a good meate for an Englysshe man... it doth make an Englysshe man stronge.
    • Andrew Boorde, Compendyous Regyment or Dyetary of Health (1542), quoted in Glyn Hughes, The Lost Foods of England (2017), p. 11
  • To harpe no longer upon this string, & to speake a word of that just commendation which our nation doe indeed deserve: it can not be denied, but as in all former ages, they have bene men full of activity, stirrers abroad, and searchers of the remote parts of the world, so in this most famous and peerless government of her most excellent Majesty, her subjects through the speciall assistance, and blessing of God, in searching the most opposite corners and quarters of the world, and to speake plainly, in compassing the vaste globe of the earth more then once, have excelled all the nations and people of the earth.
    • Richard Hakluyt, 'The Epistle Dedicatorie', The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, Vol. I [1589] (1885), p. 6
  • England our native countrey one of the most renowned monarchies in the world.
    • Walter Mildmay, speech in the House of Commons (22 February 1587), quoted in Proceedings in the Parliaments of Elizabeth I, Vol. 2 1585-1589 (1981), p. 272
  • I am already bound unto an husband, which is the kingdom of England... for every one of you, and as many as are English, are my children and kinsfolks.
    • Elizabeth I, speech to Parliament (10 February 1559), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), p. 59
  • England hath been accounted hitherto the most renowned kingdom for valour and manhood in all Christendom; and shall we now lose our old reputation? If we should, it had been better for England we had never been born.
    • Christopher Hatton, speech to the opening of Parliament (4 February 1589), quoted in J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, 1584–1601 (1957), p. 201
  • God is English.
    • John Aylmer, An Harborowe for Faithful and True Subjects (1559), quoted in G. R. Elton, 'English National Self-consciousness and the Parliament in the Sixteenth Century', Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government, Volume 4: Papers and Reviews 1982–1990 (1992), p. 134
  • You are, and have beene feared over all,
    England's an Isle, of stoute and hardie men:
    Be stronge in faith, your foes downe right shall fall,
    For one of you, in armes shall vanquish ten.
    • John Phillips, A Commemoration of the Life and Death of Sir Christopher Hatton, knight, Lord Chancellor of England (1591), p. 6
  • Sir, there was never, since England was England, such a stratagem and mask made to deceive England withal as this of the treaty of peace.
  • [L]et those malignant spirites confesse the renowned value of our nation in the olde time, and grant...that we are the sonnes of those our Fathers, whose strength and courage in martiall acitivite neither Scots, French, nor Spanyards, were able to resist... [T]he olde English valiancy is not so extinguished in the English nation through long securitie, and corrupt idleness, but it is soone stirred up to a double force, when it hath acquainted it selfe with the exercise in the field.
  • I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.
  • For even our enemies hold our nation resolute and valiant, which though they will not outwardly show, they invariably know.
    • Elizabeth I, speech to Parliament (10 April 1593), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), p. 332
  • Our fathers have vanquished forreine Princes: and shall not wee fight for our owne Prince? Our fathers have conquered other Realmes: and shall not wee defend our owne Realme? Our fathers have been Lords of other Countries: and shall we be slaves in our owne Countrie? What an alteration (or rather degeneration) would this bee in us? how dishonourable to the English name and Nation? ... [L]et us link togither in one mind, in one faith, in one force, let us sticke togither, fight togither, die togither, like men, like Englishmen, like true-harted Englishmen. ... Wherein if we joyne all, our hartes, armes, and forces togither, like true and faithful subjects, I am fully perswaded our, forrein invadors, whensoever they come, shall find England the hotest country that ever they set foote in: We are likely inough to measure their Spanish Cassocks with our English bowes.
    • G.D., A briefe discoverie of Doctor Allens seditious drifts (1588), pp. 124, 126-127
  • This England never did, nor never shall,
    Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
    But when it first did help to wound itself.
    Now these her princes are come home again,
    Come the three corners of the world in arms,
    And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
    If England to itself do rest but true.
  • O Noble England, fall down upon thy knee,
    And praise thy God with thankfull hart, which still maintaineth thee.
    The forraine forces, that seekes thy utter spoile:
    Shall then through his especiall grace be brought to shamefull foile.
    With mightie power they come unto our coast:
    To over runne our countrie quite, they make their brags and boast.
    In strength of men they set their onely stay,
    But we upon the Lord our God will put our trust alway.
    • Thomas Deloney, ballad during the Spanish Armada (1588), quoted in J. Woodfall Ebswoth (ed.), The Roxburghe Ballads: Illustrating the last Years of the Stuarts, Vol. VI. Part I (1886), p. 384
  • Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the same, unto whom a body politic compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of spirituality and temporalty, be bounden and owe to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience.
  • This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle
    This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
    This other Eden, demi-paradise,
    This fortress built by Nature for herself
    Against infection and the hand of war,
    This happy breed of men, this little world,
    This precious stone set in the silver sea,
    Which serves it in the office of a wall
    Or as a moat defensive to a house,
    Against the envy of less happier lands,—
    This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
  • O England! model to thy inward greatness,
    Like little body with a mighty heart,
    What might'st thou do, that honour would thee do,
    Were all thy children kind and natural!
    But see thy fault!
  • And in my mind I have comprised.
    Of the proud Scot, King Jemmy,
    To write some little tragedy,
    For no manner consideration
    Of any sorrowful lamentation,
    But for the special consolation
    Of all our royal English nation.
    • John Skelton, 'When the Scot was Slain' (c. 1513), The Complete Poems of John Skelton, ed. Philip Henderson (1931), p. 166
  • Lord, open the eyes of the king of England.
  • The most high and absolute power of the realme of Englande, consisteth in the Parliament... [There] is the force and power of Englande.
  • [T]he prince is the life, the head, and the authoritie of all thinges that be downe in the realme of England.
  • Saint George shalt called bee,
    Saint George of mery England, the sign of victoree.
    • Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1589-96), Book I, Canto X, Stanza 61.

17th century

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  • [T]he English Cookes, in comparison with other Nations, are most commended for roasted meates.
    • Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary Containing His Ten Yeeres Travell, Vol. 4 (1617), p. 172
  • BE IT DECLARED and enacted by this present Parliament and by the Authoritie of the same: That the People of England and of all the Dominions and Territoryes thereunto England a Commonwealth. belonging are and shall be and are hereby constituted, made, established, and confirmed to be a Commonwealth and free State And shall from henceforth be Governed as a Commonwealth and Free State by the supreame Authoritie of this Nation, the Representatives of the People in Parliament and by such as they shall appoint and constitute as Officers and Ministers under them for the good of the People and that without any King or House of Lords.
  • Where are the rough brave Britons to be found
    With Hearts of Oak, so much of old renowned?
    • Mrs. Centilivre, Cruel Gift. Epilogue written by Nicholas Rowe. He was … a heart of oak, and a pillar of the land. Wood—Ath. Oxon. (1691), II. 221. Yonkers that have hearts of oake at fourscore yeares. Old Meg of Hertfordshire. (1609). Those pigmy tribes of Panton street, / Those hardy blades, those hearts of oak, / Obedient to a tyrant's yoke. A Monstrous good Lounge. (1777), p. 5, quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 222-25
  • England is a well goodland; in the stead best
    Set in the one end of the world, and reigneth west.
    The sea goeth him all about, he stint as an yle.
  • The Parliament of England...is that whereupon the very essence of all Government within this Kingdom doth depend; it is even the body of the whole Realm; it consisteth of the King, and of all that within the Land are subject unto him.
    • Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie (1594), Book VIII, quoted in The Works of that learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker, in Eight Books of Ecclasiastical Polity (1682), p. 458
  • Be favourable and gracious O Lord to this thy English Sion... O Lord we thy Servants humbly beseeche thee, to bless and prosper not only our Sea causes, but also all our land service, her Majesty's most honourable General, Marshal, Captains, Officers, and English soldiers whatsoever, strengthen them with courage and manliness, that they may suppress the slights of Antichrist, with all the force and power of foreign enemies, and papistical practices, that dare pre­sume to attempt any harm or hurt to her royal Majesty, their honours, her English people, or to this noble Realm of England.
    • Henry Roberts, A prayer for assistance against the Armada (1588), quoted in Bertrand T. Whitehead, Brags and Boasts: Propaganda in the Year of the Armada (1994), pp. 94-95
  • Lords and Commons of England, consider what Nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors: a Nation not slow and dull, but of quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, suttle and sinewy to discours, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that humane capacity can soar to.
  • They are powerful in the field, successful against their enemies, impatient of anything like slavery; vastly fond of great noises that fill the ear, such as the firing of cannon, drums, and the ringing of bells.
    • Paul Hentzner, quoted in 'Extracts from Paul Hentzner's Travels in England. 1598', William Brenchley Rye, England As Seen By Foreigners in the Days of Elizabeth and James the First (1865), p. 111
  • England, which is like a huge Fortress or Garrisoned Town, fenced not only with strong Works, her Port-Towns, with a wide and deep Ditch the Sea, but guarded also with excellent Out-Works, the strongest and best-built Ships of War in the World; then so furnisht within with Men and Horse, with Victuals and Ammunition, with Clothes and Money, that if all the Potentates of Europe should conspire (which God forbid) they could hardly distress it.
  • I know an Englishman. Being flattered, is a lamb; threatened, a lion.
  • I hope to render the English name as great and formidable as ever the Roman was.
  • Blessed mother, handmaiden of old
    To Arthur, Edward, Henry, by whose deeds
    Of valour could their strength of faith be told.
    • Luis de Góngora, On the Armada that sailed for England 1588, quoted in Bertrand T. Whitehead, Brags and Boasts: Propaganda in the Year of the Armada (1994), p. 55
  • An Englishman's home is his castle.
  • England is a paradise for women, and hell for horses: Italy is a paradise for horses, hell for women.
    • Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III, Section III. Memb. 1. Subsect. 2.

18th century

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  • With lantern jaws, and cooking guy,
    See how the half-starved Frenchmen strut,
    And call us English dogs!
    But soon we'll teach these bragging foes,
    That beef and beer give heavier blows,
    Than soup and roasted frogs.
    • David Garrick, poem printed in Hogarth's The Invasion, Plate 1, 'France' (1756), quoted in The Works of William Hogarth, Containing One Hundred and Fifty-nine Engravings, Vol. I (1821), p. 128
  • The courage of bull-dogs and game-cocks seems peculiar to England.
    • David Hume, 'Essay XXI: Of National Characters', quoted in David Hume, Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary (1741–1777), ed. Eugene Miller (1985), p. 202
  • Let Pitt then boast of his victory to his nation of shopkeepers—(Nation Boutiquiere).
  • I have studied History and seen most of the Republics of Europe, and I do not hesitate to affirm that there is, or has been, no Government upon Earth where the property, and especially the person, of the Subject, is by far so secure as it is [in England].
    • Jean-Louis de Lolme, A Parallel Between the English Constitution and the Former Government of Sweden (1772), p. 26
  • Freedom has been haunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England has given her warning to depart.
  • The enemies of the people of England who would have them considered in the worst light represent them as selfish, beef-eaters, and cruel. In this view I resolved today to be a true-born Old Englishman. I went into the City to Dolly's Steak-house in Paternoster Row and swallowed my dinner by myself to fulfill the charge of selfishness; I had a large fat beef-steak to fulfil the charge of beef-eating; and I went at five o'clock to the Royal Cockpit in St. James's Park and saw cock-fighting for about five hours to fulfill the charge of cruelty.
    • James Boswell, journal entry (15 December 1762), quoted in Boswell's London Journal, 1762–1763, ed. Frederick A. Pottle (1950), p. 86
  • [I]n France the people sing to amuse themselves, and here they pass their time in boxing.
  • The men of England—the men, I mean of light and leading in England.
  • I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me; but Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.
    • William Pitt the Younger, speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet at Guildhall, November 9, 1805. This was Pitt's last public utterance.
  • The Englishmen understand almost better than any other people the art of properly roasting a joint... which also is not to be wondered at; because the art of cooking as practised by most Englishmen does not extend much beyond roast beef and plum pudding.
    • Pehr Kalm, Kalm's Account of His Visit to England on His Way to America in 1748, translated by Joseph Lucas (1892), p. 15
  • The habeas corpus is the single advantage which our government has over that of other countries.
    • Samuel Johnson's remarks to James Boswell (September 1769), quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, Vol. II (1799), p. 70
  • God and nature have joined England and Ireland together. It is impossible to separate them.
    • Earl of Clonwell, L.C.J. (Ir.), Case of Glennan and others (1796), 26 How. St. Tr. 460
  • All that I can boast of in my birth, is, that I was born in Old England.
  • Being sheltered, as it were, within a Citadel, she there reigns over a Nation which is the better entitled to her favours as it endeavours to extend her Empire, and carries with it, to every part of its dominions, the blessings of industry and equality. Fenced in on every side, to use the expressions of Chamberlayne, with a wide and deep ditch, the sea, guarded with strong outworks, its ships of war, and defended by the courage of her Seamen, she preserves that important secret, that sacred fire, so difficult to be kindled, and which, if it were once extinguished, would perhaps never be lighted again. When the World shall have again been laid waste by Conquerors, she will still continue to shew Mankind, not only the principle that ought to unite them, but what is of no less importance, the form under which they ought to be united. And the Philosopher, when he considers the constant fate of civil Societies amongst Men, and observes the numerous and powerful causes which seem as it were unavoidably to conduct them all to a state of incurable political Slavery, takes comfort in seeing that Liberty has at length disclosed her secret to Mankind, and secured an Asylum to herself.
    • Jean-Louis de Lolme, The Constitution of England; Or, an Account of the English Government [1771], ed. David Lieberman (2007), pp. 341-342
  • I shall begin with a very earnest and serious Exhortation to all my well disposed Readers, that they would return to the Food of their Forefathers, and reconcile themselves to Beef and Mutton. This was the Diet which bred that hearty Race of Mortals who won the Fields of Cressy and Agincourt.
    • Joseph Addison, The Tatler, No. 148 (21 March 1709), quoted in The Tatler, Volume II, ed. Donald Frederic Bond (1987), p. 335
  • The liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman.
    • Junius, Dedication to the English Nation (added the collection of letters published in 1772)
  • England is the only country in Europe that can boast of having improved its agriculture and the cultivation of its soil beyond that of any other European nation. The condition of English agriculture, compared with that of our own, is like light contrasted with shade.
  • England, with all thy faults, I love thee still—
    My Country! and, while yet a nook is left
    Where English minds and manners may be found,
    Shall be constrained to love thee.
  • I look upon it as a peculiar blessing that I was born an Englishman.
    • Joseph Addison, The Spectator, No. 135 (4 August 1711), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Volume III (1811), p. 318
  • We I hope shall be left free to avail ourselves of the advantages of neutrality: and yet much I fear the English, or rather their stupid king, will force us out of it. (...) Common sense dictates therefore that they should let us remain neuter: ergo they will not let us remain neuter. I never yet found any other general rule for foretelling what they will do, but that of examining what they ought not to do.
  • I hope for nothing in this world so ardently as once again to see that paradise called England. I long to embrace again all my old friends there.
  • The Scot, Pict, Britain, Roman, Dane, submit,
    And with the English-Saxon all Unite:
    And these the mixture have so close pursu'd,
    The very Name and Memory's subdu'd:
    No Roman now, no Britain does remain;
    Wales strove to separate, but strove in Vain:
    The silent Nations undistinguish'd fall,
    And Englishman’s the common Name for all.
    Fate jumbled them together, God knows how;
    What e'er they were they're True-Born English now...
    A True-Born Englishman’s a Contradiction,
    In Speech an Irony, in Fact a Fiction.
  • I have the principles of an Englishman, and I utter them without apprehension or reserve...this is not the language of faction; let it be tried by that criterion, by which alone we can distinguish what is factious, from what is not—by the principles of the English constitution. I have been bred up in these principles, and I know that when the liberty of the subject is invaded, and all redress denied him, resistance is justifiable... The constitution has its political Bible, by which if it be fairly consulted, every political question may, and ought to be determined. Magna Charta, the Petition of Rights and the Bill of Rights, form that code which I call the Bible of the English constitution. Had some of His Majesty's unhappy predecessors trusted less to the commentary of their Ministers, and been better read in the text itself, the Glorious Revolution might have remained only possible in theory, and their fate would not now have stood upon record, a formidable example to all their successors.
    • Lord Chatham, speech in the House of Lords (22 January 1770), quoted in The Speeches of the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham in the Houses of Lords and Commons: With a Biographical Memoir and Introductions and Explanatory Notes to the Speeches (1848), p. 98
  • An Englishman is the unfittest person on Earth to argue another Englishman into slavery.
  • The Pleasures of the Table in this happy Nation, may be put in the same Rank with the ordinary, every one is accustom'd to good eating. It consist chiefly in a variety of Puddings, Golden-Pippins, which is an excellent kind of Apples, delicious green Oysters, and Roast-Beef, which is the favourite Dish as well at the King's Table as at a Tradesman's; 'tis common to see one of these Pieces weigh from twenty to thirty Pound, and from thirty to forty: And this may be said to be (as it were) the Emblem of the Prosperity and Plenty of the English.
    • Béat Louis de Muralt, Letters Describing the Character and Customs of the English and French Nations (1726), pp. 39-40
  • Their Dogs are, I believe, the boldest in the World... They neither bark nor bite; they fight to Death without any Noise. One may see some of these Creatures dragging along a broken Leg, and returning to the Charge. I am assur'd that one of them, in King Charles II's time, kill'd a Lion, and that it has been proved by Experience, that such as are of a true breed will suffer their Legs to be cut off, one after another, without letting go their hold. If I durst, I would readily say, that there's a strong Resemblance in many things between the English and their Dogs. Both are silent, head-strong, lazy, unfit for Fatigue, no way quarrelsome, intrepid, eager in fight, insensible of blows, and incapable of parting.
    • Béat Louis de Muralt, Letters Describing the Character and Customs of the English and French Nations (1726), p. 41
  • To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a nation of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers, but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.
    • Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776), Volume II, Book IV, Chapter VII, Part III.
  • When Britain first at Heaven's command,
    Arose from out the azure main,
    This was the charter of the land,
    And guardian angels sung this strain;
    "Rule Britannia! rule the waves;
    Britons never will be slaves."
    • James Thomson, "Rule, Britannia", in Alfred, a Masque (1740). Written by Thompson and Mallet. Mallet rearranged the Masque for the stage, and introduced Thompson's Song. See Dr. Dinsdale's edition of Mallet. (1851), p. 292
  • A shopkeeper will never get the more custom by beating his customers, and what is true of a shopkeeper is true of a shopkeeping nation.
    • Josiah Tucker, Four Tracts on Political and Commercial Subjects (1774). (The words are said to have been used by Dr. Tucker, in a sermon, some years before they appeared in print).
  • The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.
    • Horace Walpole, English art historian, writer, antiquarian and politician in a letter to Sir Horace Mann (24 November 1774)
  • Oh, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim,
    Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame?
    In living medals see her wars enroll'd,
    And vanquished realms supply recording gold?

19th century

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  • I will not cease from mental fight, not shall my sword sleep in my hand. Till we have built Jerusalem, in England's green and pleasant land.
  • England expects every man to do his duty.
  • Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone,
    But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.
    • Rudyard Kipling, "The English Flag", in the National Observer (4 April 1891)
  • Winds of the World give answer! They are whimpering to and fro—
    And what should they know of England who only England know?—
    • Rudyard Kipling, "The English Flag", in the National Observer (4 April 1891)
  • The characteristic danger of great nations, like the Romans or the English which have a long history of continuous creation, is that they may at last fail from not comprehending the great institutions which they have created...
  • England! my country, great and free!
    Heart of the world, I leap to thee!
  • Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be.
  • The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, and the final expulsion of England from the American continent.
  • There is now scarcely any outlet for energy in this country except business. The energy expended in that may still be regarded as considerable. What little is left from that employment, is expended on some hobby; which may be a useful, even a philanthropic hobby, but is … generally a thing of small dimensions. The greatness of England is now all collective: individually small, we only appear capable of anything great by our habit of combining; and with this our moral and religious philanthropists are perfectly contented. But it was men of another stamp than this that made England what it has been; and men of another stamp will be needed to prevent its decline.
  • I hold that the real policy of England—apart from questions which involve her own particular interests—is to be the champion of justice and right; pursuing that course with moderation and prudence, not becoming the Quixote of the world, but giving the weight of her moral sanction and support wherever she thinks that justice is, and wherever she thinks that wrong has been done.
    • Lord Palmerston, remarks in the House of Commons defending his foreign policy (March 1, 1848); in Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 3d series, vol. 97, col. 122.
  • The common law of England is the common law of Ireland, where the latter is not altered by statute.
    • Perrin, J., Queen v. O'Connell (1843), 5 St. Tr. (N. S.) 63
  • Hail England, dear England, true Queen of the West. With thy fair swelling bosom and ever-green vest. How nobly thou sittst in thine own steady light, on the left of thee Freedom, and Truth on the right. While the clouds at thy smile, break apart and turn bright! The Muses, full voiced, half encircle the seat, and Ocean comes kissing thy princely white feet. All hail! All hail! All hail to the beauty immortal and free. The only true goddess that rose from the sea.
    • Leigh Hunt, National Song in the Examiner, 1815.
  • Good ale, the true and proper drink of Englishmen. He is not deserving of the name of Englishman who speaketh against ale, that is good ale.
  • The New World's sons from England's breast we drew
    Such milk as bids remember whence we came,
    Proud of her past wherefrom our future grew,
    This window we inscribe with Raleigh's fame.
  • What, for instance, induced me, when so far distant from my country, voluntarily to devote myself to her cause? Her commerce? I neither knew nor cared any thing about it. Her funds? I was so happy as hardly to understand the meaning of the word. Her lands? I could, alas! lay claim to nothing but the graves of my parents.—What, then, was the stimulus? What was I proud of? It was the name and fame of England. Her laws, her liberties, her justice, her might; all the qualities and circumstances that had given her renown in the world, but above all her deeds in arms, her military glory.
  • Wool and flesh are the primitive foundations of England and the English race; ere becoming the world's manufactory of hardware and tissues, England was a victualling-shop; before they became a commercial, they were a breeding and a pastoral people,—a race fatted on beef and mutton; hence their freshness of tint, their beauty and strength: their greatest man, Shakspeare, was originally a butcher.
    • Jules Michelet, quoted in Louis Raymond Véricour, Modern French Literature (1842), pp. 82-83
  • Whether splendidly isolated or dangerously isolated, I will not now debate; but for my part, I think splendidly isolated, because this isolation of England comes from her superiority.
  • Charge of inferiority is an old dodge. It has been made available for oppression on many occasions...When England wants to set the heel of her power more firmly in the quivering heart of old Ireland, the Celts are an “inferior race.”
  • The pleasantness of the English... comes in great measure from the fact of their each having been dipped into the crucible, which gives them a sort of coating of comely varnish and colour. They have been smoothed and polished by mutual social attrition. You see Englishmen here in Italy to particularly good advantage. In the midst of these false and beautiful Italians they glow with the light of the great fact, that after all they love a bathtub and hate a lie.
  • The meteor flag of England
    Shall yet terrific burn,
    Till danger's troubled night depart,
    And the star of peace return.
  • Our laws, language, religion, politics, & manners are so deeply laid in English foundations, that we shall never cease to consider their history as a part of ours, and to study ours in that as it’s origin.
  • Oh, to be in England,
    Now that April's there,
    And whoever wakes in England
    Sees some morning, unaware,
    That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf,
    Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf
    While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
    In England—now.
  • ENGLAND is my country: I must share in all her glory and in all her disgrace; and when it is a question of her honour and well-being, I must cast aside all private recollections and feelings. ... I always said...I never would rest until I saw the Americans acknowledge, explicitly our right to dominion on the seas. I wish them all the happiness that men can enjoy in this world; but a nation may be very happy without being permitted to swagger about and be saucy to England.
  • I am neither Whig nor Tory. My politics are described by one word, and that word is ENGLAND.
    • Benjamin Disraeli, England and France; Or, A Cure for the Ministerial Gallomania (1832), p. 13
  • Go into the length and breadth of the world, ransack the literature of all countries, find, if you can, a single voice, a single book—find, I would almost say, as much as a single newspaper article, unless the product of the day, in which the conduct of England towards Ireland is anywhere treated except with profound and bitter condemnation.
    • William E. Gladstone, speech on home rule (June 7, 1886); in A. W. Hutton and H. J. Cohen, eds., The Speeches of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone (1902), vol. 9, p. 127.
  • Look at England, whose mighty power is now felt, and for centuries has been felt, all around the world. It is worthy of special remark, that precisely those parts of that proud island which have received the largest and most diversified populations, are to day the parts most distinguished for industry, enterprise, invention and general enlightenment. In Wales, and in the Highlands of Scotland the boast is made of their pure blood, and that they were never conquered, but no man can contemplate them without wishing they had been conquered. They are far in the rear of every other part of the English realm in all the comforts and conveniences of life, as well as in mental and physical development. Neither law nor learning descends to us from the mountains of Wales or from the Highlands of Scotland. The ancient Briton, whom Julius Caesar would not have as a slave, is not to be compared with the round, burly, amplitudinous Englishman in many of his qualities of desirable manhood.
  • Those proud Islanders whom many unduly honour, know no watchword but gain and enjoyment. Their zeal for knowledge is only a sham fight, their worldly wisdom a false jewel, skilfully and deceptively composed, and their sacred freedom itself too often and too easily serves self-interest. They are never in earnest with anything that goes beyond palpable utility. All knowledge they have robbed of life and use only as dead wood to make masts and helms for their life's voyage in pursuit of gain.
    • Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, J. Oman, trans. (1898), pp. 9-10
  • A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth--science--which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth.
  • First drink a health, this solemn night,
    A health to England, every guest;
    That man's the best cosmopolite,
    Who loves his native country best.
    May Freedom's oak forever live
    With stronger life from day to day;
    That man's the true Conservative
    Who lops the moulder'd branch away.
      Hands all round!
    God the tyrant's hope confound!
    To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends,
    And the great name of England round and round.
    • Alfred Tennyson, "Hands all around", in Memoirs of Tennyson by his Son, vol. 1, p. 345
  • There is no land like England,
    Where'er the light of day be;
    There are no hearts like English hearts,
    Such hearts of oak as they be;
    There is no land like England,
    Where'er the light of day be:
    There are no men like Englishmen,
    So tall and bold as they be!
    And these will strike for England,
    And man and maid be free
    To foil and spoil the tyrant
    Beneath the greenwood tree.
  • The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and to common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants, and the fatuity of idiots.
    • Sydney Smith, Two Letters on the Subject of the Catholics (1807), Letter 2, p. 23
  • Oh, Britannia the pride of the ocean
    The home of the brave and the free,
    The shrine of the sailor's devotion,
    No land can compare unto thee.
    • Davis Taylor Shaw, Britannia. Probably written some time before the Crimean War, when it became popular. Changed to "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean" when sung by Shaw in America. Claimed that Thomas à Becket wrote words for Shaw. See Notes and Queries. (Aug. 20, 1899). Pp. 164, 231
  • There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find an Englishman doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles.
    • George Bernard Shaw, Man of Destiny (1897), one act play, in his Complete Plays with Prefaces, vol. 1, p. 743 (1962)
  • He is an Englishman!
    For he himself has said it,
    And it's greatly to his credit,
    That he's an Englishman!

20th century

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  • Shall our people, our nation, bear
    You to go hence with our gold?
    You that have come so far
    Unfought with, into our country, carrying war!
    Think you to get tribute softly and fair?
    • The Battle of Maldon (c. 1000), quoted in James Reeves, The Poets' World: An Anthology of English Poetry (1948), p. 34
  • The south-west wind roaring in from the Atlantic.... is, I think the presiding genius of England.
  • The search for wisdom in precedent flourished as if naturally among a people whom foreign observers at a later date have praised especially for its reliance upon tradition rather than upon those wide general theories which claim universal validity.
    • David C. Douglas, 'The Development of English Medieval Scholarship between 1660 and 1730', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 21 (1939), p. 32
  • 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.
  • If I should die, think only this of me:
    That there's some corner of a foreign field
    That is forever England. There shall be
    In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
    A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
    Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
    A body of England's, breathing English air,
    Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
  • We do not intend to part from the Americans and we do not intend to be satellites. I am sure they do not want us to be so. The stronger we are, the better partners we shall be; and I feel certain that as the months pass we shall draw continually closer together with mutual confidence and respect.
    • Harold Macmillan, broadcast to the nation, London (January 17, 1957); in Vital Speeches of the Day (February 1, 1957), p. 247. This was his first broadcast as prime minister.
  • [Britons] would rather take the risk of civilizing communism than being kicked around by the unlettered pot-bellied money magnates of the United States.
    • Tom O'Brien, M.P., as quoted by The New York Times (August 23, 1949), p. 4.
  • Living in England, provincial England, must be like being married to a stupid, but exquisitely beautiful wife.
  • England in effect is insular, she is maritime, she is linked through her exchanges, her markets, her supply lines to the most diverse and often the most distant countries; she pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities, and only slight agricultural ones. She has in all her doings very marked and very original habits and traditions. In short, the nature, the structure, the very situation that are England's differ profoundly from those of the continentals.
    • Charles de Gaulle, press conference in Paris explaining his rejection of Britain's application to join the European Economic Community (14 January 1963), quoted in The Times (15 January 1963), p. 6
  • He spoke of the English, a noble race, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster, silent as deathless gods.
  • The real tragedy of England as I see it, is the tragedy of ugliness. The country is so lovely: the man-made England is so vile.
  • Whenever I think of Hell I cannot visualise it as a place of eternal fire, but as one of your English industrial towns on a day when the rain is pattering on the slate roofs and the wind is moaning up the street; a place where the horizon is bounded by dark factory chimneys, with crowds of women muffled up in waterproofs slipping in the puddles in their galoshes, with red noses peering out of heavy mufflers.
    • Colonel Bertolini, The Waveless Plain, 1938
  • We shall treat England like a beautiful flower, but we shan't water the pot.
  • To me, England is the country, and the country is England. And when I ask myself what I mean by England, when I think of England when I am abroad, England comes to me through my various senses... The sounds of England, the tinkle of the hammer on the anvil in the country smithy, the corncrake on a dewy morning, the sound of the scythe against the whetstone, and the sight of a plough team coming over the brow of a hill, the sight that has been in England since England was a land, and may be seen in England long after the Empire has perished and every works in England has ceased to function, for centuries the one eternal sight of England.
  • England's innermost truth and at the same time her most valuable contribution to the assets of the human family is the "gentleman", rescued from the dusty chivalry of the early Middle Ages and now penetrating into the remotest corner of modern English life. It is an ultimate principle hat never fails to carry conviction, the shining armour of the perfect knight in soul and body, and the miserable coffin of poor natural feelings.
    • C. G. Jung, The Complications of American Psychology, 1930
  • O England, little mother, by the sleepless Northern tide,
    Having bred so many nations to devotion, trust, and pride,
    Very tenderly we turn
    With welling hearts that yearn
    Still to love you and defend you, - let the sons of men discern
    Wherein your right and title, might and majesty, reside.
    • Bliss Carman, Ode on the Coronation of King Edward (1902); partly mentioned in Our Empire Story (1903) by H. E. Marshall
  • One of the paradoxes of history has been the way in which the name of England has come to be so closely associated with liberty on the one hand and tradition on the other hand.
  • The historical development of England is based upon the fact that her frontiers against Europe are drawn by Nature, and cannot be the subject of dispute; that she is a unit sufficiently small for coherent government to have been established and maintained even under very primitive conditions; that since 1066 she has never suffered serious invasion; that no big modern armies have succeeded her feudal levies; and that her senior service is the navy, with which foreign trade is closely connected. In short, a great deal of what is peculiar in English history is due to the obvious fact that Great Britain is an island.
    • Lewis Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolution (1930), pp. 6-7
  • England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare’s much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control - that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.
  • In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought. England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always anti-British. It is questionable how much effect this had, but it certainly had some. If the English people suffered for several years a real weakening of morale, so that the Fascist nations judged that they were ‘decadent’ and that it was safe to plunge into war, the intellectual sabotage from the Left was partly responsible. Both the New Statesman and the News Chronicle cried out against the Munich settlement, but even they had done something to make it possible. Ten years of systematic Blimp-baiting affected even the Blimps themselves and made it harder than it had been before to get intelligent young men to enter the armed forces. Given the stagnation of the Empire, the military middle class must have decayed in any case, but the spread of a shallow Leftism hastened the process.
  • To be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is.
  • Englishmen are patriots with their whole body. Not only in their heart, their stomach also seems here to feel for the native land. And I have often seen Englishmen round their dinner-table, busy with their roast beef in as quiet and proud a felicity as if they felt the whole worth of their favoured island on their tongues.
  • Set in this stormy Northern sea,
    Queen of these restless fields of tide,
    England! what shall men say of thee,
    Before whose feet the worlds divide?
  • The strangest country I ever visited was England; but I visited it at a very early age, and so became a little queer myself. England is extremely subtle; and about the best of it there is something almost secretive; it is an amateur even more than aristocratic in tradition; it is never official.
  • I am a great admirer of the Scots. I am quite friendly with the Welsh. I must confess to some sentiment about Old Ireland. But there is a forgotten, nay, almost a forbidden word, which means more to me than any other. That word is 'England'.
    • Winston Churchill, quoted in Winston Churchill and Jack Fishman, If I Lived My Life Again (1974), p. 11
  • She discovered the seasons. No other country has such seasons or complexions in a year. And every place is beautiful in its way, from Cornwall to Cumberland. The people are as peculiar as the place, not the Normans, but the silent, staring English. Slaves in their own country. What do they make of it? Perhaps, I'm cooler than the others. There was no heat at my conception. But I love this cool, green country. So old, so deceptively deep.
  • You often hear that the English climate has had a profound effect upon the English temperament. I don't believe it. I believe they were always like that.
    • Will Cuppy in W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman, Garden Rubbish and Other Country Bumps (1937)


  • I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.
    • Winston Churchill, speech, Lord Mayor's luncheon, London (November 10, 1942); in Robert Rhodes James, , ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963 (1974), vol. 6, p. 6695.
  • Bind her, grind her, burn her with fire,
    Cast her ashes into the sea,—
    She shall escape, she shall aspire,
    She shall arise to make men free;
    She shall arise in a sacred scorn,
    Lighting the lives that are yet unborn,
    Spirit supernal, splendour eternal,
    England!
  • The late M. Venizelos observed that in all her wars England—he should have said Britain, of course—always wins one battle—the last.
    • Winston Churchill, speech, Lord Mayor's luncheon, London (November 10, 1942); in Robert Rhodes James, , ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963 (1974), vol. 6, p. 6693. Eleuthérios Venizélos was a Greek statesman who championed the cause of the Allies in World War I
  • There'll always be an England, while there's a country lane. Wherever there's a cottage small, beside a field of grain... There'll always be an England... England shall be free if England means as much to you as England means to me.
  • I think England is the very place for a fluent and fiery writer. The highest hymns of the sun are written in the dark. I like the grey country. A bucket of Greek sun would drown in one colour the crowds of colour I like trying to mix for myself out of grey flat insular mud.
  • Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
  • Politics in this country seem to interest everyone. I suppose this taste is cultivated by the liberty which the government affords, and in which Englishmen take great pride, for they value this gift more than all the joys of life, and would sacrifice everything to retain it. Even the populace will make proof of this, and will give you to understand that there is no country in the world where such perfect freedom may be enjoyed as in England.
    • César-François de Saussure, A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I. & George II. The Letters of Monsieur César de Saussure to His Family (1902), p. 179
  • It may be said with entire justice that Englishmen are very brave; they give a convincing proof of this in seeming to fear neither death nor danger. Their soldiers fight with the greatest valour.
    • César-François de Saussure, A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I. & George II. The Letters of Monsieur César de Saussure to His Family (1902), p. 179
  • England undoubtedly is, in my opinion, the most happily governed country in the world.
    • César-François de Saussure, A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I. & George II. The Letters of Monsieur César de Saussure to His Family (1902), p. 336
  • England, a country where people cry in their hearts and not with their eyes

21st century

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  • To me England means great courage, great standards and great wit. I could move to England in a second.
    • Sigourney Weaver (b. 1949), American actress. 'The World According To Sigourney Weaver', an interview in Live magazine, The Mail on Sunday (UK) newspaper, 24 October 2010
  • People in Scotland don't enjoy having decisions made for them in England any more than the English like having decisions made for them in Belgium. Nationalism in Britain cut both ways.

See also

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  •   The dictionary definition of england on Wiktionary
  •   Works related to England on Wikisource
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