Atheists From England

"Pray for me! and what noise soever ye hear, come not unto me, for nothing can rescue me."

"Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!"

"When all the world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be hell that are not heaven."

"Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd In one self place; but where we are is hell, And where hell is, there must we ever be."

"Che serà, serà: What will be, shall be."

"And let these tears, distilling from mine eyes, Be proof of my grief and innocency."

"My swelling heart for very anger breaks."

"What should a priest do with so fair a house? A prison may best beseem his holiness."

"My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns, Shall with their goat feet dance the antic hay."

"So, march away; and let due praise be given Neither to fate nor fortune, but to Heaven."

"Love me little, love me long."

"Thou hast committed— Fornication: but that was in another country; And besides, the wench is dead."

"Now will I show myself to have more of the serpent than the dove; that is, more knave than fool."

"Religion Hides many mischiefs from suspicion."

"Things past recovery Are hardly cured with exclamations."

"Excess of wealth is cause of covetousness."

"And thus methinks should men of judgment frame Their means of traffic from the vulgar trade, And, as their wealth increaseth, so inclose Infinite riches in a little room."

"I count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance."

"Let Earth and Heaven his timeless death deplore, For both their worths shall equal him no more."

"Accurst be he that first invented war."

"Our swords shall play the orators for us."

"Time passeth swift away; Our life is frail, and we may die to-day."

"What strange arts necessity finds out."

"Pluck up your hearts, since fate still rests our friend."

"Come live with me and be my Love, And we will all the pleasures prove That hills and valleys, dales and fields, Or woods or steepy mountain yields.And we will sit upon the rocks, And see the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals.And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies."

"I'll tell you what happened. We lost the Election because people didn't get their dustbins emptied, because commuters were angry about train disruption and because of too much union power. That's all there is to it."

"Jim has never been pro-Europe. He is an English nationalist and a party man. He saw renegotiation as a way of keeping the Labour Party together... He has become, despite himself, a strong advocate that the renegotiation must succeed... Jim played it absolutely straight, and I admire him for that."

"Jim Callaghan was a formidable opponent, one who could best me across the dispatch box. In other circumstances he would have been a successful prime minister. He was a superb party manager. Despite our disagreements, I always respected him because I knew he was moved by deep patriotism."

"Jim is a populist. He is conscious of this, welcomes the description. This means that on many issues he is well to the right of me. But nevertheless he is a man for the moment. He has produced stability, a stable style and stable government. What he believes in is the regeneration of industry. He likes the company of businessmen, feels at home with them, shares most of the same attitudes. He likes them almost as much as he likes the Labour Party. What he cannot abide is the long-haired intellectual and all his works."

"In Britain, Thatcher's predecessor, Labour's James Callaghan, explained to party members in 1976 that they used to believe recessions could be ended through higher spending and more inflation: ‘I tell you now, in all candour, that that option no longer exists,’ and in so far as it ever did exist, it was only by ‘injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step.’ Thatcher’s fight against the unions to close 115 loss-making and environmentally damaging coal mines made her admired and hated, but did you know that the two previous Labour prime ministers, Callaghan and Harold Wilson, closed no less than 257 coal mines in total?"

"To see Callaghan on the move in Cardiff, subtly adapting his approach as he ambles on from proletarian Splott through the mixed residential population of Llanrumney and on to the genteel villadom of Penarth, taking in myriad ethnic minorities in the old dockside communities en route, is to see a master craftsman at work, his technique tempered by a genuine humanity and directness."

"One point seems to me of enormous importance, and it is this. Mr Callaghan is now giving a splendid imitation of the common man's Stanley Baldwin. He is appearing as stability and common sense in person."

"There is nobody in politics I can remember and no case I can think of in history where a man combined such a powerful political personality with so little intelligence."

"The Keeper of the Cloth Cap."

"Jim Callaghan was and always will be a rather gnarled tree with huge, sturdy roots, a magnificent piece of political foliage which, in its prime ministerial flowering (except for those last dreadful months), was rather glorious to behold. We can safely say that we shall not see his like again. For the Labour movement – and the Britain – that made him is no more."

"What I have in common with the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) is that, undeniably, our generation came into Parliament because we were determined to prevent what happened in the 1930s from occurring again and to prevent a breakdown in the social structure and the political institutions that led to the rise of authoritarianism in Europe and finally to the Second World War. That was our determination, and for 25 years, from 1950 to 1975, the people we represented had a better standard of living, bigger and better homes, better education, a better Health Service, better roads and better transport and were able to enjoy holidays such as they had not envisaged before."

"In my opinion, Jim Callaghan was, for most of his time, the best of Britain's post-war prime ministers after Attlee. ... Once Prime Minister, he had no ambition except to serve his country well. The political skills he had perfected in his unregenerate days were now just what his office needed. Without them the Government would never have survived the negotiations with the IMF, or preserved its fragile hold on Parliament."

"The most hopeful sign I have seen in Britain was the talk which your Labour prime minister gave to the Labour conference at the end of September [1976]. That was, I think, one of the most remarkable talks – speeches – which any government leader has ever given."

"Watching James Callaghan over the coming months and years, I observed a very commendable man, quite different in style and character from Harold Wilson... Most different from the previous regime was his strong sense of values – really like those of a nonconformist Victorian, with deep feelings of responsibility towards the underprivileged and a strong sense of right and wrong (where Harold was often ambivalent)."

"[H]e of all people is the best man to oppose Thatcher – the calm bedside manner beside the raucous authoritarian figure. Also the best man to handle unemployment and make it an issue which really wins for Labour. JC really cares about unemployment, not in a soft bleeding way...but is affronted by it... Jim cares more about the party, or rather the movement, than Wilson. Wilson was an academic, Callaghan a trade unionist. Their origins are very important. Wilson ultimately got fed up with the party because it became too much of a problem to control it. Callaghan never really has. Wilson was not at heart a trade-union man, Callaghan is totally a trade-union man or he is nothing."

"He likes the Ulster Unionists – much more than the Liberals – because they are his kind of straight, tough old-fashioned conservative people."

"I think Jim Callaghan is a wonderful political personality, easily the most accomplished politician in the Labour Party, and I think he is quite able as well."

"He realised that though social conditions could play a major part in shaping an individual's life chances – which was why he was in the Labour Party – it could not determine their life: that was their responsibility. He was the living proof. He never took the view: I did it, so why can't everyone else. But he was not soft on law and order; on the contrary. He also rightly sensed that though the years of Roy Jenkins at the Home Office had been stellar in their action on discrimination – and he was fully supportive of that – liberalism was not necessarily the correct response to the growing disrespect and lawlessness that in the 1960s and 1970s saw crime rise. In other words, what appeared quite old-fashioned – respect for others – he saw as the answer to a growing modern phenomenon. I believe he was right in this. He saw – and I agree with him – no contradiction between a liberal view of personal lifestyle or action against prejudice and a tough view of violence or wrong-doing that harmed others."

"To a far greater extent than is ever reflected in commentary on him, he both analysed correctly the changes that were coming in the country and had worked out the answers. His lecture on education, launching the great debate, was remarkably prescient in predicting that the mere abolition of selection would not of itself change educational opportunities for the poorest in society. His speech recognising the limits of Keynesianism in an era of stagflation, in fact predated later Conservative analysis. He was fiercely patriotic not in a gung-ho, militaristic sense, but in the quiet but clear and determined way of someone who had actually seen military service and knew what it was about."

"[I]t would be foolish to underestimate the Baldwin-like appeal possessed by James Callaghan. The very Conservatism of the Prime Minister—in the content and style of his government—will make him a formidable opponent for the Tory party."

"Jim Callaghan saw that opposing Barbara Castle's mild measures for trade union reform [In Place of Strife] would enable him to climb back into favour; and when Wilson retired he had the support of the unions as well as of the moderates and the right. He proved to be a more skilful prime minister than Wilson; he took decisions and won his colleagues round to support them. But a nemesis of Greek proportions overtook him when the trade unions in the winter of discontent proved how right Barbara Castle had been."

"He was very emotional, and he said to us "a lot of you are very clever people; you've had university education which I never had, and you would have made a success of whatever walk of life you had gone into. But always remember that it was the Labour Party which put you where you are." Even some of us who had no time for him before the election found it very moving."

"A lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on."

"When I was young, we didn't discuss abortion or homosexuality. What I think most people feel is that we don't want all these particular areas to be aggressive when there is a feeling of tolerance of them which is generally understood and accepted. But if they become aggressive in minority interests...that is something I feel many people – and certainly I myself – recoil from. ... [The] nuclear family is the most loving you can have."

"A leader has to appear consistent. That doesn't mean he has to be consistent."