England

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"Winds of the World give answer! They are whimpering to and fro— And what should they know of England who only England know?—"

"English people ... never speak, excepting in cases of fire or murder, unless they are introduced."

"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."

"Old England is our home and Englishmen are we, Our tongue is known in every clime, our flag on every sea."

"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."

"His home!—the Western giant smiles, And turns the spotty globe to find it;— This little speck the British Isles? 'Tis but a freckle,—never mind it."

"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."

"The common law of England is the common law of Ireland, where the latter is not altered by statute."

"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."

"Quoique leurs chapeaux sont bien laids, Goddam! j'aime les anglais."

"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."

"We have stood alone in that which is called isolation—our splendid isolation, as one of our Colonial friends was good enough to call it."

"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."

"In these troublesome days when the great Mother Empire stands splendidly isolated in Europe."

"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."

"Britannia needs no bulwarks No towers along the steep; Her march is o'er the mountain wave, Her home is on the deep."

"The meteor flag of England Shall yet terrific burn, Till danger's troubled night depart, And the star of peace return."

"Il y a en Angleterre soizante sectes religieuses différentes, et une seule sauce."

"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."

"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."

"What have I done for you, England, my England? What is there I would not do, England, my own?"

"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."

"A certain man has called us, "of all peoples the wisest in action," but he added, "the stupidest in speech.""

"I travelled among unknown men, in lands beyond the sea; nor, England! did I know till then, what love I bore to thee."

"'Tis a glorious charter, deny it who can, That's breathed in the words, "I'm an Englishman.""

"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."

"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."

"We are indeed a nation of shopkeepers."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The martial airs of England Encircle still the earth."

"He is an Englishman! For he himself has said it, And it's greatly to his credit, That he's an Englishman!"