Businesspeople From England

"‘Prepare to meet the King of Terrors,’ cried To prayerless Want, his plunderer ferret-eyed: ‘I am the King of Terrors,’ Want replied."

"The Life, Poetry and Letters of Ebenezer Elliott, ed. John Watkins (1850)"

"What is a communist? One who hath yearnings For equal division of unequal earnings: Idler, or bungler, or both, he is willing To fork out his penny and pocket your shilling."

"More Verse and Prose by the Cornlaw Rhymer, ed. John Watkins (1850)"

"Jesus. An°. xvj°.My nowne hartely belovid Cossen Kateryn, I recomande me unto you withe all the inwardnesse of myn hart. And now lately ye shall understond that I resseyvid a token from you, the which was and is to me right hartely welcom, and with glad will I resseyvid it; and over that I had a letter from Holake, youre gentyll Sqwyer, by the which I understond right well that ye be in good helth of body, and mery at hart. And I pray God hartely to his plesour to contenew the same: for it is to me veray grete comforth that ye so be, so helpe me Jesu. And yf ye wold be a good etter of your mete allwaye, that ye myght waxe and grow fast to be a woman, ye shuld make me the gladdest man of the world, be my trouth: for whanne I remembre your favour and your sadde lofynge delynge to me-wardes, for south ye make me evene veray glade and joyus in my hart: and on the tother syde agayn whanne I remembre your yonge youthe, and seeth well that ye be none etter of youre mete, the which shuld helpe you greately in waxynge, for south than ye make me veray hevy agayn. And therfore I praye you, myn nown swete Cossen, evene as you lofe me to be mery and to eate your mete lyke a woman. And yf ye so will do for my love, looke what ye will desyre of me, whatsomever it be, and be my trouth I promesse you by the helpe of our Lord to performe it to my power. I can [no] more say now, but at my comyng home I will tell you mych more betwene you and me and God before. And where as ye, full womanly and lyke a lofer, remembre me with manyfolde recomendacion in dyversse maners, remyttynge the same to my discresscion to depart them ther as I love best, for south, myn nown swete Cossen, ye shall understond that with good hart and good will I resseyve and take to my self the one half of them, and them will I kepe by me; and the tother half with hartely love and favour I send hem to you, myn nown swete Cossen, agayn, for to kepe by you: and over that I send you the blissynge that our Lady gave hir dere sonne, and ever well to fare. I pray you grete well my horssc, and praye hym to gyfe yow iij of his yeres to helpe you with all: and I will at my comynge home gyf hym iiij of my yeres and iiij horsse lofes till amendes. Tell hym that I prayed hym so. And Cossen Kateryn I thannke you for hym, and my wif shall thanke you for hym hereafter; for ye do grete cost apon hym as it is told me. Myn nown swete Cossen, it was told me but late that ye were at Cales to seeke me, but ye cowde not se me nor fynde me: for south ye myght have comen to my counter, and ther ye shuld bothe fynde me and see me, and not have fawtid off me: but ye sought me in a wronge Cales, and that ye shuld well know yf ye were here and saw this Cales, as wold God ye were and som of them with you that were with you at your gentill Cales. I praye you, gentill Cossen, comaunde me to the Cloke, and pray hym to amend his unthryfte maners: for he strykes ever in undew tyme, and he will be ever afore, and that is a shrewde condiscion. Tell hym with owte he amend his condiscion that he will cause strangers to advoide and come no more there. I trust to you that he shall amend agaynest myn commynge, the which shalbe shortely with all hanndes and all feete with Godes grace. My veray feithefull Cossen, I trust to you that thowe all I have not remembred my right worshipfull maystres your modyr afore in this letter that ye will of your gentilnesse recomaunde me to her maystresshipe as many tymes as it shall pies you: and ye may say, yf it plese you, that in Wytson Weke next I intend to the marte-ward. And I trust you will praye for me: for I shall praye for you, and, so it may be, none so well. And Almyghty Jesu make you a good woman, and send you many good yeres and longe to lyve in helth and vertu to his plesour. At greate Cales on this syde on the see, the fyrst day of June, whanne every man was gone to his Dener, and the Cloke smote noynne, and all oure howsold cryed after me and badde me come down; come down to dener at ones! and what answer I gave hem ye know it of old. Be your feithefull Cossen and lofer Thomas Betson.I sent you this rynge for a token. To my feithefull and hartely belovid Cossen Kateryn Ryche at Stonor this letter be delyvered in hast."

"One of the most charming of all private letters of the time that have survived."

"Sometimes, however, medieval records throw a pleasanter light on these child marriages. Such was the light thrown by the Ménagier de Paris's book for his young wife, so kindly, so affectionate, so full of indulgence for her youth; and such also is the light thrown by the charming letter which Thomas Betson wrote to little Katherine Riche on the first day of June in 1476. It is a veritable gem, and it is strange that it has not attracted more notice, for certainly no anthology of English letters should be without it."

"Let’s be enthusiastic, relatable, positive, optimistic. Let's be more normal."

"I disregard much of what Nigel [Farage] says. He's a showman. He likes getting attention. He does things and says things so broadcasters like you ask serious politicians like me questions like this. And, the bottom line is, I'm just not going to play Nigel's game. He does these things to get attention. And, just like a spoiled child, I don't think he should be rewarded for doing so."

"We need to get back on track but before we can do that, there's something we need to say: sorry. Sorry on behalf of the Conservative parliamentary party who let you down, and we have to be better, much better, and under my leadership, we will be. The British people are never wrong. The British people told us to go and sort ourselves out. Let’s not make them tell us again."

"I had to ring my private secretary in the Foreign Office saying 'can you cancel meetings because I need to go home', and he said 'is everything okay minister?' I tried to say Susie might have cancer, I just couldn't get the words out, I couldn't speak - I like to talk, but I just couldn't speak. I said I'll text you, and, you know, this organisation is amazing. Liz Truss was my boss at the time, she was absolutely amazing. I went home, Susie and I talked it through, and I tried to ring again to explain what was going on - and I still couldn't say a word. For the next couple of hours everything was done on WhatsApp, and it really hit me, I never felt anything like that before."

"[Referring to his wife] a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night [was] was not really illegal if it's only a little bit."

"They want to make sure that football fans are safe, secure and enjoy themselves, and they know that that means they are going to have to make some compromises in terms of what is an Islamic country with a very different set of cultural norms to our own. One of the things I would say for football fans is, you know, please do be respectful of the host nation. They are trying to ensure that people can be themselves and enjoy the football, and I think with a little bit of flex and compromise at both ends, it can be a safe, secure and exciting World Cup."

"[Ensuring a long marriage means your wife is] someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there."

"It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves."

"But it's difficult, we are humans, that's why maybe machines at some point will be better at optimizing the information flow, optimizing for judgment and crowding of the market and may come up with better portfolios."

"I think you need to be able to focus on the secular, i.e. focus on big trends because there is so much noise that various issues bring that clearly influence the price movement in the near-term but ultimately doesn't shift the needle."

"It's having this trust in people around you; when you're thrown an opportunity - embracing it, though it may be really scary, because at the end of the day, you can do it - you have a toolbox being a professional. It's all about just breathing deeply and having allies, so having a team, you can never do stuff like that on your own"

"One of the key things is to understand there are no limits to your knowledge (and) understanding what you can do."

"Very difficult thing to do. If you look at performance record of managers, being human hurts you and 80% of managers under-perform benchmark over short- and long-term period, it's tough game."

"I shall speak as well as I can for usefulness, but not for fame."

"The longer I live the more certain I am that the great difference between men, the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy and invincible determination – a purpose once fixed and then death or victory. That quality will do anything that can be done in this world, and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged creature a man without it."

"I should very much like to be a country gentleman. I would not have the best horses, or dogs, or farms, in the county; but I would exert myself to improve the people who were under my influence."

"No man has a surplus of power: meaning by power— time, talents, money, influence."

"I am no politician."

"How wonderful are the ways of the Lord (God); how sweet his mercies, how terrible his judgements!"

"In this world I shall never be anything but a mere moderate– behind the foremost, and before the last."

"There are a great many poor people who are very sick, and yet have no money to buy food, or clothes, or physic; and there are many more so ignorant that they never heard of the Bible, and think they do very right, when they roast and eat their enemies!"

"No longer from Parliament with an easy mind, so we must be satisfied."

"Sir Percival Griffiths, a member of the L.C.S., stressed the Muslim belief that “their interests must be regarded as completely separate from those of the Hindus, and that no fusion of the two communities was possible.” He adds, significantly enough, that however deplorable, “the statesman had to accept it.’”"

"Everyone thinks I'm a smart arse who can solve any bloody problem. [...] I'm not. I'm just a very old businessman and a very experienced businessman who made every mistake in the book and can recognise one when I see one."

"Few people have possessed such a complete understanding of the central tenets and principles of Toryism as Peter Utley. Certainly no one has articulated them with more eloquence. He stood in the tradition of the great Tory philosophers—Hooker, Burke and Lord Salisbury. Drawing on that tradition, he delivered powerful and incisive judgments on leading political, social and moral issues over a period of more than forty years. Though his range was remarkable, questions affecting the Anglican Church and the unity of the nation always had pride of place in his work. He was, quite simply, the most distinguished Tory thinker of our time."

"On Thursday, I went to a party of the Primrose League, founded 100 years ago in favour of the constitution, patriotism, decency and all that. The members are mostly very old and they have not got much money; but they speak more accurately in the voice of British Conservatism than anyone else. I know rather more young Conservatives than most people do and I think that this sort of thing strikes a stronger chord in their hearts than Monetarism v. Keynesism. What a wonderful thing if someone would try to revive the Primrose League to its former eminence. Think of the patronising remarks from Brian Redhead and other media connoisseurs of Tory antiques. And think how reassured Britain would be!"

"Internally, the State is menaced not only by a powerful Fifth Column, strongly represented in the trade unions and in politics, but also by new social divisions more potentially destructive than any it has known before. Massed immigration has saddled it with a "racial problem", to which it has still given no systematic thought and which is being sedulously exploited by people on both left and right who are openly committed to overturning our political and social arrangements. The rule of law is threatened from above and below, by arbitrary bureaucracy and by a steady increase in crime... In these gloomy circumstances, it is mysterious and a scandal that the energies of the Tory party should still be so largely employed in debating the merits of an incomes policy which, at any rate for the moment, has become obligatory. It is certainly not that the electorate has been unwilling to hear about such matters as immigration, terrorism, and violent crime generally; on the contrary, the political establishment has used all its influence to divert attention from these issues, incurring a good deal of unpopularity in the process."

"There is...the...argument that under PR extremist minorities, like the Front Nationale in France, get a look in which otherwise would be denied them. But is it thoroughly unhealthy to pretend that such minorities do not exist? I am no fascist, but I represent a brand of Toryism, at once traditionalist and populist, which holds sway in every public bar in the kingdom and is almost entirely denied parliamentary expression by the Establishment. Above all, PR would increase the independence of MPs both from their constituency associations and their party machines. I would give it a try."

"In the hands of some of the more zealous exponents of revisionist Toryism...criticism has been developed into a general attack on the whole concept of moderation as a political virtue. This sort of thing is most unnerving to the electorate and most damaging to the Conservative party. If moderation means a wish, other things being equal or approximately so, to govern with the consent of as many of those being governed as possible, even if it means a disposition to take into account the prejudices of large sections of the electorate in formulating policy, it is no bad thing. To set about trying to reform the economy without taking into account the real force of such sentiments as loyalty to a trade union would be to court disaster."

"The habit which exists among many of the advocates of sensible reforms in economic policy of speaking of their "mission" to the universities or middle management, and of the necessity to "convert" the electorate to capitalism is more suitable to the heirs of the nonconformist radicalism than to the Tory party. It also suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of what politics is about; for the political process is concerned not with the preaching and application of doctrines but with the management of prejudices and reconciling of interests."

"It would be equally disastrous to ignore the truth that the theories of classical liberal economics, for all the truth they contain, appear to the average British elector to be profoundly shocking. The notions that a man's wage should be determined entirely by the law of supply and demand, that distributive justice has no place in the organisation of the economy and that the pursuit of profit is not only legitimate but the only proper motive of economic activity, fly in the face not only of modern egalitarian prejudice but also of all the assumptions of a society which is still largely based on the idea of status."

"Had the British electorate ever been asked plainly whether it wanted to belong to a European state or to remain British, it would have said, with unmistakable emphasis, that it was in favour of an independent Britain. What is more, it would have consigned to perdition any political party which proposed the opposite. Yet, under the conditions of parliamentary democracy, the opposite is plainly coming about. A political élite has so far imposed its views on the people."

"Ulstermen knew that the conflict between the Civil Rights Movement and the authorities was largely a charade; that, just below the surface, the old gut conflict survived in the Province. On neither side was it seriously doubted that what was going on was a modern version of the old battle between nationalities, and the real issue was Irish nationalism versus Unionism."

"Here, then, is a random selection of the vices and fallacies which, I maintain, have distinguished British policy in Ulster during this period. The dominant vice has been an obdurate refusal to recognise the existence of any ultimately and incorrigibly unpleasant fact. Positively, this has taken the form of an assumption that in politics there can be no final incompatible aspirations; that there is never a point at which it must be recognised that the wishes of one man are wholly irreconcilable with those of another; that there is never a dispute which can only be settled by force. This particular weakness bears fruit in one of the most cherished convictions of British liberalism—the belief in negotiation. Negotiation is seen not as a means of establishing where differences lie or even as a method of persuading adversaries to change their minds: it is seen rather as a form of therapy which, applied with however little regard to the nature of the disease or the character of the cure which it is supposed to effect, has an intrinsic value."

"Contrary to popular belief, maintained in the face of much historical experience, the danger-point in the affairs of any régime which is seriously challenged by a substantial number of its subjects, comes not when that régime is resisting all reform but when it has started belatedly on the path of concession."

"One obvious and continuous function of the monarchy is to confer approbation by word and deed on those things which, in the common judgement of most men and women of British stock, are still deemed honourable – the bonds of family love and loyalty, care for the unfortunate, respect for human personalities as distinct from dedication to the abstract rights of mankind, even hard work and enterprise. To the various scruffs who assault the monarchy these things are anathema either because they are incompatible with the total transformation of society they want or, at the very least, because they tend to make that transformation less urgently desirable than it otherwise might appear. By upholding these simple pieties, which have worn thin among politicians, the Crown exerts a continuous subtle restraint on reckless and ruthless innovation. Hence the particular venom inspired among the dregs of radicalism by the Duke of Edinburgh, who can speak on such matters with greater freedom than the Queen and who wields that influence, not perhaps with unerring instinct, but with a beneficent effect which is the greater for not being muffled by immaculate conception."

"As an old-fashioned Tory, I have that instinctive sympathy for the Ulster Unionist cause which until recently was, and must now again become, one of the strongest characteristics of that great party."

"Suppose that a revolutionary junta of corrupt oligarchy were blatantly to use the machinery of democracy to try to compass democracy's destruction. Would the Crown be wholly impotent? I do not think so."

"We should not allow anything to overshadow the most important event the world will ever see and that’s the funeral of Her Majesty."

"I've come into this job as a referee, and that's where I want to be. It shouldn't be about me, it's about the Chamber."

"If you've trained to do certain things for 20 years and you're halfway competent and you enjoy it, because that is the difference between the conscript and the volunteer, you probably miss it, if the truth be known. Why leave the army and join a private security company? Certainly there's an element of financial reward. But most people who work for me feel they are doing a valuable job. It's not just a bunch of hard men in it for the money."

"A lot of my colleagues also have dyslexia because we work in a technology company that is always about thinking differently, and I think that's one of the strengths we have as dyslexics is to look at things differently, be a problem solver, find new ways to do things, be experimental, entrepreneurial."

"It is not something that is wrong with you. It is a great part of how your brain works and everybody's brain works incredibly differently, there is nothing wrong, there is just everything that is so right."