England

"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."

"Be England what she will, With all her faults, she is my country still."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent."

"Well of all dogs it stands confess'd, Your English bull dogs are the best"

"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."

"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.""

"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."

"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.""