British

A British officer to be called Resident who shall be accredited to his Court and whoseadvice must be asked and acted upon on all questions other than those touching Malay religion and custom.

—Pangkor,Treaty of

Your friend the British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.

—Shaw, George Bernard

No one can be as calculatedly rude as the British, which amazes Americans, who do not understand studied insult and can only offer abuse as a substitute.

—Gallagher, Noel

If a British guy saw someone at the wheel of a Rolls- Royce, he'd say 'come the revolution and we'll take that away from you, mate', where the American would say 'one day I'll have one of those, when I have worked hard enough'. It's unfortunate we Australians inherited the British mentality.

—Packer, Kerry

'Do not shoot,' it shouted.'I am a B-b-british object!'

—Malouf, David

The Dutch may havetheir Holland, the Spaniard have his Spain, TheYankee to the south of us must south of us remain; For not a man dare lift a hand against the men who brag That they were born in Canada beneath the British flag.

—Johnson, Pauline

   We British are an aggressive nation.We seem to have become more violent this last decade: look how we drive fast and furious, with fists clenched; listen, at the stadiums, how the crowds shout,'Kick his fuckin' head in,'or to the sirens of police cars and ambulances in the shoddy streets of Brixton or Liverpool.

—Abse, Dannie

The British are coming.

—Welland, Colin

[Margaret Thatcher] has turned the British bulldog into a Reagan poodle.

—Steel, David Martin Scott Steel, Baron

The British Civil Service†is a beautifully designed and effective braking mechanism.

—Baroness

The British Empire has advanced to a new conception of autonomyand freedom, to the idea of a system of British nations, each freely ordering its own individual life, but bound together in unity byallegiance to one Crown, and co-operating in all that concerns the common weal.

—GeorgeVI

The British, he thought, must be gluttons for satire: even the weather forecast seemed to be some kind of spoof, predicting every possible combination of weather for the next twenty-four hours without actually committing itself to anything specific.

—Lodge, David John

The Britishhad nowayof knowing it, butthe candles and the soap were made from the fat of rendered Jews and Gypsies and fairies and communists, and other enemies of the state. So it goes.

—Vonnegut, Kurt,Jr

It sometimes occurs to me that the British have more heritage than isgood for them.

—Bryson, Bill

British music is in a state of perpetual promise. It might almost be said to be one long promissory note.

—Beecham, SirThomas

If the British public falls for this, I say that it will be stark, staring bonkers.

—Hailsham, Quintin (McGarel) Hogg, 2nd Viscount

The British'Sphere of Influence'öthe cricket ball.

—Anonymous

I therefore fearlessly challenge the verdict which this house†is to give on the question now brought before it†whether, as the Roman, in days of old, held himself free from indignity, when he could say Civis Romanus sum; so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong.

—Palmerston, HenryJohnTemple, 3rd Viscount

The British have long had a taste for bad books, but they like them well written.

—Bradbury, Malcolm Stanley

The Frenchwant to attack, the Americans want to bomb, and the British want to have another meeting.

—Anonymous

Why are you telling me this? The British won't fight.

—Galtieri, Leopoldo Fortunato

So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan; You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man; An''ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ayrick 'ead of 'airö You big black boundin' beggaröfor you broke a British square!

—Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard

  Need I go on? I hate to bite Hands that led me to the limelight In the Penguin book, I regret The awkwardness. But British, no, the name's not right. Yours truly, Seamus.

—Heaney, SeamusJustin

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin'eastward to the sea, There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; For thewind isinthepalmtrees, an'thetemplebellsthey say: 'Come you back, you British soldier'; come you back to Mandalay!'

—Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard

Conversation is never easy for the British, who are never keen to express themselves to strangers or, for that matter, anyone, even themselves.

—Bradbury, Malcolm Stanley

   I will walk on no grave of Ulster's honoured dead to do a deal with the IRA or the British government.

—Paisley, Ian

There will be a quick rash of hairy American filth, but it shouldn't threaten the existence of decent, serious British filth.

—Osborne,John

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke-stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days.

—Masefield,John Edward

Dress British, look Irish, think Yiddish.

—Koffler, Murray

No more distressing moment can ever face a British Government than that which requires it to come to a hard and fast and specific decision.

—Tuchman, BarbaraW(ertheim)

How anyone can fear that the British electorate, whatever mistakesitcanmake or maycondone, canever go too far or too fast is incomprehensible† The Labour Party, when in due course it comes to be entrusted with power, will naturally not want to do everything at once. Once we facethenecessityof putting our principles into execution from one end of the kingdom to the other, the inevitabilityof gradualness cannot failtobe appreciated.

—Webb, SidneyJames

A fleet of British ships of war are the best negotiators in Europe.

—Nelson, Horatio,Viscount Nelson

For generations the British bourgeoisie have spoken of themselves as gentlemen, and by that they have meant, among other things, a self-respecting scorn of irregular perquisites. It is the quality that distinguishes the gentleman from both the artist and the aristocrat.

—Waugh, Evelyn Arthur StJohn

The Knight in the triumph of his heart made several 6 reflections on thegreatness of the British Nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of Popery so long as we took care of our fleet; that theThames was thenoblest river in Europe; that London Bridge was a greater piece of work than any of the Seven Wonders of the World; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.

—Addison,Joseph

The people Hitler never understood, and whose actions continued to exasperate him to the end of his life, were the British.

—Buller, A(rthur) H(enry) Reginald

The military struggle may frankly be regarded for what it actually was, namely a war for independence, an armed attempt to impose the views of the revolutionists on the British government and large sections of the colonial populationat whatevercosttofreedomofopinionor the sanctity of life and property.

—Schlesinger, Arthur Meier

It is very uncivilised to invade British territory.You are here illegally.

—Hunt, Sir Rex

I found myself growing increasingly irritated with the notion of a British novel, which was really an irritation with the word British, a grey, unsatisfactory, bad- weather kind of word, a piece of linguistic compromise.

—Buford, Bill (William Holmes)

   Hail Cricket! glorious, manly, British game! First of all Sports! be first alike in fame!

—Love,James pseudonym of  James Dance

Most British statesmen have either drunk too much or womanised too much. I never fell into the second category.

—George-Brown, George (Alfred) Brown, Baron

I was determined that no British government should be brought down by the action of two tarts.

—Stockton

Gigantic daughter of the West, We drink to thee across the flood, We know thee most, we love thee best, For art thou not of British blood?

—Tennyson

There are two ways to teach mathematics.One is to take real pains toward creating understandingövisual aids, that sort of thing. The other is the old British style of teaching until you're blue in the face.

—Newman,James R

To-day I find from my observations of the sun†that I am now camped in the centre of Australia. I have marked a tree and planted the British flag there. There is a high mount about two miles and a half to the north-north- east.Iwish it had been inthe centre; but on itto-morrow I will raise a cone of stones, and plant the flag there, and name it 'Central Mount Stuart'.

—Stuart,John McDouall

   I would rather be British than just.

—Paisley, Ian

A rather bitter Britishmusicianonceremarked sourly toa friend of mine: 'Oh, all she knows about music she learned in bed with musicians.' To that, I can only add, what better place to learn?

—Wilmer,Val(erie)

We know of no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.

—1st Baron

Gorgonised me from head to foot With a stony British stare.

—Tennyson

At last America is in my view; a dreary waste of white barren sand, and melancholy, nodding pines. In the course of many miles, no cheerful cottage has blest my eyes. All seems dreary, savage and desert; and was it for this such sums of money, such streams of British blood have been lavished away? Oh, thou dear land, how dearly hast thou purchased this habitation for bears and wolves. Dearly has it been purchased, and at a price far dearer still it will be kept. My heart dies within me, while I view it.

—Schaw,Janet   b.c.1730

I can imagine no length of resistance to which Ulster can go in which I should not be prepared to support them, and in which, in my belief, they would not be supported by the overwhelming majority of the British people.

—Law, (Andrew) Bonar

The British Bourgeosie Is not born And does not die, But, if it is ill, It has a frightened look in its eyes.

—Sitwell, Sir (Francis) Osbert

The majority of the British public have no regard or no respect for what me and my peers doto the point where theyactually laugh at a disaster like a fire.

—Emin,Tracey

The story of Colonel Chapman's adventures is typical of the British way of war, and therefore begins with a complete lack of preparation.

—Wavell, Archibald Percival, 1st Earl

Would a special relationship between the United States and the British Commonwealth be inconsistent with our overriding loyalty to the world organization?

—Churchill, Lord Randolph Henry Spencer

Well,British Public, ye who like me not, (God love you!)

—Browning, Robert