#british

Were you to read the British press today, you would learn that the British Empire never forgets its defeats. ↗

— Robert Trout

#british empire #british press #defeats #empire #forgets

To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches. ↗

— Margaret Thatcher

#cure #disease #leeches #like #socialism

Even modern English people are imperious, superior, ridden by class. All of the hypocrisy and the difficulties that are endemic in being British also make it an incredibly fertile place culturally. A brilliant place to live. Sad but true. ↗

— Pete Townshend

#being #brilliant #british #class #culturally

I'd rather do theatre and British films than move to L.A. in hopes of getting small roles in American films. ↗

— Kate Winslet

#american films #british #films #getting #hopes

My skin still crawls if you call me a movie star. I get embarrassed. I think, don't be ridiculous. Maybe it's because I'm British. To me, Julia Roberts that's a movie star. But when people do call me one, that, I think, is an enormous compliment but, my God, is that a responsibility! ↗

— Kate Winslet

#british #call #compliment #embarrassed #enormous

The only way to speak is diplomatically, and British is the imperial English tongue. I have expelled all claims to American independence from my pronunciation, and I have never felt more liberated. ↗

— Bauvard

#british #diplomacy #english #freedom #funny

The mice were furious." [...] "Oh yes," said the old man mildly. "Yes well so I expect were the dogs and cats and duckbilled platypuses, but..." "Ah, but they hadn't paid for it you see, had they?" "Look," said Arthur, "would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?" [...] "Earthman, the planet you lived on was commissioned, paid for, and run by mice. It was destroyed five minutes before the completion of the purpose for which it was built, and we've got to build another one." Only one word registered with Arthur. "Mice?" he said. "Indeed Earthman." "Look, sorry - are we talking about the little white furry things with the cheese fixation and women standing on tables screaming in early sixties sit coms?" Slartibartfast coughed politely. "[...] These creatures you call mice, you see, they are not quite as they appear. They are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vast hyperintelligent pandimensional beings. The whole business with the cheese and the squeaking is just a front." The old man paused, and with a sympathetic frown continued. "They've been experimenting on you, I'm afraid. ↗

— Douglas Adams

#humour #science-fiction #business

It is sometimes said that butlers only truly exist in England. Other countries, whatever title is actually used, have only manservants. I tend to believe this is true. Continentals are unable to be butlers because they are as a breed incapable of the emotional restraint which only the English race are capable of. Continentals - and by and large the Celts, as you will no doubt agree - are as a rule unable to control themselves in moments of a strong emotion, and are thus unable to maintain a professional demeanour other than in the least > challenging of situations. If I may return to my earlier metaphor - you will excuse my putting it so coarsely - they are like a man who will, at the slightest provocation, tear off his suit and his shirt and run about screaming. IN a word, "dignity" is beyond such persons. We English have an important advantage over foreigners in this respect and it is for this reason that when you think of a great butler, he is bound, almost by definition, to be an Englishman. ↗

— Kazuo Ishiguro

#respect

The British ballads became a new kind of form in their hand. And out of them came the blues, a new kind of song of commentary and satire, a song form which, after all, has become the main musical form of the whole human species. ↗

— Alan Lomax

#ballads #became #become #blues #british

The British needlewoman follows blindly where the merchant leads. ↗

— Ann Macbeth

#british #follows #leads #merchant #where