Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.
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All of Western tradition, from the late bloom of the British Empire right through the early doom of Vietnam, dictates that you do something spectacular and irreversible whenever you find yourself in or whenever you impose yourself upon a wholly unfamiliar situation belonging to somebody else. Frequently it's your soul or your honor or your manhood, or democracy itself, at stake.
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You say that at the time of the Congress, in 1765, The great mass of the people were zealous in the cause of America. The great mass of the people is an expression that deserves analysis. New York and Pennsylvania were so nearly divided, if their propensity was not against us, that if New England on one side and Virginia on the other had not kept them in awe, they would have joined the British. Marshall, in his life of Washington, tells us, that the southern States were nearly equally divided. Look into the Journals of Congress, and you will see how seditious, how near rebellion were several counties of New York, and how much trouble we had to compose them. The last contest, in the town of Boston, in 1775, between whig and tory, was decided by five against two. Upon the whole, if we allow two thirds of the people to have been with us in the revolution, is not the allowance ample? Are not two thirds of the nation now with the administration? Divided we ever have been, and ever must be. Two thirds always had and will have more difficulty to struggle with the one third than with all our foreign enemies.
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The British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst.
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I would like to express to all Londoners, to all of the British people, the solidarity, the compassion and the friendship of France and the French people. [on London terrorist attacks, 7th July 2005]
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Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.
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People have often said to me, 'Surely when you are with the tramps they don't really accept you as one of themselves? Surely they notice that you are different--notice the difference of accent?' etc., etc. As a matter of fact, a fair proportion of tramps, well over a quarter I should say, notice nothing of the kind. To begin with, many people have no ear for accent and judge you entirely by your clothes. I was often struck by this fact when I was begging at back doors. Some people were obviously surprised by my 'educated' accent, others completely failed to notice it; I was dirty and ragged and that was all they saw. Again, tramps come from all parts of the British Isles and the variation in English accents is enormous. A tramp is used to hearing all kinds of accents among his mates, some of them so strange to him that he can hardly understand them, and a man from, say, Cardiff or Durham or Dublin does not necessarily know which of the south English accents is an 'educated' one. In any case men with 'educated' accents, though rare among tramps, are not unknown. But even when tramps are aware that you are of different origin from themselves, it does not necessarily alter their attitude. From their point of view all that matters is that you, like themselves, are 'on the bum'. And in that world it is not done to ask too many questions. You can tell people the history of your life if you choose, and most tramps do so on the smallest provocation, but you are under no compulsion to tell it and whatever story you tell will be accepted without question. Even a bishop could be at home among tramps if he wore the right clothes; and even if they knew he was a bishop it might not make any difference, provided that they also knew or believed that he was genuinely destitute. Once you are in that world and seemingly of it, it hardly matters what you have been in the past. It is a sort of world-within-a-world where everyone is equal, a small squalid democracy...
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We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.
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Yesterday I visited the British Museum; an exceedingly tiresome affair. It quite crushes a person to see so much at once; and I wandered from hall to hall with a weary and heavy heart. The present is burdened too much with the past.
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In peace, competition had become difficult, until the British ship owner cried for war; yet he already felt, without acknowledging it even to himself, that in war he was likely to enjoy little profit or pleasure on the day when the long, low, black hull of the Yankee privateer, with her tapering, bending spars, her long-range guns, and her sharp-faced captain, should appear on the western horizon, and suddenly, at the sight of heavy-lumbering British merchantman, should fling out her white wings of canvas, and fly down on her prey.
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I used to issue leaflets asking people to enlist as recruits. One of the arguments I had used was distasteful to the Commissioner: 'Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.' The Commissioner referred to this and said that he appreciated my presence in the conference in spite of the differences between us. And I had to justify my standpoint as courteously as I could.
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Americans like the British kind of quirkiness and the strange accent. They find it kind of cute or something, with a certain charm.
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Take all your dukes and marquesses and earls and viscounts, pack them into one chamber, call it the House of Lords to satisfy their pride and then strip it of all political power. It's a solution so perfectly elegant and preposterous that only the British could have managed it.
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The Chinese said of themselves several thousand years ago: China is a sea that salts all the waters that flow into it. Theres another Chinese saying about their country which is much more modernit dates only from the fourth century. This is the saying: The tail of China is large and will not be wagged. I like that one. The British democracy approves the principles of movable party heads and unwaggable national tails. It is due to the working of these important forces that I have the honour to be addressing you at this moment.
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Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.
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Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Commonwealth and the Empire last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.
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Unlike the British, Iran does not make accusations without sufficient evidence to support them.
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It is completely incomprehensible why the British have the necessary technology, but we don't. If we can't make effective rescue equipment ourselves, we need to buy it abroad.
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Basically, I have no place in organized politics. By coming to the British Parliament, I've allowed the people to sacrifice me at the top and ...
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Today in my World History class, a student said, 'Well, we thought that by mentioning the East Indies, you meant the British East India Company'. To which the Teacher promptly replied 'Ah, so you were mislead by stupidity'.
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If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters, they might write all the books in the British Museum.
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It took me twenty years of studied self-restraint, aided by the natural decay of my faculties, to make myself dull enough to be accepted as a serious person by the British public.
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They say the sun never sets over the British Empire, but it rises every morning. The sky must get awfully crowded.
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You cannot hope to bribe or twist (thank God!) the British journalist. But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there's no occasion to.
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The maxim of the British people is 'Business as Usual.'
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Hither the heroes and nymphs resort,To taste awhile the pleasures of a courtIn various talk th'instuctive hours they past,Who gave the ball, or paid the visit lastOne speaks the glory of the British Queen,And one describes a charming Indian screenlA third interprets motions, looks and eyesAt every word a reputation dies.
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Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
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Hither the heroes and nymphs resort, To taste awhile the pleasures of a court; In various talk th' instuctive hours they past, Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last; One speaks the glory of the British Queen, And one describes a charming Indian screen A third interprets motions, looks and eyes; At every word a reputation dies.
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As for the United States' future in Afghanistan, it will be fire and hell and total defeat, God willing, as it was for their predecessors - the Soviets and, before them, the British.
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[Also on the tapes, Dean Rusk, Kennedy's secretary of state, counsels that the use of nuclear weapons would have to have support from America's allies.] I think we would be hard pressed to tell our own people why we are doing this with India when even the British won't do it or the Australians won't do it and the Canadians won't do it, ... We need to have those other flags flying on these joint enterprises.
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