British Language Quotes

#1. In our country for all her greatness there is one thing she cannot do and that is translate a person wholly out of one class into another. Perfect translation from one language into another is impossible. Class is the British language.

William Golding

#2. I may fight the British ruler, but I do not hate the English or their language. In fact, I appreciate their literary treasures.

Mahatma Gandhi

#3. The language spoken by New Yorkers was changing almost daily. Phrases culled from British thieves' cant intermingled with German, Dutch, Yiddish, and other immigrant languages to form "flash," a

Lyndsay Faye

#4. The British power is the overlord without whom Indian princes cannot breathe.

Mahatma Gandhi

#5. Thank God for modern medicine. It was not until 1905 that ergophobia (the morbid fear of returning to work) was first identified and reported in the British Medical Journal. As yet there is no known cure, but doctors have been working on it, and may get back to working on it sometime soon.

Mark Forsyth

#6. My attitude towards the British is one of utter friendliness and respect.

Mahatma Gandhi

#7. Being British, I don't really have a way of expressing myself in conversation. Music transcends language.

James Blunt

#8. What the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist?

Lynne Truss

#9. I lived for a year in Scotland. British sign language is very different from American.

I. King Jordan

#10. I listened to a lot of tapes of British theatre actresses and tried to learn from them. As Americans, we don't have such a gift with language.

Angelina Jolie

#11. I used to watch a lot of American and British television as a child, which helped teach me the language and accents; it was partly that which landed me the part of Roxy in a London production of 'Chicago' when I was 25.

Birgitte Hjort Sorensen

#12. At the end of the day, flirting is a pretty universal language. Americans are more direct. British people are more indirect about everything

Rachel Weisz

#13. The British and Americans are two people separated by a common language.

George Bernard Shaw

#14. Amazing what the British do with language; the nuances of politeness. The world's great diplomats, surely.

Anne Rice

#15. That I want to destroy British imperialism is another matter, but I want to do so by converting those who are associated with it.

Mahatma Gandhi

#16. The British political system and the whole clapped out Westminster architecture, and the language that we use about politics, it's completely unsustainable. You either decide to be part of that transition to do something different. Or you cling to old certainties.

Nick Clegg

#17. My motto is "Unite now, today if you can; fight if you must. But in every case avoid British intervention."

Mahatma Gandhi

#18. India is less manly under the British rule than she ever was before.

Mahatma Gandhi

#19. The British are weak in numbers, we are weak in spite of our numbers.

Mahatma Gandhi

#20. One of the characteristics of New Labour - and Miliband is irredeemably of that species - is that, in the guise of a new liberal language, it has adopted the age-old default mode of British foreign policy, namely military intervention.

Martin Jacques

#21. There is as much need for a change of heart among the Hindus and Mussalmans as there is among the British, before a proper settlement is arrived at.

Mahatma Gandhi

#22. The Indian struggle is not anti-British, it is anti-exploitation, anti-foreign rule, not anti-foreigners.

Mahatma Gandhi

#23. I must fight unto the death the unholy attempt to impose British methods and British institutions on India.

Mahatma Gandhi

#24. I feel Mahatma Gandhi's non-violence was for the intelligent, educated British.It was not for those who don't understand this language.

Raj Thackeray

#25. I am not anti-English, I am not anti-British, I am not anti-any Government, but I am anti-untruth, anti-humbug and anti-injustice.

Mahatma Gandhi

#26. Shakespeare's language does not require a British accent. It requires a facility with language, and that's all.

Joss Whedon

#27. My love of the British is equal to that of my own people.

Mahatma Gandhi

#28. The Americans are identical to the British in all respects except, of course, language.

Oscar Wilde

#29. It seems the British are born to hoist their flag over every nation where the sun rises and never learn their language.

Chloe Thurlow

#30. The collectors of revenue and the policeman are the only symbols by which millions in India's villages know British rule.

Mahatma Gandhi

#31. What senseless violence does is to prolong the lease of life of the British or foreign rule.

Mahatma Gandhi

#32. I claim to have been a lifelong and wholly disinterested friend of the British people.

Mahatma Gandhi

#33. I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry.

Diane Wakoski

#34. In the British embassy in Afghanistan in 2008, an embassy of 350 people, there were only three people who could speak Dari, the main language of Afghanistan, at a decent level. And there was not a single Pashto speaker.

Rory Stewart

#35. Never invite someone who is speaking a foreign language in your presence to "Go back to your country." The only time that phrase is every acceptable is if you are British and you are speaking to Madonna.

Celia Rivenbark

#36. Afrikaans is my first language, although you would never know, as my English accent has more of an American-British thing going on from all my years of travelling.

Tanit Phoenix

#37. I believe that a large part of the training in the regional theaters is in imitation of the British style of acting. The British orientation is textual; they start from the language and work toward the character.

Arthur Penn