Top 99 Most British Quotes
#1. Most British cheeses are now vegetarian and are labelled accordingly. However, French and Italian manufacturers still tend to use rennet.
Yotam Ottolenghi
#2. I am in the habit, like most British people, of holding the door open for people. But in the U.S., people don't understand it. You get odd looks or doors slammed in your face.
Raza Jaffrey
#3. At a minimum the name should puzzle foreigners - this is a basic requirement of most British institutions - and ideally it should excite long and inconclusive debate, defy all logical explanation, and evoke images that border on the surreal. Among
Bill Bryson
#4. With most British actors, it's amazing. I think they start with the character on the outside and work in.
Norman Jewison
#5. I think most British people who say they can do an American accent are so bad at it. I find it excruciating. I find it excruciating the other way around, too.
Eileen Atkins
#6. Most British newspapers now have more columns than the Acropolis
Ian Jack
#7. Most British people are keen to remain in a European free trade zone; and most EU states are keen to keep us there, because we buy from them more than we sell to them to the tune of £40 million per day.
Daniel Hannan
#9. No one could seriously dispute that almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, all of North Africa except Morocco, all of the Middle East except Israel and Jordan and most of the oil-rich states, and the entire former British Indian Empire were better governed by Europeans.
Conrad Black
#10. Anthony Powell was the most European of 20th-century British novelists.
Tariq Ali
#11. Whether the British ruling class are wicked or merely stupid is one of the most difficult questions of our time, and at certain moments a very important question.
George Orwell
#12. The British playwright Nina Raine is one of her generation's most promising talents.
John Lahr
#13. At the end of the war American and Soviet troops massed throughout most of the European peninsula, with Americans also in Britain and the British in Europe. The peninsula was occupied, shattered and exhausted, no longer the arbiter of its own fate.
George Friedman
#14. The first modern propaganda agency was the British Ministry of Information a century ago, which secretly defined its task as to direct the thought of most of the world - primarily progressive American intellectuals, who had to be mobilized to come to the aid of Britain during World War I.
Noam Chomsky
#15. American television constantly tries to co-op British comedy and create their own version of it. Most of the time it doesn't work; obviously, in the case of 'The Office,' it did. But a lot of times, it doesn't really work.
Chris Hardwick
#16. The English, he thought, had once conquered most of the known world, but their cooking hadn't improved as a result.
Lavie Tidhar
#17. Let me put it like this: I am not prepared to officiate over on behalf of the British government what I think is a disastrous strategy which will impact on some of the most vulnerable and poorest people within our society.
Martin McGuinness
#18. Shetland is the most remote place in the U.K. It's a part our country, but completely unique. It might be British, but it's closer to Norway than to Edinburgh, and it feels very different from the mainland.
Ann Cleeves
#19. Is it possible that the environmental severity of the 1930s induced-particularly in the most aware, alert, and compassionate of [British] men-a morality which makes no sense today?
Robert Ardrey
#20. Most correspondents came from the former colonial powers - there were British, French, and a lot of Italians, because there were a lot of Italian communities there. And of course there were a lot of Russians.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
#21. The Commons is one of the most depressing and intellectually unstimulating places in the country. [On the state of British politics
Clare Short
#22. Without history we are infants. Ask what binds the British Isles more closely to America than to Europe and only history gives a reply. Of all intellectual pursuits, history is the most supremely useful. That is why people crave it and need ever more of it.
Simon Jenkins
#23. Look, half the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were either in debt or bankrupt. The remaining half, most of them lost all their possessions. The only reason Monticello didn't get burned to the ground was that the British patrol missed the road.
Eric Massa
#24. Yet in the most mean, cowardly, hypocritical way the British ruling class did all they could to hand Spain over to Franco and the Nazis. Why? Because they were pro-Fascist, was the obvious answer.
George Orwell
#25. I knew I hadn't been the most innocent of victims, but I didn't deserve this. DC Smith stood and grinned at me as he thanked me and left the room, leaving me to cry and to ponder on his not very adept handling of the situation.
Stephen Richards
#26. The most I have to fear while hiking in Warwickshire and Worcestershire, the two historic British counties closest to my city home in Birmingham, is whether or not the mud awaiting me in the narrow lanes ahead is deep enough to foul my socks.
Jim Crace
#27. I guess the most surprising discovery was how long Gandhi remained loyal to the ideal of the British Empire, even in India.
Arthur L. Herman
#28. I do like British guys. If I had to pick one it would be Ewan McGregor. I met him once and he was gorgeous, even if he is a little short. He has the most amazing charisma.
Eva Longoria
#29. One of the things I miss most about the U.K. is political TV, and I have one of those little gadgets, which means I can download British programmes illegally - that's why it's a guilty pleasure.
Raza Jaffrey
#30. The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. So a group of the most eminent British scientists put their heads together, and made complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it. To the eternal glory of British science their labor bore fruit.
George Mikes
#31. In the end, history, especially British history with its succession of thrilling illuminations, should be, as all her most accomplished narrators have promised, not just instruction but pleasure.
Simon Schama
#32. As I suffer in the defence of my Country, I must consider this hour as the most glorious of my life -Remember that I die as becomes a British Officer, while the manner of my death must reflect disgrace on your Commander.
John Andre
#33. [After her election to the British Parliament and being welcomed to 'the most exclusive men's club in Europe':] It won't be exclusive long. When I came in, I left the door wide open!
Nancy Astor
#34. Lawyers aren't the most popular people, Miss Allen ... - Murder in Hand
Celia Conrad
#35. The British suffer from a most unfortunate superiority complex - unjustified even under Victoria and most certainly hopelessly out-of-date today.
George Mikes
#36. Jimmy Greaves and Kenny Dalglish had similar know-how, but Dalglish's knowledge and reading of the game was far superior. He was the most complete footballer in British soccer.
Jimmy Armfield
#37. The British census of Palestine in 1922 recorded 84,000 Jews and 670,000 Arabs, of whom 71,000 were Christian, most of the remainder being Muslim.
Lawrence Wright
#38. This most dangerous enemy is the American counterpart of the British Fabian Socialist, who denies that he is a Socialist and operates behind a mask which he calls National Planning.
John T. Flynn
#39. The British system had requirements, including Latin. I'm not positive you ever had to know Greek, but there are certainly kinds of curricula where you had to know Greek too. I think in Britain there was the most mindless, repetitive sort of learning.
William Scott
#40. Pitt and Burke were two of the most eloquent and respected members of Parliament, and taken together, by early 1775, they were warning the British ministry that it was headed toward a war that was unwise, unnecessary, and probably unwinnable.
Joseph J. Ellis
#41. Is it a particularly British trait to so utterly adore truly appalling men, from Tony Hancock through to Steptoe and Alf Garnett, Captain Mainwaring, Rigsby, Del Boy, Victor Meldrew and on to David Brent from The Office. The most deeply adored characters are all simply vile.
A.A. Gill
#42. It is not easy to get parts in mainstream films for most people of color. Hollywood and British writers are not writing parts for us, or the directors are not interested in casting us in parts that are color-blind.
Naveen Andrews
#43. The most satisfying accomplishment for me was winning the British Open in 1996. But the most rewarding times were the times on the mini tours.
Tom Lehman
#44. I live in a beautiful part of British Columbia, and I run through the rainforest. I do have to look over my shoulder to check for a cougar or a wolf though, so sometimes it's not the most relaxing.
Ruth Ozeki
#45. My first book was the most successful debut novel in the U.K. ever and every one of my books has reached number one in the U.K. Clearly the British know brilliance when they see it.
Kathy Reichs
#46. The British, and most European countries, have struggled to accommodate Muslim immigrants, but they have nevertheless welcomed them in large numbers.
Jay Parini
#47. The most likely victim of actual religious discrimination in British society is a Muslim, but the person who is most likely to feel slighted because of their religion is an evangelical Christian.
Trevor Phillips
#48. Being a fan of authentic Dada, I find today's art - what I call 'Bankers' Dada' - mind-numbingly dull. The most challenging work I've seen of late is by The British Art Resistance. Their document, 'A Call for Heroes in an Age of Cowards', is apt in these days of witless chancers.
Billy Childish
#49. Blair ... is accusing us of executing British soldiers. We want to tell him that we have not executed anybody. They are either killed in battle, most of them get killed because they are cowards anyway, the rest they just get captured.
Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf
#50. If the corn laws were altered, the British artisan might again be able to subsist by twelve hours' labour, a most desirable event.
Joseph Hume
#51. The most dangerous country for the U.S. now is Pakistan ... We haven't been this vulnerable since the British burned Washington in 1814.
Robert Gallucci
#52. Of all noxious animals, the most noxious is a tourist. And of all tourists the most vulgar, ill-bred, offensive and loathsome is the British tourist.
Francis Kilvert
#53. I think there's always been a traditionally apocalyptic side to British science fiction, from H.G. Wells onwards. I mean, most of Wells' stories are potentially apocalyptic in some sense or another.
Alan Moore
#54. ... instead of trying to grapple with the implications of the story of empire, the British seem to have decided just to ignore it... the most corrosive part of this amnesia is a sense that because the nation is not what it was, it can never be anything again.
Jeremy Paxman
#55. Most people in this country are very fair-minded; they understand we're in the middle of a very difficult journey of repairing, rescuing, restoring our British economy, and they want us, and they want particularly Liberal Democrats in government, to fight for the fairest possible way of doing that.
Nick Clegg
#56. The most conservative man in this world is the British trade unionist when you want to change him.
Ernest Bevin
#57. My flat's about half a mile away, and you know what I'd like most of all in the world? I'd like a cup of tea. Come on, let's go and put the kettle on.
Philip Pullman
#58. Canada evolved within the British Empire: it inherited the Parliamentary system, the Cabinet system and all the other features of the British constitutional system which had been in place, for the most part, for several centuries before Canada was even thought of.
Stockwell Day
#59. It the British System is the most gigantic system of slavery the world has yet seen, and therefore it is that freedom gradually disappears from every country over which England is enabled to obtain control.
Henry Charles Carey
#60. American audiences tend to underappreciate the British, but 240 years ago they were us: They were the most powerful nation on Earth. Their mercantile empire spanned the planet. They had the most potent and experienced army and navy the world had ever seen.
Rick Atkinson
#61. Few remember that the battle of Rorke's Drift was fought on the same day that the British Army suffered its most humiliating defeat at nearby Isandlwana.
Saul David
#62. In the fall of 1887, Ed Curtis and his father arrived in the Puget Sound area, which was opening up to land opportunists after treaties had removed most of the Indian, and all of the British, claims to the region.
Timothy Egan
#63. I came to Los Angeles and did auditions for television. I made a terrible mess of most of them and I was quite intimidated. I felt very embarrassed and went back to London. I got British television jobs intermittently between the ages of 23 and 27, but it was very patchy.
Michael Fassbender
#64. I think you will find scientists that think like you in Germany and Britain, and you will find politicians that think like Weinberger. I think the most bellicose ruling group in the Western world at the moment is the British.
E.P. Thompson
#65. The British seizure of Hongkong was an aspect of one of the most ugly crimes of the British Empire: the takeover and destruction of India, and the use of India to flood China with opium.
Robert Trout
#66. Eugenio Montale - born in Genoa in 1896, died in Milan, 1981 - is one of the twentieth-century Europeans who has spoken most meaningfully to American and British poets.
Jonathan Galassi
#67. It would not be fair to the critics of Rotary, who include some of the most brilliant of the British and American writers, to charge them with prejudice.
Paul Harris
#68. Mr. Churchill connected truly to what was in the hearts of the British people, which is what a buoyant leader does. One of his most famous quotes is about making mistakes and learning from them. He wasn't shy to admit when things went wrong.
Kevin Allen
#69. To be honest, I would like to have worked with Peter Sellers, because when people talk about classic British actors, you talk about Lawrence Olivier, and Peter Sellers was just in the most amazing films.
Daniel Radcliffe
#70. The most foreign fighters in Iraq are wearing British and American uniforms. The level of self-delusion is bordering frankly on the racist. The vast majority of the people of Iraq are against the occupation of Iraq by the American and British forces.
George Galloway
#71. Although socialism is widely held by the establishment to be outdated, the things that are most popular in British society today are little pockets of socialism, where areas of life have been excluded from the crude operation of market forces and are protected for the benefit of the community
Tony Benn
#72. Mincemeat is decidedly British in its nature and can therefore be disregarded entirely where most civilized palates are concerned.
Clayton Smith
#73. The British invasion was the most important event of my life. I was in New Jersey and the night I saw the Beatles changed everything. I had seen Elvis before and he had done nothing for me, but these guys were in a band.
Steven Van Zandt
#74. Naval dominance of European waters was the largest, longest, most complex and expensive project ever undertaken by the British state and society.
Nicholas Rodger
#75. If the British Fleet were lost or captured, the Atlantic might be dominated by Germany, a power hostile to our way of life, controlling in that event most of the ships and shipbuilding facilities of Europe.
Wendell Willkie
#76. I once worked at a record label called London Records. The company was owned by Roger Ames, one of the most successful figures in the British music industry. Roger always placed a value on loafing, on holidays, on not being in the office all the time.
John Niven
#77. Where once most Europeans would have seen themselves as members of their village or town, they now increasingly felt themselves to be German or French or British, part of something called a nation.
Anonymous
#78. I got bored and then joined the British SAS. It was five very exciting years of my life, and then I'd always had this passion for swimming, so started swimming around the world, in some of the most exotic and distant and dangerous locations.
Lewis Pugh
#79. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics.
George Orwell
#80. British people might wonder 'What the hell is Kenneth Branagh doing directing 'Thor?' but the person asking that the most was Kenneth Branagh. I think he was more surprised than anyone else to find himself doing this kind of film.
Tadanobu Asano
#81. Ryan Giggs will go down as the most successful British footballer of all time and I cannot see anyone ever overtaking him. He's on the brink of his 13th league title, after all.
Gary Neville
#82. Most white Americans only discovered the blues with the British invasion.
Ronnie Wood
#83. As the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from progressive history, so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.
William E. Gladstone
#84. Ricky Gervais would have you believe otherwise, but Sacha Baron Cohen is the most successful British comedian in the world.
David Walliams
#85. Sheep are not considered the most intelligent animals but British scientist say humans may have underestimated the woolly creatures. In fact, the British scientific community is even suggesting that the animals might even be "Irish-smart.".
Jon Stewart
#86. But for the most part, people - of the right kind - are good. For them I put on my corset of cheerfulness, a solid serviceable garment. It holds in the bulgings and oozings of emotion, and soon I find they are, temporarily, stilled.
Anna Lyndsey
#87. At the height of the British Empire very few English novels were written that dealt with British power. It's extraordinary that at the moment in which England was the global superpower the subject of British power appeared not to interest most writers.
Salman Rushdie
#88. The British judiciary is one of the most corrupt in the world because of politically active judges.
Ken Livingstone
#89. My accent has changed my whole life. When I was younger, it was very Nigerian, then when we went to England, it was very British. I think I have a very strange, hybrid accent, and I've worked very hard to get a solid American accent, which is what I use most of the time.
Toks Olagundoye
#90. When I was young, most teachers of philosophy in British and American universities were Hegelians, so that, until I read Hegel, I supposed there must be some truth to his system; I was cured, however, by discovering that everything he said on the philosophy of mathematics was plain nonsense.
Bertrand Russell
#91. I think most of my tastes were British, as far as comedy went, when I was growing up.
Scott Adsit
#92. In the 1970s, British food was beginning to get good, whereas in France it was just starting its long, sad decline. My most memorable meals, however, have been in Italy.
Sebastian Faulks
#93. If you came from Mars and tried to analyse British or American society through novels, you'd think our society was preponderantly full of middle-aged, slightly alcoholic, middle-class, intellectual men, most of whom are divorced from their families and have nothing to do with children.
Mark Haddon
#94. In other words, the most ardent republicans since the fall of Rome were asking their king to help them prevail over the representative legislature of the world's oldest constitutional monarchy, the great symbol and protector of British freedom. From
Sarah Vowell
#95. You know, the taxing authority of the United States is our most powerful weapon. You know, the reason we separated from England was because the British were using it abusively.
Judd Gregg
#96. It is interesting to note that most kings, queens or princes/princesses of the British Empire and Europe were born either on a new moon day or a full moon day! That includes Queen Victoria and even the current Prince William and his consort Kate Middleton.
Greenstone Lobo
#97. was the sound of the most beautiful girl in the whole of the British Isles laughing with delight and amusement.
Neil Gaiman
#98. If you spend any time in Washington you'll find nerds. What happens is most of them sublimate their fixations with comics, or baseball cards, or 1960s British comedies to policy minutiae and political arcana. But, like Christians in ancient Rome, you can still spot them if you know the signals.
Jonah Goldberg
#99. I think British journalists do well in America because the newspaper culture there is so strong - telling stories and presenting them readably is in their DNA. British newspapers get a terrible rap, but they are brilliant in their presentation, most of them, so full of vitality and literary wit.
Tina Brown
