Climate helps to shape the character of peoples, certainly no people more than the English. The uncertainty of their climate has helped to make the English, a long-suffering, phlegmatic, patient people rather insensitive to surprise, stoical against storms. slightly incredulous at every appearance of the sun, touched by the lyrical gratitude of someone who expects nothing and suddenly receives more than he dreamed. --- Herbert Ernest Bates, The Country Heart.
You can trust all Englishmen except those who speak French. ---Otto von Bismarck, attributed
The reason why Englishmen are the best husbands in the world is because they want to be faithful. A Frenchman or an Italian will wake up in the morning and wonder what girl he will meet. An Englishman wakes up and wonders what the cricket score is. Barbara Cartland
We are Englishmen; that is one good fact.--Cromwell, speech to Parliament, 1655
I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms: to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.-Queen Elizabeth I Speech to her armies shortly before the sea battle in the English that defeated the Armada.
The English, the English, the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.
The rottenest bits of these islands of ours
We've left in the hands of three unfriendly powers
Examine the Irishman, Welshman or Scot
You'll find he's a stinker, as likely as not.
The Scotsman is mean, as we're all well aware
And bony and blotchy and covered with hair
He eats salty porridge, he works all the day
And he hasn't got bishops to show him the way!
The English, the English, the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.
The Irishman now out contempt is beneath
He sleeps in his boots and he lies through his teeth
He blows up policemen, or so I have heard
And blames it on Cromwell and William the Third!
The English are noble, the English are nice,
And worth any other at double the price
The Welshman's dishonest and cheats when he can
And little and dark, more like monkey than man
He works underground with a lamp in his hat
And he sings far too loud, far too often, and flat!
And crossing the Channel, one cannot say much
Of French and the Spanish, the Danish or Dutch
The Germans are German, the Russians are red,
And the Greeks and Italians eat garlic in bed!
The English are moral, the English are good
And clever and modest and misunderstood.
And all the world over, each nation's the same
They've simply no notion of playing the game
They argue with umpires, they cheer when they've won
And they practice beforehand which ruins the fun!
The English, the English, the English are best
So up with the English and down with the rest.
It's not that they're wicked or natuarally bad
It's knowing they're foreign that makes them so mad!
For the English are all that a nation should be
And the flower of the English are Donald (Michael)
Donald (Michael) and Me!
Flanders & Swan, From the album 'At The Drop of Another Hat'. Song of Patriotic Prejudice.
An Englishman is a man who lives on an island in the North Sea governed by Scotsmen. -- Philip Guedella, "Supers and Superman"
The English women, I am told," she said, 'are frightened to know that they have a part to their bodies which men like! They are horrified, and even disgusted--not like us Eastern women who are proud to think that our men desire us. An Englishman is starved of all passion, that is why the poor things are always taking exercise."-- Princess Musbah Haidar, 1918 in _Arabesque_, 1968
Adams: But Sir, how can you do this in three years?
Johnson: Sir, I have no doubt I can do it in three years.
Adams: But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their dictionary.
Johnson: Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.
James Boswell, Life of Johnson
Shaw's works make me admire the magnificent tolerance and broadmindedness of the English. - James Joyce (1882 &endash; 1941)
Three things to beware of: the hoof of a horse, the horn of a bull and the smile of an Englishman. ~ Seamus MacManus
One matter Englishmen don't think in the least funny is their happy consciousness of possessing a deep sense of humor. - Marshall McLuhan (1911 &endash; 1980)
The English, of all ranks and classes, are at bottom, in all their feelings, aristocrats. They have some concept of liberty, and set some value on it, but the very idea of equality is strange and offensive to them. They do not dislike to have many people above them as long as they have some below them. - John Stuart Mill, letter to Mazzini, 15 Apr.1858, Collected Works, xv, p553
God is decreeing to begin some new and great period in His Church, even to the reforming of Reformation itself. What does He then but reveal Himself to His servants, and as His manner is, first to His Englishmen? --John Milton Areopagitica
The Englishman has all the qualities of a poker except its occasional warmth. ~ Daniel O'Connell 1775-1847 , attrib.
The atmosphere in which we English live is favourable to humour. It is so often hazy, and very rarely is everything clear-cut. J B Priestly quoted in Kate Fox, Watching The English
Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life. Cecil Rhodes 1902
One Englishman - an idiot, two Englishmen - a sporting event, three Englishmen - an empire. --Santayana
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it..It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth, without making some other Englishman despise him. --George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion
Cry, "God for England, Harry! and Saint George!" -- Henry V, act 3, sc 1. The king rallies his army at the siege of Harfleur.
The English talk loudly and seem to care little for other people. This is their characteristic, and a very brutal and barbarous distinction it is.~Sydney Smith
They have too many centuries of fog in their throats.They are naturally lazy, and spend half their time in taking tobacco ~ Samuel de Sorbière 1615-1670 on the English
Those things which the English public never forgives -youth, power and enthusiasm. ~ Oscar Wilde, in R. Ross, Collected Works of Oscar Wilde (1908)
Indeed, in many respects she was quite English and was an excellent example of the fact that we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, the language.-- Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost (1888)
We must be free or die who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.
William Wordsworth. 1770-1850
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