England (original) (raw)

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is situated on the island of Great Britain and located in the northwest Europe. The largest city of England is London. The population of England number around 56 million making up the bulk of the United Kingdom's populace. The English language is the primary language of most inhabitants. England was formerly a sovereign country, until it joined with Scotland in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, which in turn became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.

• No man had once a greater veneration for Englishmen than I entertained. They were dear to me as branches of the same parental trunk, and partakers of the same religion and laws.
  • Samuel Adams, Speech at the State House in Philadelphia (1 August 1776) [1]
• I shall begin with a very earnest and serious Exhortation to all my well disposed Readers, that they would return to the Food of their Forefathers, and reconcile themselves to Beef and Mutton. This was the Diet which bred that hearty Race of Mortals who won the Fields of Cressy and Agincourt.
  • Joseph Addison, The Tatler, no. 148 (21 March 1709), in Donald Frederic Bond (ed.) The Tatler, vol. 2 (1987), p. 335
• I look upon it as a peculiar blessing that I was born an Englishman.
  • Joseph Addison, The Spectator, no. 135 (4 August 1711), in Works, vol. 3 (1811), p. 318
• Brittannia nunc Anglia appellatur, assumens nomen uictorum.
  • Britain is now called England, taking the name of the victors.
  • Æthelweard, Chronicon (ed. & tr. A. Campbell, 1962)
• God is English.
  • John Aylmer, An Harborowe for Faithful and True Subjects (1559), marginal note
• The characteristic danger of great nations like the Romans or the English, which have a long history of continuous creation, is, that they may at last fail from not comprehending the great institutions which they have created.
  • Walter Bagehot, "Lord Althorpe and the Great Reform Act of 1832" (1876)
• England! my country, great and free!
  Heart of the world, I leap to thee!
  • Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene "The Surface", l. 376
• To me, England is the country, and the country is England. And when I ask myself what I mean by England, when I think of England when I am abroad, England comes to me through my various senses... The sounds of England, the tinkle of the hammer on the anvil in the country smithy, the corncrake on a dewy morning, the sound of the scythe against the whetstone, and the sight of a plough team coming over the brow of a hill, the sight that has been in England since England was a land, and may be seen in England long after the Empire has perished and every works in England has ceased to function, for centuries the one eternal sight of England.
  • Stanley Baldwin, Speech to The Royal Society of St George (6 May 1924); On England, And other Addresses (1926), pp. 6-7
• Let Pitt then boast of his victory to his nation of shopkeepers—(Nation Boutiquiere).
  • Bertrand Barère, Speech before the National Convention (16 June 1794). Attributed to Napoleon—Scott's Life of Napoleon. Claimed as a saying of Francis II to Napoleon. Reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 222
• The south-west wind roaring in from the Atlantic...is, I think the presiding genius of England.
  • Hilaire Belloc, Places (1942), "South and North", p. 40
• Quoique leurs chapeaux sont bien laids,
  Goddam! j'aime les anglais.
  • In spite of their hats being very ugly, Goddam! I love the English.
  • Pierre-Jean de Béranger, reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 222
• Les anglais s’amusent tristement selon l'usage de leur pays.
  • The English take their pleasures sadly after the fashion of their country.
  • Maximilien de Béthune, Mémoires (1638), reported in the ODQ, 2nd ed. (1953), p. 517

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

• And did those feet in ancient time,
  Walk upon Englands mountains green:
  And was the holy Lamb of God,
  On Englands pleasant pastures seen!And did the Countenance Divine,
  Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
  And was Jerusalem builded here,
  Among these dark Satanic Mills?Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
  Bring me my Arrows of desire:
  Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
  Bring me my Chariot of fire!I will not cease from Mental Fight,
  Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
  Till we have built Jerusalem,
  In Englands green & pleasant Land.
  • William Blake, "And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time", Preface to Milton (1804–10)
• In France the people sing to amuse themselves, and here they pass their time in boxing.
  • Jean-Bernard, abbé Le Blanc, Letters on the English and French Nations (1747), vol. 2, p. 138
• Beefe is a good meate for an Englysshe man...it doth make an Englysshe man stronge.
  • Andrew Boorde, A Compendyous Regyment or Dyetary of Health (1547), ch. 16
• Good ale, the true and proper drink of Englishmen. He is not deserving of the name of Englishman who speaketh against ale, that is good ale.
  • George Borrow, Lavengro (1851), ch. 68
• Ah! la perfide Angleterre!
  • Ah! the perfidious English!
  • Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, "Sermon pour la fête de la Circoncision de Notre-Seigneur" ["Sermon on the Circumcision"] in Oeuvres complètes, vol. 5 (Paris: Outhenin-Chalandre, 1840), p. 264. Preached at Metz. Quoted by Napoleon on leaving England for St. Helena
• The enemies of the people of England who would have them considered in the worst light represent them as selfish, beef-eaters, and cruel. In this view I resolved today to be a true-born Old Englishman. I went into the City to Dolly's Steak-house in Paternoster Row and swallowed my dinner by myself to fulfill the charge of selfishness; I had a large fat beef-steak to fulfil the charge of beef-eating; and I went at five o'clock to the Royal Cockpit in St. James's Park and saw cock-fighting for about five hours to fulfill the charge of cruelty.
  • James Boswell, journal entry (15 December 1762), in Frederick A. Pottle (ed.) Boswell's London Journal, 1762–1763 (1950), p. 86
• If I should die, think only this of me:
  That there's some corner of a foreign field
  That is forever England. There shall be
  In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
  A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
  Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
  A body of England's, breathing English air,
  Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
  • Rupert Brooke, "The Soldier", 1914 and Other Poems (1915)
• Oh, to be in England,
  Now that April's there,
  And whoever wakes in England
  Sees some morning, unaware,
  That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf,
  Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf
  While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
  In England—now.
  • Robert Browning, "Home Thoughts from Abroad" (1845)
• An Englishman is the unfittest person on Earth to argue another Englishman into slavery.
  • Edmund Burke, Speech...on moving His Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies, March 22, 1775 (London, 1775), p. 45
• The men of England—the men, I mean of light and leading in England.
  • Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Phrase used by Benjamin Disraeli in Speech (28 February 1859). Reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 223
• One of the paradoxes of history has been the way in which the name of England has come to be so closely associated with liberty on the one hand and tradition on the other hand.
  • Herbert Butterfield, Liberty in the Modern World (1952), p. 21
• Britannia needs no bulwarks
  No towers along the steep;
  Her march is o'er the mountain wave,
  Her home is on the deep.
  • Thomas Campbell, "Ye Mariners of England", st. 3
  • Joan Struteers, The Harp of Caledonia, vol. 2 (Glasgow, 1821), p. 149
• The meteor flag of England
  Shall yet terrific burn,
  Till danger's troubled night depart,
  And the star of peace return.
  • Thomas Campbell, "Ye Mariners of England", st. 4
• Men of England! who inherit
  Rights that cost your sires their blood!
  • Thomas Campbell, "Men of England", Theodric, and Other Poems, 2nd ed. (London, 1824), p. 93
• Il y a en Angleterre soizante sectes religieuses différentes, et une seule sauce.
  • In England there are sixty different religions, and only one sauce.
  • Louis-Antoine Caraccioli, reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 223
• A certain man has called us, "of all peoples the wisest in action," but he added, "the stupidest in speech."
  • Thomas Carlyle, "The Nigger Question", reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 223
• O England, little mother, by the sleepless Northern tide,
  Having bred so many nations to devotion, trust, and pride,
  Very tenderly we turn
  With welling hearts that yearn
  Still to love you and defend you, — let the sons of men discern
  Wherein your right and title, might and majesty, reside.
  • Bliss Carman, "Ode on the Coronation of King Edward" (1902), as quoted in H. E. Marshall, Our Empire Story (1903), ch. 4
• England, which is like a huge Fortress or Garrisoned Town, fenced not only with strong Works, her Port-Towns, with a wide and deep Ditch the Sea, but guarded also with excellent Out-Works, the strongest and best-built Ships of War in the World; then so furnisht within with Men and Horse, with Victuals and Ammunition, with Clothes and Money, that if all the Potentates of Europe should conspire (which God forbid) they could hardly distress it.
  • Edward Chamberlayne, Anglicæ Notitia, or, The Present State of England (1669), p. 123
• I know an Englishman,
  Being flattered, is a lamb; threatened, a lion.
  • George Chapman, Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany (1654), act I, sc. ii, l. 208
• I have the principles of an Englishman, and I utter them without apprehension or reserve...this is not the language of faction; let it be tried by that criterion, by which alone we can distinguish what is factious, from what is not—by the principles of the English constitution. I have been bred up in these principles, and I know that when the liberty of the subject is invaded, and all redress denied him, resistance is justifiable... The constitution has its political Bible, by which if it be fairly consulted, every political question may, and ought to be determined. Magna Charta, the Petition of Rights and the Bill of Rights, form that code which I call the Bible of the English constitution. Had some of His Majesty's unhappy predecessors trusted less to the commentary of their Ministers, and been better read in the text itself, the Glorious Revolution might have remained only possible in theory, and their fate would not now have stood upon record, a formidable example to all their successors.
  • Lord Chatham, Speech in the House of Lords (22 January 1770), in The Speeches of the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham in the Houses of Lords and Commons: With a Biographical Memoir and Introductions and Explanatory Notes to the Speeches (1848), p. 98
• From every shires ende
  Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende.
  • Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, "General Prologue", l. 15
• The strangest country I ever visited was England; but I visited it at a very early age, and so became a little queer myself. England is extremely subtle; and about the best of it there is something almost secretive; it is an amateur even more than aristocratic in tradition; it is never official.
  • G. K. Chesterton, Autobiography (1936), ch. 15
• Be England what she will,
  With all her faults, she is my country still.
  • Charles Churchill, The Farewell (1764), l. 27
• When I warned them that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, 'In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken'. Some chicken! Some neck!
  • Winston Churchill, Speech to the Canadian Parliament, Ottawa (30 December 1941)
• I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.
  • Winston Churchill, speech, Lord Mayor's luncheon, London (10 November 1942); Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963 (ed.) Robert Rhodes James, vol. 6 (1974), p. 6,695 — Platt (1989) no. 528
• I am a great admirer of the Scots. I am quite friendly with the Welsh. I must confess to some sentiment about Old Ireland. But there is a forgotten, nay, almost a forbidden word, which means more to me than any other. That word is 'England'.
  • Winston Churchill, quoted in Jack Fishman, If I Lived My Life Again (1974), p. 11
• God and nature have joined England and Ireland together. It is impossible to separate them.
  • Earl of Clonmell, L.C.J. (Ir.), Case of Glennan and others (1796), 26 How. St. Tr. 460
• All that I can boast of in my birth, is, that I was born in Old England; the country from whence came the men who explored and settled North America; the country of Penn, and of the father and mother of General Washington.
  • William Cobbett, The Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine (1796)
• What, for instance, induced me, when so far distant from my country, voluntarily to devote myself to her cause? Her commerce? I neither knew nor cared any thing about it. Her funds? I was so happy as hardly to understand the meaning of the word. Her lands? I could, alas! lay claim to nothing but the graves of my parents.—What, then, was the stimulus? What was I proud of? It was the name and fame of England. Her laws, her liberties, her justice, her might; all the qualities and circumstances that had given her renown in the world, but above all her deeds in arms, her military glory.
  • William Cobbett, Political Register (27 October 1804)
• England is my country: I must share in all her glory and in all her disgrace; and when it is a question of her honour and well-being, I must cast aside all private recollections and feelings. ... I always said...I never would rest until I saw the Americans acknowledge, explicitly our right to dominion on the seas. I wish them all the happiness that men can enjoy in this world; but a nation may be very happy without being permitted to swagger about and be saucy to England.
  • William Cobbett, Political Register (2 June 1832), p. 545
• When poor England stood alone, and had not the access of another kingdom, and yet had more and as potent enemies as now it hath, and yet the King of England prevailed.
  • Edward Coke, Speech to a committee of the House of Commons (2 April 1628) [2]
• Bind her, grind her, burn her with fire,
  Cast her ashes into the sea,—
  She shall escape, she shall aspire,
  She shall arise to make men free;
  She shall arise in a sacred scorn,
  Lighting the lives that are yet unborn,
  Spirit supernal, splendour eternal,
  England!
  • Helen Gray Cone, "A Chant of Love for England", in The Atlantic Monthly (Febraury 1915), p. 263
• 'Tis a glorious charter, deny it who can,
  That's breathed in the words, "I'm an Englishman."
  • Eliza Cook, "An Englishman", reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 223
• I hope for nothing in this world so ardently as once again to see [that] paradise called England. I long to embrace again all my old friends there.
  • Cosimo III de' Medici, in Christopher Hibbet, The House of Medici (1975), ch. 23
• England, with all thy faults, I love thee still—
  My Country! and, while yet a nook is left
  Where English minds and manners may be found,
  Shall be constrained to love thee.
  • William Cowper, The Task (1785), bk. 2, l. 206
• Without one friend, above all foes,
  Britannia gives the world repose.
  • William Cowper, "To Sir Joshua Reynolds", Poems of the Inner Temple, 4th ed. (1782), p. 325
• I hope to render the English name as great and formidable as ever the Roman was.
  • Oliver Cromwell, quoted in The London Magazine (April 1750), p. 196
• Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the same, unto whom a body politic compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of spirituality and temporalty, be bounden and owe to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience.
  • Thomas Cromwell, Preamble to the Act in Restraint of Appeals to Rome (1533), in G. R. Elton (ed.) The Tudor Constitution: Documents and Commentary, 2nd ed. (1982), p. 353
• You often hear that the English climate has had a profound effect upon the English temperament. I don't believe it. I believe they were always like that.
  • Will Cuppy, in W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, Garden Rubbish and Other Country Bumps (1937)
• The Scot, Pict, Britain, Roman, Dane, submit,
  And with the English-Saxon all Unite:
  And these the mixture have so close pursu'd,
  The very Name and Memory's subdu'd:
  No Roman now, no Britain does remain;
  Wales strove to separate, but strove in Vain:
  The silent Nations undistinguish'd fall,
  And Englishman's the common Name for all.
  Fate jumbled them together, God knows how;
  What e'er they were they're True-Born English now.
• A True-Born Englishman's a Contradiction,
  In Speech an Irony, in Fact a Fiction.
  • Daniel Defoe, "The True Born Englishman", A True Collection of the Writings of the Author of The True Born English-man, Corrected by Himself (1703), pp. 11–12
• O Noble England, fall down upon thy knee,
  And praise thy God with thankfull hart, which still maintaineth thee.
  The forraine forces, that seekes thy utter spoile:
  Shall then through his especiall grace be brought to shamefull foile.
  With mightie power they come unto our coast:
  To over runne our countrie quite, they make their brags and boast.
  In strength of men they set their onely stay,
  But we upon the Lord our God will put our trust alway.
  • Thomas Deloney, A Joyful New Ballad, declaring the Happie Obtaining of the great Galleazo, wherein Don Pietro de Valdez was the Chiefe, through the mightie Power and Providence of God (1588) n.p. J. Woodfall Ebswoth (ed.) The Roxburghe Ballads: Illustrating the Last Years of the Stuarts, vol. 6, pt. 1 (1886), p. 384
• We are indeed a nation of shopkeepers.
  • Benjamin Disraeli, The Young Duke (1831), bk. 1, ch. 11
• I am neither Whig nor Tory. My politics are described by one word, and that word is ENGLAND.
  • Benjamin Disraeli, England and France; or, A Cure for the Ministerial Gallomania (1832), p. 13
• The search for wisdom in precedent flourished as if naturally among a people whom foreign observers at a later date have praised especially for its reliance upon tradition rather than upon those wide general theories which claim universal validity.
  • David C. Douglas, "The Development of English Medieval Scholarship between 1660 and 1730", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 21 (1939), p. 32
• The ancient Briton, whom Julius Caesar would not have as a slave, is not to be compared with the round, burly, amplitudinous Englishman in many of his qualities of desirable manhood.
  • Frederick Douglass, "Our Composite Nationality", Speech in Boston, MA (7 December 1869) [3]
• When England wants to set the heel of her power more firmly in the quivering heart of old Ireland, the Celts are an "inferior race."
  • Frederick Douglass, "What the Black Man Wants", Address in Boston, MA (26 January 1865) [4]
• Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail,
  Our lion now will foreign foes assail.
  • John Dryden, Astræa Redux (1660), l. 117

I am already bound unto an husband, which is the kingdom of England. —Elizabeth I

• Our progenitors, the kings of England, have before these times been lords of the English sea on every side...and it would very much grieve us if in this kind of defence our royal honour should be lost.
  • Edward III, Letter to his Admirals (18 August 1336), in Ian Mortimer, The Perfect King (2008), p. 130
• Sir, there was never, since England was England, such a stratagem and mask made to deceive England withal as this is of the treaty of peace.
  • Lord Howard of Effingham, Letter to Francis Walsingham (27 January 1587)
• I am already bound unto an husband, which is the kingdom of England...for every one of you, and as many as are English, are my children and kinsfolks.
  • Elizabeth I, Speech to Parliament (10 February 1559)
• I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach 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 realm.
  • Elizabeth I, Speech to the Troops at Tilbury (9 August 1588)
• For even our enemies hold our nation resolute and valiant, which though they will not outwardly show, they invariably know.
  • Elizabeth I, Speech to Parliament (10 April 1593)
• England, a country where people cry in their hearts and not with their eyes.
  • Buchi Emecheta, Head Above Water (1986), ch. 2
• When mighty Roast Beef was the Englishman's food,
  It ennobled our veins and enriched our blood.
  Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good
  Oh! the Roast Beef of old England,
  And old English Roast Beef!
  • Henry Fielding, "The Roast Beef of Old England", The Grub-Street Opera (1731), act 3, sc. 2
• In these...troublesome days when the great mother Empire stands splendidly isolated in Europe.
  • George Eulas Foster, Speech in the Canadian House of Commons (16 January 1896)
• With lantern jaws, and cooking guy,
  See how the half-starved Frenchmen strut,
  And call us English dogs!
  But soon we'll teach these bragging foes,
  That beef and beer give heavier blows,
  Than soup and roasted frogs.
  • David Garrick, Verses printed under Hogarth's The Invasion, Plate 1: "France" (1756). The Works of William Hogarth, Containing One Hundred and Fifty-Nine Engravings, vol. 1 (1821), p. 128
• Hearts of oak are our ships,
  Jolly tars are our men,
  We always are ready, steady, boys, steady,
  We'll fight and will conquer again and again.
  • David Garrick, "Heart of Oak" (1759)
• Let those malignant spirits confess the renowned value of our nation in the old time and grant...that we are the sons of those our fathers, whose strength and courage in martial acitivity neither Scots, French, nor Spaniards were able to resist...The old English valiancy is not so extinguished in the English nation through long security and corrupt idleness, but it is soon stirred up to a double force when it hath acquainted itself with the exercise in the field.
  • Geoffrey Gates, The Defence of Militarie Profession (1579), pp. 57–58
• England in effect is insular, she is maritime, she is linked through her exchanges, her markets, her supply lines to the most diverse and often the most distant countries; she pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities, and only slight agricultural ones. She has in all her doings very marked and very original habits and traditions. In short, the nature, the structure, the very situation that are England's differ profoundly from those of the continentals.
  • Charles de Gaulle, Press conference in Paris explaining his rejection of Britain's application to join the European Economic Community (14 January 1963), quoted in The Times (15 January 1963), p. 6
• Englishmen are patriots with their whole body. Not only in their heart, their stomach also seems here to feel for the native land. And I have often seen Englishmen round their dinner-table, busy with their roast beef in as quiet and proud a felicity as if they felt the whole worth of their favoured island on their tongues.
  • Erik Gustaf Geijer, in Anton Blanck (ed.) Impressions of England, 1809–1810 (1932) p. 113
• Wake up England. You have been asleep too long.
  • George V, when Prince of Wales. Speech at Guildhall after a trip around the world
• The whole [English] nation, beyond all other mortal men is most given to banquetting and feasts.
  • Paolo Giovio, Historiarum, bk. 11, in Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1651), pt. 2, sect. 2, memb. 6, subs. 4
• Go into the length and breadth of the world, ransack the literature of all countries, find, if you can, a single voice, a single book—find, I would almost say, as much as a single newspaper article, unless the product of the day, in which the conduct of England towards Ireland is anywhere treated except with profound and bitter condemnation.
  • William E. Gladstone, speech on home rule (7 June 1886); The Speeches of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, ed. A. W. Hutton and H. J. Cohen, vol. 9 (1902), p. 127. Reported in Respectfully Quoted (1989), p. 104, no. 530
• England is a well good land; in the stead best
  Set in the one end of the world, and reigneth west.
  The Sea goeth him all about, he stint as an yle,
  Of foes it need the lesse doubt: but it be through gile
  Of folke of the self land.
  • Robert of Gloucester, in Camden's Remaines Concerning Britaine, 2nd ed. (1614), p. 8
• He is an Englishman!
  For he himself has said it,
  And it's greatly to his credit,
  That he's an Englishman! For he might have been a Rooshian
  A French or Turk or Proosian,
  Or perhaps Itali-an.
  But in spite of all temptations
  To belong to other nations,
  He remains an Englishman.
  • W. S. Gilbert, H.M.S. Pinafore (1878)
• We shall treat England like a beautiful flower, but we shan't water the pot.
  • Hermann Goering, quoted by Cyril Connolly, Ideas and Places (1953), p. 142
• The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms.
  • Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller (1764) l. 356
• Blessed mother, handmaiden of old
  To Arthur, Edward, Henry, by whose deeds
  Of valour could their strength of faith be told.
  • Luis de Góngora, On the Armada that sailed for England 1588, translated by Bertrand T. Whitehead, Brags and Boasts: Propaganda in the Year of the Armada (1994), p. 55
• We have stood alone in that which is called isolation — our splendid isolation, as one of our colonial friends was good enough to call it.
  • Lord Goschen, Speech at Lewes (26 February 1896)
• Non Angli sed Angeli.
  • Not Angles but Angels.
  • Pope Gregory I, commenting on the beauty of English captives exposed for sale in Rome. Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), bk. 2, ch. 1
• To harpe no longer upon this string, & to speake a word of that just commendation which our nation doe indeed deserve: it can not be denied, but as in all former ages, they have bene men full of activity, stirrers abroad, and searchers of the remote parts of the world, so in this most famous and peerless government of her most excellent Majesty, her subjects through the speciall assistance, and blessing of God, in searching the most opposite corners and quarters of the world, and to speake plainly, in compassing the vaste globe of the earth more then once, have excelled all the nations and people of the earth.
  • Richard Hakluyt, "The Epistle Dedicatorie", The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, Vol. I [1589] (1885), p. 6
• Living in England, provincial England, must be like being married to a stupid, but exquisitely beautiful wife.
  • Margaret Halsey, With Malice Toward Some (1938)
• England hath been accounted hitherto the most renowned kingdom for valour and manhood in all Christendom; and shall we now lose our old reputation? If we should, it had been better for England we had never been born.
  • Christopher Hatton, Speech at the opening of Parliament (4 February 1589)
• What have I done for you,
  England, my England?
  What is there I would not do,
  England, my own?
  • William Ernest Henley, "Rhymes and Rhythms", XXV ("England, My England"), Poems (1898)
• They are powerful in the field, successful against their enemies, impatient of anything like slavery; vastly fond of great noises that fill the ear, such as the firing of cannon, drums, and the ringing of bells.
  • Paul Hentzner, Travels in England (tr. Richard Bentley, 1797)
• His home!—the Western giant smiles,
  And turns the spotty globe to find it;—
  This little speck the British Isles?
  'Tis but a freckle,—never mind it.
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr, "A Good Time Going", The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858), ch. 9
• The Parliament of England...is that whereupon the very essence of all Government within this Kingdom doth depend; it is even the body of the whole Realm; it consisteth of the King, and of all that within the Land are subject unto him.
  • Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie (1594), bk. 8
• Old England is our home and Englishmen are we,
  Our tongue is known in every clime, our flag on every sea.
  • Mary Howitt, "Old England is Our Home", in Hoyt's (1922), p. 224
• The courage of bull-dogs and game-cocks seems peculiar to England.
  • David Hume, "Essay XXI: Of National Characters", in Eugene Miller (ed.) Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, 1741–1777 (1985), p. 202

Hail England, dear England, true Queen of the West,
With thy fair swelling bosom and ever-green vest,
How nobly thou sitt'st in thine own steady light,
On the left of thee Freedom, and Truth on the right.
—Leigh Hunt

• Hail England, dear England, true Queen of the West,
  With thy fair swelling bosom and ever-green vest,
  How nobly thou sitt'st in thine own steady light,
  On the left of thee Freedom, and Truth on the right,
  While the clouds at thy smile, break apart and turn bright!
  The Muses, full voiced, half encircle the seat,
  And Ocean comes kissing thy princely white feet.
  All hail! All hail!
  All hail to the beauty immortal and free,
  The only true goddess that rose from the sea.
  • Leigh Hunt, "National Song", in The Examiner (25 June 1815), p. 415. Reprinted in The Feast of the Poets, 2nd ed. (1815), p. 173
• This celebrated island, formerly called Albion, afterwards Britain, and now England.
  • Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, bk. 1 (tr. Thomas Forester, 1853)
• Thy own red-cross, proud England, leads me on,
  To fields where glory, freedom, shall be won;
  Fit emblem ours to consecrate the fight,
  Of suffering innocence with lawless might.
  I come to cause the tyrant's rule to cease,
  And o'er the gasping land spread smiling peace;
  Land of my sires! thy blest deliverer be,
  And, Christ me aiding, give thee liberty,
  Or lifeless on thy blood-stained soil to lie,
  For thee to conquer, or for thee to die.
  • Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, bk. 8 (tr. Thomas Forester, 1853)
• The pleasantness of the English... comes in great measure from the fact of their each having been dipped into the crucible, which gives them a sort of coating of comely varnish and colour. They have been smoothed and polished by mutual social attrition. You see Englishmen here in Italy to particularly good advantage. In the midst of these false and beautiful Italians they glow with the light of the great fact, that after all they love a bathtub and hate a lie.
  • Henry James, Letter to Mrs Henry James Sr (13 October 1869)
• I never yet found any other general rule for foretelling what they will do, but that of examining what they ought not to do.
  • Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams (28 September 1789)
• Our laws, language, religion, politics, & manners are so deeply laid in English foundations, that we shall never cease to consider their history as a part of ours, and to study ours in that as it’s origin.
  • Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Duane (12 August 1810)
• The habeas corpus is the single advantage which our government has over that of other countries.
  • Samuel Johnson, Remarks to James Boswell (September 1769), quoted in Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, vol. 2 (1799), p. 70
• English superiority and American obedience.
  • Samuel Johnson, as quoted in Robert DeMaria Jr., The Life of Samuel Johnson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), pp. 252–56
• He spoke of the English, a noble race, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster, silent as deathless gods.
  • James Joyce, Letter to Frank Bugden (June 1919); Stuart Gilbert (ed.) Letters (New York: The Viking Press, 1957), p. 126. Compare: Ulysses (1922), ch. 12: "... he drank to the undoing of his foes, a race of mighty valorous heroes, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster silent as the deathless gods."
• England is the only country in Europe that can boast of having improved its agriculture and the cultivation of its soil beyond that of any other European nation. The condition of English agriculture, compared with that of our own, is like light contrasted with shade.
  • Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi, Von denen Hinternissen einer bluhenden Landwirtschaft (1761)[citation needed]
• The Englishmen understand almost better than any other people the art of properly roasting a joint, which also is not to be wondered at; because the art of cooking as practised by most Englishmen does not extend much beyond roast beef and plum pudding.
  • Pehr Kalm, Account of His Visit to England on His Way to America in 1748 (tr. Joseph Lucas, 1892)
• And what should they know of England who only England know?
  • Rudyard Kipling, "The English Flag", st. 1. The National Observer (4 April 1891)
• What is the Flag of England? Winds of the World, declare!
  • Rudyard Kipling, "The English Flag", st. 2
• Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone,
  But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.
  • Rudyard Kipling, "The English Flag", st. 7
• England is an amazing and paradoxical country; there are, in spite of the great emphasis upon "democracy," all indications of the existence of an aristocratic and oligarchic rule, yet this generally recognized fact caused little if any human resentment among the lower classes. There are actually a few dissatisfied, ambitious people among the middle classes who have a personal grudge against the old school tie and the reverses in the present war have made their protests appear louder than they are. It may be argued that these sentiments expressed are rather antiplutocratic than antiaristocratic. Yet the tacit and genuine, human acceptance of aristocratic or at least upper class leadership gives Britain the right to call itself a "democracy" without being one in reality. Hierarchic feelings always were very strong in England, but the extreme elasticity of the class system has always mitigated the apprehensions if aroused. Nowhere are classes more receptive to new elements, nowhere is it easier to rise socially, yet nowhere are the differences between the classes so marked as in England (with the exception of India and certain sections of the United States). Prewar Alpine Austria or Germany, Spain or even Poland were socially more democratic. Neither has any country in the world an Upper House made up solely of the lords and the bishops of the state Church. The Upper House of Hungary, a country notoriously "reactionary," has a large nonaristocratic majority and representatives of the Jewish faith (not to mention the Lutherans and Calvinists).
  • Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, The Menace of the Herd (1943), p. 218
• English people ... never speak, excepting in cases of fire or murder, unless they are introduced.
  • Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The Book of Beauty, 1833 (1832), "Experiments"
• Whether splendidly isolated or dangerously isolated, I will not now debate; but for my part, I think splendidly isolated, because this isolation of England comes from her superiority.
  • Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Speech in the Canadian House of Assembly (5 February 1896)
• The real tragedy of England as I see it, is the tragedy of ugliness. The country is so lovely: the man-made England is so vile.
  • D. H. Lawrence, "Nottingham and the Mining Countryside", in Edward D. McDonald (ed.) Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence (1936), p. 137
• I have studied History and seen most of the Republics of Europe, and I do not hesitate to affirm that there is, or has been, no Government upon Earth where the property, and especially the person, of the Subject, is by far so secure as it is among us.
  • Jean-Louis de Lolme, A Parallel Between the English Constitution and the Former Government of Sweden (1772), p. 26
• Being sheltered, as it were, within a Citadel, she there reigns over a Nation which is the better entitled to her favours as it endeavours to extend her Empire, and carries with it, to every part of its dominions, the blessings of industry and equality. Fenced in on every side, to use the expressions of Chamberlayne, with a wide and deep ditch, the sea, guarded with strong outworks, its ships of war, and defended by the courage of her Seamen, she preserves that important secret, that sacred fire, so difficult to be kindled, and which, if it were once extinguished, would perhaps never be lighted again. When the World shall have again been laid waste by Conquerors, she will still continue to shew Mankind, not only the principle that ought to unite them, but what is of no less importance, the form under which they ought to be united. And the Philosopher, when he considers the constant fate of civil Societies amongst Men, and observes the numerous and powerful causes which seem as it were unavoidably to conduct them all to a state of incurable political Slavery, takes comfort in seeing that Liberty has at length disclosed her secret to Mankind, and secured an Asylum to herself.
  • Jean-Louis de Lolme, The Constitution of England, 4th ed. (London, 1784), ch. 21
• The New World's sons from England's breast we drew
  Such milk as bids remember whence we came,
  Proud of her past wherefrom our future grew,
  This window we inscribe with Raleigh's fame.
  • James Russell Lowell, Inscription on the Window presented to St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, London, by American citizens in honor of Sir Walter Raleigh (1882), reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 224
• An Englishman hath three qualities, he can suffer no partner in his love, no stranger to be his friend, nor to be dared by any.
  • John Lyly, Euphues and His England (1580), p. 48

The greatness of England is now all collective: individually small, we only appear capable of anything great by our habit of combining. —Mill

• We do not intend to part from the Americans and we do not intend to be satellites. I am sure they do not want us to be so. The stronger we are, the better partners we shall be; and I feel certain that as the months pass we shall draw continually closer together with mutual confidence and respect.
  • Harold Macmillan, broadcast to the nation, London, 17 January 1957.—Vital Speeches of the Day (1 February 1957), p. 247. His first broadcast as prime minister. Reported in Respectfully Quoted (1989), p. 104, no. 531
• Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be.
  • Thomas Babington Macaulay, The Armada, l. 34 (1833)
• That fatal day for England, the sad destruction of our dear country [_dulcis patrie_].
  • William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum (1125), quoted in M. T. Clanchy, England and Its Rulers: 1066–1272 (1998), p. 24
• Wool and flesh are the primitive foundations of England and the English race; ere becoming the world's manufactory of hardware and tissues, England was a victualling-shop; before they became a commercial, they were a breeding and a pastoral people,—a race fatted on beef and mutton; hence their freshness of tint, their beauty and strength: their greatest man, Shakspeare, was originally a butcher.
  • Jules Michelet, quoted in Louis Raymond Véricour, Modern French Literature (1842) pp. 82–3
• England, our native country, one of the most renowned monarchies in the world...By sea is one of the things we ought chiefly to regard, being rightly termed the wall of England.
  • Walter Mildmay, Speech in the House of Commons (22 February 1587)
• There is now scarcely any outlet for energy in this country except business. The energy expended in this may still be regarded as considerable. What little is left from that employment, is expended on some hobby; which may be a useful, even a philanthropic hobby, but is ... generally a thing of small dimensions. The greatness of England is now all collective: individually small, we only appear capable of anything great by our habit of combining; and with this our moral and religious philanthropists are perfectly contented. But it was men of another stamp than this that made England what it has been; and men of another stamp will be needed to prevent its decline.
  • John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 4th ed. (1869), ch. 3
• I am American bred,
  I have seen much to hate here — much to forgive,
  But in a world where England is finished and dead,
  I do not wish to live.
  • Alice Duer Miller, The White Cliffs (1940)
• Lords and Commons of England, consider what Nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors: a Nation not slow and dull, but of quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, suttle and sinewy to discours, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that humane capacity can soar to.
  • John Milton, Areopagitica (1644), p. 30
• The English Cookes, in comparison with other Nations, are most commended for roasted meates.
  • Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary Containing His Ten Yeeres Travell (1617), pt. 3, p. 150
• Roast-Beef...is the favourite Dish as well at the King's Table as at a Tradesman's; 'tis common to see one of these Pieces weigh from twenty to thirty Pound, and from thirty to forty: And this may be said to be (as it were) the Emblem of the Prosperity and Plenty of the English.
  • Béat Louis de Muralt, Letters Describing the Character and Customs of the English and French Nations (1726), pp. 39–40
• Their Dogs are, I believe, the boldest in the World...They neither bark nor bite; they fight to Death without any Noise. One may see some of these Creatures dragging along a broken Leg, and returning to the Charge. I am assur'd that one of them, in King Charles II's time, kill'd a Lion, and that it has been proved by Experience, that such as are of a true breed will suffer their Legs to be cut off, one after another, without letting go their hold. If I durst, I would readily say, that there's a strong Resemblance in many things between the English and their Dogs. Both are silent, head-strong, lazy, unfit for Fatigue, no way quarrelsome, intrepid, eager in fight, insensible of blows, and incapable of parting.
  • Béat Louis de Muralt, Letters Describing the Character and Customs of the English and French Nations (1726), p. 41

England is a nation of shopkeepers.

England expects that every man will do his duty. —Nelson

• The historical development of England is based upon the fact that her frontiers against Europe are drawn by Nature, and cannot be the subject of dispute; that she is a unit sufficiently small for coherent government to have been established and maintained even under very primitive conditions; that since 1066 she has never suffered serious invasion; that no big modern armies have succeeded her feudal levies; and that her senior service is the navy, with which foreign trade is closely connected. In short, a great deal of what is peculiar in English history is due to the obvious fact that Great Britain is an island.
  • Lewis Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolution (1930), pp. 6-7
• You were greatly offended with me for having called you a nation of shopkeepers.
  • Attributed to Napoleon by Barry E. O'Meara, Napoleon in Exile; or, A Voice from St. Helena (London, 1822), vol. 2, p. 81
• To be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is.
  • Ogden Nash, "England Expects—", The Face Is Familiar (1941), p. 217
• England expects that every man will do his duty.
  • Horatio Nelson, Signal to the Fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805)
• Non seulement l'Angleterre, mais chaque Anglais est une ile.
  • Not only England, but every Englishman is an island.
  • Novalis, Fragments (1799), reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 224
• [Britons] would rather take the risk of civilizing communism than being kicked around by the unlettered pot-bellied money magnates of the United States.
  • Tom O'Brien, as quoted in The New York Times (23 August 1949), p. 4
• On the other side, the English troops, assembled from all parts of the neighbourhood, took post at a place which was anciently called Senlac, many of them personally devoted to the cause of Harold, and all to that of their country, which they were resolved to defend against the foreigners...The English, on their side, made a stout resistance, each man straining his powers to the utmost...At length the indomitable bravery of the English threw the Bretons...into confusion...Towards the evening, the English finding that their king and the chief nobles of the realm, with a great part of their army, had fallen...they had recourse to flight as expeditiously as they could...There the flower of the youth and nobility of England covered the ground far and near stained with blood.
  • Orderic Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica (ed. Thomas Forester, 1853)
• England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control - that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.
  • George Orwell, "England Your England" (1941)
• In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought. England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always anti-British. It is questionable how much effect this had, but it certainly had some. If the English people suffered for several years a real weakening of morale, so that the Fascist nations judged that they were 'decadent' and that it was safe to plunge into war, the intellectual sabotage from the Left was partly responsible. Both the New Statesman and the News Chronicle cried out against the Munich settlement, but even they had done something to make it possible. Ten years of systematic Blimp-baiting affected even the Blimps themselves and made it harder than it had been before to get intelligent young men to enter the armed forces. Given the stagnation of the Empire, the military middle class must have decayed in any case, but the spread of a shallow Leftism hastened the process.
  • George Orwell, "England Your England" (1941)
• England has not had the time, nor made the effort, to develop an inclusive, civic, progressive nationalism. It is left with a nationalism that is scarcely articulated in positive terms at all and that thus plugs into the darker energies of resentment and xenophobia.
  • Fintan O'Toole, "Brexit fantasy is about to come crashing down", The Irish Times (25 June 2016)

There'll always be an England
And England shall be free
If England means as much to you
As England means to me.

• I have left there a true Englishman's hand.
  • William Page, remark after his hand had been cut off as a punishment for distributing John Stubbs's Gaping Gulf (3 November 1579)
• I hold that the real policy of England—apart from questions which involve her own particular interests—is to be the champion of justice and right; pursuing that course with moderation and prudence, not becoming the Quixote of the world, but giving the weight of her moral sanction and support wherever she thinks that justice is, and wherever she thinks that wrong has been done.
  • Lord Palmerston, remarks in the House of Commons defending his foreign policy (March 1, 1848); in Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 3d series, vol. 97, col. 122
• There'll always be an England,
  While there's a country lane.
  Wherever there's a cottage small,
  Beside a field of grain.There'll always be an England
  And England shall be free
  If England means as much to you
  As England means to me.
  • Ross Parker and Hughie Charles, "There'll Always Be an England" (1939)
• Oh the crap that lies lurking in the English soul. Somewhere it, the English soul, received an injection of romanticism which nearly killed it.
  • Walker Percy, The Moviegoer (1961)
• The common law of England is the common law of Ireland, where the latter is not altered by statute.
  • Louis Perrin, J., Queen v. O'Connell (1843), 5 St. Tr. (N.S.) 63
• You are, and have been, feared over all;
  England's an isle of stout and hardy men.
  Be strong in faith, your foes downright shall fall;
  For one of you, in arms, shall vanquish ten.
  • John Phillips, A Commemoration of the Life and Death of Sir Christopher Hatton (1591), p. 6
• I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me; but Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.
  • William Pitt the Younger, In his last Speech, made at the Lord Mayor's Banquet at Guildhall (9 November 1805), as reported by Macaulay—Miscellaneous Writings, vol. 4, p. 368. "But Europe is not to be saved by. any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example." Stanhope's—Life of Pitt, vol. 4, p. 346. Reported as told him by the Duke of Wellington (1838). Neither the Morning Herald, nor the Times of 11 November 1805 mention these words in comment on the speech. The London Chronicle and St. James's Chronicle give different versions. Reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 224
• [King Edward] was careful not to tear England violently from the splendid isolation in which she had wrapped herself.
  • Raymond Poincaré, Speech at Cannes (13 April 1912), as quoted in Notes and Queries, ser. 11, no. 123 (4 May 1912), p. 358
• Oh, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim,
  Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame?
  In living medals see her wars enroll'd,
  And vanquished realms supply recording gold?
  • Alexander Pope, Moral Essays, VII: "To Addison" (1720), l. 53
• Dieu et mon droit.
  • God and my right.
  • Password of the day given by Richard I, to his army at the Battle of Gisors (27 September 1198). In memory of the victory it was made the motto of the royal arms of England. Reported in Hoyt's (1922), pp. 224–25
• The martial airs of England
  Encircle still the earth.
  • Amelia B. Richards, "The Martial Airs of England", in Hoyt's (1922), p. 225
• Be favourable and gracious O Lord to this thy English Sion...O Lord we thy Servants humbly beseeche thee, to bless and prosper not only our Sea causes, but also all our land service, her Majesty's most honourable General, Marshal, Captains, Officers, and English soldiers whatsoever, strengthen them with courage and manliness, that they may suppress the slights of Antichrist, with all the force and power of foreign enemies, and papistical practices, that dare pre­sume to attempt any harm or hurt to her royal Majesty, their honours, her English people, or to this noble Realm of England.
  • Henry Roberts, A Prayer for Assistance against the Armada (1588)
• Where are the tough brave Britons to be found
  With Hearts of Oak, so much of old renowned?
  • Susanna Centlivre, The Cruel Gift (1717). Epilogue written by Nicholas Rowe. Compare: "He was...a heart of oak, and a pillar of the land." Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1691) vol. 2, p. 221 · "Yonkers that have hearts of oake at fourscore yeares." Old Meg of Hertfordshire (1609) · "Those pigmy tribes of Panton street, / Those hardy blades, those hearts of oak, / Obedient to a tyrant's yoke." A Monstrous Good Lounge (1777), p. 5. Reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 223 (with "rough" not "tough")
• No other country has such seasons or complexions in a year. And every place is beautiful in its way, from Cornwall to Cumberland. The people are as peculiar as the place, not the Normans, but the silent, staring English. Slaves in their own country. What do they make of it? Perhaps, I'm cooler than the others. There was no heat at my conception. But I love this cool, green country. So old, so deceptively deep.
  • King John (John Duttine), in The Devil's Crown (1978 BBC TV)
  • Written by Jack Russell and Ken Taylor
• Politics in this country seem to interest everyone. I suppose this taste is cultivated by the liberty which the government affords, and in which Englishmen take great pride, for they value this gift more than all the joys of life, and would sacrifice everything to retain it. Even the populace will make proof of this, and will give you to understand that there is no country in the world where such perfect freedom may be enjoyed as in England.
  • César-François de Saussure, Letter VII (7 February 1727)
• It may be said with entire justice that Englishmen are very brave; they give a convincing proof of this in seeming to fear neither death nor danger. Their soldiers fight with the greatest valour.
  • César-François de Saussure, Letter VII (7 February 1727)
• England undoubtedly is, in my opinion, the most happily governed country in the world.
  • César-François de Saussure, Letter XV (August 1729)
• Those proud Islanders whom many unduly honour, know no watchword but gain and enjoyment. Their zeal for knowledge is only a sham fight, their worldly wisdom a false jewel, skilfully and deceptively composed, and their sacred freedom itself too often and too easily serves self-interest. They are never in earnest with anything that goes beyond palpable utility. All knowledge they have robbed of life and use only as dead wood to make masts and helms for their life's voyage in pursuit of gain.
  • Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, tr. J. Oman (1898), pp. 9-10
• There is no Easter Bunny, there is no Tooth Fairy and there is no Queen of England.
  • Hal Stewart/Tighten (Jonah Hill) in Megamind (2010 film)
  • Written by Alan Schoolcraft and Brent Simons
• This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle
  This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
  This other Eden, demi-paradise,
  This fortress built by Nature for herself
  Against infection and the hand of war,
  This happy breed of men, this little world,
  This precious stone set in the silver sea,
  Which serves it in the office of a wall
  Or as a moat defensive to a house,
  Against the envy of less happier lands,—
  This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), act 2, sc. 1, l. 40
• This England never did, nor never shall,
  Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
  But when it first did help to wound itself.
  Now these her princes are come home again,
  Come the three corners of the world in arms,
  And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
  If England to itself do rest but true.
  • William Shakespeare, King John (c. 1598), act 5, sc. 6
• O England! model to thy inward greatness,
  Like little body with a mighty heart,
  What might'st thou do, that honour would thee do,
  Were all thy children kind and natural!
  But see thy fault!
  • William Shakespeare, Henry V (c. 1599), act 2, chorus, l. 16

There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find an Englishman doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles. —Shaw

• Oh, Britannia the pride of the ocean
  The home of the brave and the free,
  The shrine of the sailor's devotion,
  No land can compare unto thee.
  • Davis Taylor Shaw, "Britannia". Probably written some time before the Crimean War, when it became popular. Changed to "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean" when sung by Shaw in America. Claimed that Thomas à Becket wrote words for Shaw. See Notes and Queries (20 August 1899), pp. 164, 231. Reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 225
• There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find an Englishman doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles.
  • George Bernard Shaw, Man of Destiny (1897), one act play, in his Complete Plays with Prefaces, vol. 1, p. 743 (1962)
• And in my mind I have comprised,
  Of the proud Scot, King Jemmy,
  To write some little tragedy,
  For no manner consideration
  Of any sorrowful lamentation,
  But for the special consolation
  Of all our royal English nation.
  • John Skelton, Against the Scots (c. 1513), ll. 70–76
• Well of all dogs it stands confess'd,
  Your English bull dogs are the best
  • Christopher Smart, Fables (1755), "The English Bull Dog, Dutch Mastiff, and Quail", ll. 41–42
• To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a nation of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers, but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.
  • Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776), vol. 2, bk. 4, ch. 7, pt. 3
• The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and to common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants, and the fatuity of idiots.
  • Sydney Smith, Two Letters on the Subject of the Catholics (1807), Letter 2, p. 23
• The most high and absolute power of the realm of England consisteth in the Parliament...[There] is the force and power of England.
  • Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum (1583), p. 34
• The prince is the life, the head, and the authority of all things that be done in the realm of England.
  • Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum (1583), p. 47
• Saint George shalt called bee,
  Saint George of mery England, the sign of victoree.
  • Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1589–96), bk. 1, canto 10, st. 61
• Whenever I think of Hell I cannot visualise it as a place of eternal fire, but as one of your English industrial towns on a day when the rain is pattering on the slate roofs and the wind is moaning up the street; a place where the horizon is bounded by dark factory chimneys, with crowds of women muffled up in waterproofs slipping in the puddles in their galoshes, with red noses peering out of heavy mufflers.
  • Walter Starkie, The Waveless Plain (1938), p. 488
• First drink a health, this solemn night,
  A health to England, every guest;
  That man's the best cosmopolite,
  Who loves his native country best.
  May Freedom's oak forever live
  With stronger life from day to day;
  That man's the true Conservative
  Who lops the moulder'd branch away.
  Hands all round!
  God the tyrant's hope confound!
  To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends,
  And the great name of England round and round.
  • Alfred Tennyson, "Hands all round" [1852] in Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son (1898) vol. 1, p. 345
• There is no land like England,
  Where'er the light of day be;
  There are no hearts like English hearts,
  Such hearts of oak as they be;
  There is no land like England,
  Where'er the light of day be:
  There are no men like Englishmen,
  So tall and bold as they be!And these will strike for England,
  And man and maid be free
  To foil and spoil the tyrant
  Beneath the greenwood tree.
  • Alfred Tennyson, The Foresters (1892), act 2, sc. 1
• I think England is the very place for a fluent and fiery writer. The highest hymns of the sun are written in the dark. I like the grey country. A bucket of Greek sun would drown in one colour the crowds of colour I like trying to mix for myself out of grey flat insular mud.
  • Dylan Thomas, Letter to Lawrence Durrell (December 1938), in David Blackburn, "The lost world of Lawrence Durrell", The Spectator (29 February 2012)
• When Britain first at Heaven's command,
  Arose from out the azure main,
  This was the charter of the land,
  And guardian angels sung this strain;
  "Rule Britannia! rule the waves;
  Britons never will be slaves."
  • James Thomson, "Rule, Britannia", Alfred (1740), act II, sc. x
• An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct.
  • Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, bk. 9, ch. 10 (tr. Aylmer and Louise Maude)
• A shopkeeper will never get the more custom by beating his customers, and what is true of a shopkeeper is true of a shopkeeping nation.
  • Josiah Tucker, Four Tracts on Political and Commercial Subjects (1774)
• Lord, open the King of England's eyes.
  • William Tyndale, last words on the scaffold (October 1536), in Foxe's Book of Martyrs (1563)

In all her wars England always wins one battle—the last. —Venizelos

• The late M. Venizelos observed that in all her wars England—he should have said Britain, of course—always wins one battle—the last.
  • Eleftherios Venizelos, as quoted by Winston Churchill, speech, Lord Mayor's luncheon, London (10 November 1942); Robert Rhodes James (ed.) Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963, vol. 6 (1974), p. 6,693. Eleftherios Venizelos was a Greek statesman. During the First World War, he championed the cause of the allies. Reported in Respectfully Quoted (1989), p. 104, no. 529
• Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.
  • Attributed to Voltaire in Town and Country Magazine, or Universal Repository of Knowledge, Instruction, and Entertainment (September 1793), pp. 414–5. Also in Hoyt's (1922), p. 225
• Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
  • Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, "Time", The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
• Set in this stormy Northern sea,
  Queen of these restless fields of tide,
  England! what shall men say of thee,
  Before whose feet the worlds divide?
  • Oscar Wilde, "Ave Imperatrix", Poems (1881)
• I travelled among unknown men,
  In lands beyond the sea;
  Nor, England! did I know till then,
  What love I bore to thee.
  • William Wordsworth, "I Travelled among Unknown Men" (1807)
• [Friars] pursue priests, for they reprove their sins as God bids, both to bren [i.e. burn] them, and the Gospel of Christ, written in English, to most learning of our nation.
  • John Wycliffe, A Treatise Against Orders of Friars (c. 1380), ch. 36. Robert Vaughan (ed.) Tracts and Treatises of John de Wycliffe: With Selections and Translations from His Manuscripts and Latin Works (1845), p. 247
• England's innermost truth and at the same time her most valuable contribution to the assets of the human family is the "gentleman", rescued from the dusty chivalry of the early Middle Ages and now penetrating into the remotest corner of modern English life. It is an ultimate principle hat never fails to carry conviction, the shining armour of the perfect knight in soul and body, and the miserable coffin of poor natural feelings.
  • C. G. Jung, "The Complications of American Psychology" – originally published in English as "Your Negroid and Indian Behavior", Forum (New York), LXXXIII (1930) – in R. F. C. Hull (ed.) Civilization in Transition (New York: Pantheon Books, 1964) p. 512
• Be it Declared and Enacted by this present Parliament and by the Authority of the same, That the People of England, and of all the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging, are and shall be, and are hereby Constituted, Made, Established, and Confirmed to be a Commonwealth and Free-State: And shall from henceforth be Governed as a Commonwealth and Free-State, by the Supreme Authority of this Nation, The Representatives of the People in Parliament, and by such as they shall appoint and constitute as Officers and Ministers under them for the good of the People, and that without any King or House of Lords.
  • An Act Declaring England to be a Commonwealth (19 May 1649)
• Ils s'amusaient tristement selon la coutume de leur pays.
  • They [the English] amuse themselves sadly as is the custom of their country.
  • Attributed to Froissart. Not found in his works. Same in Duc de Sully's Memoirs (1630) ("l'usage" instead of "coutume"). See Emerson—English Traits, ch. 8. Hazlitt—Sketches and Essays, Merry England ("se rejouissoient" instead of "s'amusaient"). Reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 223
• Of England the nation
  Is Englishman there in common.
  The speech that man with most may speed
  Most therewith to speak was need.
  Seldom was for any chance
  Praised English tongue in France.
  • Cursor Mundi (c. 1300), l. 241, quoted in M. T. Clanchy, England Its Rulers, 1066–1307 (1998), p. 328
• Shall our people, our nation, bear
  You to go hence with our gold?
  You that have come so far
  Unfought with, into our country, carrying war!
  Think you to get tribute softly and fair?
  • The Battle of Maldon (c. 1000), in James Reeves, The Poets' World: An Anthology of English Poetry (1948), p. 34
• The government of England is a government of law. We betray ourselves, we contradict the spirit of our laws, and we shake the whole system of English jurisprudence, whenever we entrust a discretionary power over the life, liberty, or fortune of the subject to any man, or set of men, whatsoever, upon a presumption that it will not be abused.
  • Letters of Junius, no. 46 (25 May 1771)
• The liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman.
  • Letters of Junius, Dedication to the English Nation (1772)
• The trewe processe of Englysh polycye
  Of utterwarde to kepe thys regne in rest
  Of oure England, that no man may denye
  Ner say of soth but it is one the best,
  Is thys, as who seith, south, north, est and west
  Cheryshe marchandyse, kepe thamyralte,
  That we bee maysteres of the narowe see.
  • Libelle of Englyshe Polycye (c. 1436), l. 1 (ed. George Warner, 1926)
• Our fathers have vanquished forreine Princes: and shall not wee fight for our owne Prince? Our fathers have conquered other Realmes: and shall not wee defend our owne Realme? Our fathers have been Lords of other Countries: and shall we be slaves in our owne Countrie? What an alteration (or rather degeneration) would this bee in us? how dishonourable to the English name and Nation? ... [L]et us link togither in one mind, in one faith, in one force, let us sticke togither, fight togither, die togither, like men, like Englishmen, like true-harted Englishmen. ... Wherein if we joyne all, our hartes, armes, and forces togither, like true and faithful subjects, I am fully perswaded our, forrein invadors, whensoever they come, shall find England the hotest country that ever they set foote in: We are likely inough to measure their Spanish Cassocks with our English bowes.
  • G.D., A Briefe Discoverie of Doctor Allens Seditious Drifts (1588), pp. 124, 126-127
• An Englishman's home is his castle.
  • See: Castle doctrine
• Anglica gens est optima flens et pessima ridens.
  • The English race is the best at weeping and the worst at laughing.
  • Thomas Hearne, Reliquiæ Hearnianæ (ed. 1857) vol. 1, p. 136. Source referred to Chamberlayne, Anglicæ Notitia (1669), p. 35. From old Latin saying quoted in Kornmannus, De Linea Amoris, ch. 2, p. 47 (ed. 1610). Binder, Novus Thesaurus Adagiorum Latinorum (1861) no. 2983. Neander's Ethice Vetus et Sapiens (Leipzig, 1590) (with "sed" not "et", "Rustica" not "Anglica"). Reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 224
• England is a paradise for women, and hell for horses: Italy is a paradise for horses, hell for women.
  • Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) pt. 3, sec. 3, memb. 1, subsect. 2
• England is a prison for men, a paradise for women, a purgatory for servants, a hell for horses.
  • Thomas Fuller, The Holy State and the Profane State (1642)
• Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations, ed. Suzy Platt (Washington: Library of Congress, 1989), p. 104–5, nos. 528–40
• Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations, ed. Kate Louise Roberts (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co, 1922), pp. 222–5
• Great Britain
• Scotland
• Wales