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Quotes by British Authors

"Who is ready to settle for five minutes when three hours does nicely?"


"The dog lives for the day, the hour, even the moment."

"Europe has to address people's needs directly and reflect their priorities, not our own preoccupations."

"Self-consciousness of the manner is the expensive substitute for simplicity."

"From here it sounds great to say we'll all get together soon, but all I know is this: you can call me fifty days or fifty years from now and I'll be glad to see you."

"As virtuous men pass mildly away, and whisper to their souls to go, whilst some of their sad friends do say, the breath goes now, and some say no."


"Arrange whatever pieces come your way."

"One summer I remember, I got exposed to Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly and Buddy Holly was a very very big, made a very big impression on me. Because of a lot of things, you know, the way he looked and his charisma."

"If you say that the history of the Church is a long succession of scandals, you are telling the truth, though if that is all you say, you are distorting the truth."

"The course that will restore to the workmen a father's duties and responsibilities, between which and themselves the state has now stepped, is for them to reject all forced contributions from others, and to do their own work through their own voluntary combinations."

"If you have no friends, invent one!"

"Matthew being a constant attendant on our Lord, his history is an account of what he saw and heard; and, being influenced by the Holy Spirit, his history is entitled to the utmost degree of credibility."


"I dream of you to wake; would that I might Dream of you and not wake but slumber on."


"I've always walked and climbed; spent a lot of time in the arctic and places."

"For three hundred years we have had our focus on the individual. We have distinguished him from the objective world as the Middle Ages did not think of doing. We have given him the world and the universe as a playground for exploration and discovery."


"Never did anybody look so sad. Bitter and black, halfway down, in the darkness, in the shaft which ran from the sunlight to the depths, perhaps a tear formed; a tear fell; the waves swayed this way and that, received it, and were at rest. Never did anybody look so sad."

"As with most liberal sexual ideas, what makes the world a better place for men invariably makes it a duller and more dangerous place for women."

"She was a handsome woman of forty-five and would remain so for many years."

"Oh yeah - for sure - hardly a week doesn't go by when I don't hear something wonderful that someone has made in some low-budget situation, primarily with a view to selling a few hundred copies at their concerts."

"You can only get really unpopular decisions through if the electorate is convinced of the value of the environment. That's what natural history programmes should be for."

"The longest sword, the strongest lungs, the most voices, are false measures of truth."

"Thought fitted thought; opinion met opinion: we coincided, in short, perfectly."

"My main efforts focussed on trying to identify the rate controlling steps during the cell cycle. Crucial for this analysis were wee mutants that were advanced prematurely through the cell cycle and so divided at a reduced cell size."

"The next few years are going to be horrendous in the UK. The last thing we need is a Somali pirate-style raid on the few wealth creators who still dare to navigate Britain's gale-force waters."


"No one ever became great except through many and great mistakes."

"Some of the most corrupt people that you will meet in life are working in corporate government law enforcement. They make criminals look like amateurs."

"I am no party man in this matter in any degree; and if I have any objection to the motion it is this, that whereas it is a motion to inquire into the manufacturing distress of the country, it should have been a motion to inquire into manufacturing and agricultural distress."

"The piece that had a large influence on me was Turangalila."

"To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward."


"The corruption of people is to behave in an inhuman way."

"When you start being enthusiastic about whatever it is you like, that is the golden age for you."


"In my opinion, any man who can afford to buy a newspaper should not be allowed to own one."

"I love the freedom of movement that my phone gives me. That has definitely transformed my life."

"The ruling idea of the politician - stated rather bluntly - is that those who are opposed to him exist for the purpose of being made to serve his ends, if he can get power enough in his hands to force these ends upon them."

"Right now I'm just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath."

"Always carry a corkscrew and the wine shall provide itself."

"I could start with Mandelstam, who was a huge influence on my early writing."
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