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Quotes by British Authors
"What are men to rocks and mountains?"
"I cannot understate the ability to handle classical texts such as Shakespeare."
"If Iran becomes a nuclear weapon state it is the end of non-proliferation as we know it. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon you are likely to see Saudi, Egypt and other countries follow suit and we will bequeath to the next generation a nuclear arms race in the world's most unstable region."
"Vulgar and common persons, as they carry nothing out of this world, so they leave nothing in it: they receive no eminency in their birth, they acquire none in their life, they have none when they die, they leave none at their death."
"I cannot, if I am in the field of glory, be kept out of sight: wherever there is anything to be done, there Providence is sure to direct my steps."
"I did start reading quite young but I was always read to by my parents, who are both actors. Bedtime stories from when I was about two/three to when I was about 15. In fact they didn't stop until I eventually kind of kicked them out of my bedroom."
"There certainly does seem a possibility that the detective story will come to an end, simply because the public will have learnt all the tricks."
"Those early steps are very important in understanding the evolution. But in themselves, maybe now you need the later records to understand the significance of the earlier records!"
"I'm delighted to be Number 1, but next week I don't want people to buy my record, I want them to buy Band Aid."
"Women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government."
"It is normal for politicians in all countries to profess themselves the pupils of history, anxious to draw the right lessons from her teaching."
"Men would find it much harder because men have such odd personal relationships with each other. They don't really emotionally connect, whereas women do. I think women become very close."
"Moral courage is higher and a rarer virtue than physical courage."
"An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only. . . . We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savour the real beauties. Till then, it is like wasting great wine on a ravenous natural thirst which merely wants cold wetness."
"Television has dried up for my generation, so it's plays and films."
"He has all those different aspects to him, so I can more or less decide as a performer how I'm going to deliver a line in a particular scene, or play a particular scene in total."
"I also think we need to maintain distinctions - the doctrine of creation is different from a scientific cosmology, and we should resist the temptation, which sometimes scientists give in to, to try to assimilate the concepts of theology to the concepts of science."
"I could have been an architect, but I don't think I'd have been very happy. Nearly all modern architecture is a silly game as far as I can see."
"I'm not anti-American. I've lived with Kenny, a Texan, for six years."
"I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them."
"The first requirement of politics is not intellect or stamina but patience. Politics is a very long run game and the tortoise will usually beat the hare."
"I am for peace, retrenchment and reform, the watchword of the great Liberal Party thirty years ago."
"People are still crazy about Python after twenty-five years, which I find hard to believe."
"In philosophy, it is not the attainment of the goal that matters, it is the things that are met along the way."
"Nothing brings me more happiness than trying to help the most vulnerable people in society. It is a goal and an essential part of my life - a kind of destiny. Whoever is in distress can call on me. I will come running wherever they are."
"Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained."
"I was so incensed that I was oblivious to all as I ran over broken glass, holding a five-foot weightlifting bar. The glass tore the soles of my feet as I chased the gang's car up the street. I remember breathing heavily as I cursed failing to catch my enemies."
"It is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they are confirmed by theory."
"We were from totally different social backgrounds. This is what is very hard for an American to understand, but we could have been five guys from Mars."
"And maybe that's being the third child, although my entire family are very resilient - very, very resilient."
"A woman who looks like a girl and thinks like a man is the best sort, the most enjoyable to be and the most pleasurable to have and to hold."
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