144 Being British Quotes

Following is our list of being british quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about what does it mean to be british.

Quick Jump To

Famous Being British Quotes

It is the clash of two different worlds that makes British-ness unique - we have an aristocratic, noble history, but it is always contrasted with something rebellious. — Christopher Bailey

I come from an immigrant family, but I know no other nationality apart from British. — Maajid Nawaz

British fashion is self confident and fearless. It refuses to bow to commerce, thus generating a constant flow of new ideas whilst drawing in British heritage. — Alexander McQueen

Because I am an Englishman I spent most of my life in a state of embarrassment. - Colin Firth

Because I am an Englishman I spent most of my life in a state of embarrassment. — Colin Firth

Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life. — Cecil Rhodes

Why lower oneself to taking pride from being American or British, when you can boast of being man! — Jules Verne

I was, by the way - I'm an Essex lad, born and raised in Essex in the U.K. — Maajid Nawaz

It is important that those that do come to settle in the U.K. gain a sense of British identity and share British values. We have always attracted the best and brightest. — Rishi Sunak

Australian is British people that weren't doin good. — Theo Von

I'm embarrassed when I see Brits abroad; they have their tops off, wear flip flops, and shout at the top of their voices. — Noel Gallagher

There's something whimsical, satirical, and silly about British humor, which Americans have always enjoyed, and lots of us come over here because we have an audience of people who enjoy it. — Milo Yiannopoulos

The place was so British, I wouldn't have been surprised if the mice wore monocles. — Bob Hope

In the United Kingdom, we need to promote an inclusive British identity that involves and empowers people from all ethnic and faith backgrounds. — Maajid Nawaz

It's weird, because usually if you're British and you go to America you play baddies; but I play naughty people here and goodies in America. — Paul Bettany

A country of long shadows on county cricket grounds, warm beer, green suburbs, dog lovers, and old maids cycling to holy communion through the morning mist. — John Major

Short Being British Quotes

  • I'm English and as such I crave disappointment. That's why I buy Kinder Surprise. — Bill Bailey
  • Being a posh actor in England you cannot escape the class-typing from whatever side you look at it. — Benedict Cumberbatch
  • An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one. — George Mikes
  • Yes, ruling by fooling, is a great British art with great Irish fools to practice on. — James Connolly

Top 10 Being British Quotes

If there be a God, I think he would like me to paint Africa British-Red as possible. — Cecil Rhodes

We fight to exist. Personally, I am not ashamed of fighting to exist. We are doing no very extraordinary thing to fight simply because we do not wish to be enslaved or exterminated. — Donald Woods Winnicott

Can't' will be the epitaph of the British Empire - unless we wake up in time. — Oswald Mosley

I gave my parole once, and it has been shamefully violated by the British Government; I shall not give another to people on whom no faith can be reposed. — Christopher Gadsden

The British state already invests in early intervention campaigns in drug abuse and sexual health. Challenging extremism should be no less of a priority. — Maajid Nawaz

If I am pushed I will push back, that is the way I am. I am very British. We don't like to be pushed around. When the chips are down we might have to step into grey areas. — Damon Hill

The single most important thing you can do in business is to be yourself. — Sherry Lansing

What a privilege and honour it has been to be part of seven years of magic in a tent – ‘The Great British Bake Off.’ — Mary Berry

That more than 90 per cent of the Indian population should continue to be illiterate even after 175 years of British rule in this country is an intolerable situation which calls for immediate action. — Syama Prasad Mukherjee

Our ability to make a decision about the declaration is hampered by the British government being reluctant to give us the clarification which we require. — Martin McGuinness

Being British Image Quotes

Lord Of The Flies Quotes

For each and every person, our Lord and Master provides sustenance. Why are you so afraid, O mind? The flamingos fly hundreds of miles, leaving their young ones behind. Who feeds them, and who teaches them to feed themselves? Have you ever thought of this in your mind? — Guru Nanak

You never walk alone. Even the devil is the lord of flies. — Gilles Deleuze

You may readily judge whether you are a child of God or a hypocrite by seeing in what direction your soul turns in seasons of severe trial. The hypocrite flies to the world and finds a sort of comfort there. But the child of God runs to his Father and expects consolation only from the Lord's hand. — Charles Spurgeon

They (the consecrated) are men and woman who can awaken the world. Consecrated life is prophecy. God asks us to fly the nest and to be sent to the frontiers of the world, avoiding the temptation to 'domesticate' them. This is the most concrete way of imitating the Lord. — Pope Francis

I can't remember coming across a more precise evocation of innocence lost since Golding's The Lord of the Flies. With The Death of Sweet Mister, Daniel Woodrell has written his masterpiece-spare, dark, and incandescently beautiful. It broke my heart. — Dennis Lehane

They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords. Lords without anger and honor, who dare not carry their swords. They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes; They look at our labor and laughter as a tired man looks at flies. — G. K. Chesterton

As the show's executive producer, I envisioned something akin to "Gilligan's Island" meets Lord of the Flies meets Ten Little Indians mets "The Real World." "Survivor" marks a return to a core element of adventure: staying alive. — Mark Burnett

I learned that if you're going to be a troublemaker, you don't want a ton of witnesses, because there's inevitable fallout from living like you're in 'Lord of the Flies.' — Natasha Lyonne

A lot of people have been saying 'The 100' reminds them of 'Lord Of The Flies,' 'Lost' and 'Battlestar Galactica,' and all of those titles have been very successful and interesting to watch. Any time anyone refers to any of those great shows, I'm flattered. — Marie Avgeropoulos

There's Carol like a rolling car, And Martin like a flying bird, And Adam like the Lord's First Word, And Raymond like the Harvest Moon, And Peter like a piper's tune, And Alan like the flowing on Of water. And there's John, like John. — Eleanor Farjeon

British Quotes

His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular. — Idi Amin

On the British Royal Divorce (Charles and Dianna). She is such a sad soul. It is good that it is over. Nobody was happy anyhow. I know I should preach family love and unity, but in their case. . . . — Mother Teresa

The shots that hit me are the last nails to the coffin of british rule in India. — Lala Lajpat Rai

The British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland. — James Connolly

The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen's lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire. — Winston Churchill

The Regulars are coming out! — Paul Revere

We always said that our struggle was not only against the British as representatives of colonialism, it was against all the evil that existed in India. The evil of the feudal system, the evil of the system based on caste, the evil of economic injustice. — Indira Gandhi

I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race... If there be a God, I think that what he would like me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible... — Cecil Rhodes

My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time... Go home and get a nice quiet sleep. — Neville Chamberlain

Why should we not form a secret society with but one object, the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, for making the Anglo Saxon race but one Empire? What a dream, but yet it is probable; it is possible. — Cecil Rhodes

British Culture Quotes

In my view the European culture carries a very heavy responsibility for the creation of Israel... it is a product of both British and Stalin's anti- Semitism, but the British never faced their own complicity in its construction. — Tom Paulin

A genial and cultured Arab, Ameen Rihani, whose English is perfect and whose eloquence is astounding. He will discuss with equal eagerness and knowledge the merits of Picasso or Van Gogh, or the Zionist question, or the British achievements in Arabia. — Kenneth Williams

Even modern English people are imperious, superior, ridden by class. All of the hypocrisy and the difficulties that are endemic in being British also make it an incredibly fertile place culturally. A brilliant place to live. Sad but true. — Pete Townshend

They [some countries] borrowed money to go acquire things, Indian power plants and Danish newspapers and British soccer teams. And they did it willy-nilly, and they themselves a story, that Icelandic history and culture and DNA leaves us very well-suited to being investment bankers. — Michael Lewis

I respect the British a lot - their history, their past, their culture. I think it's beautiful, what they have with the monarchy. — Jean-Marc Vallee

The Irish and British, they love satire, it's a large part of the culture. — Ben Nicholson

The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions, were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture. — Nelson Mandela

One of the things which separates British and American culture is the reverence for the flag in American culture. — Mark Lawson

American culture is kind of an international culture, isn't it? British culture is a bit more unique. I think funny things are sort of funny around the world, really. — David Walliams

Even though we were influenced by American culture and music, we like the rest of Europe have been colonized with that in the post-war period. At the same time there's a sense of dirty earthiness and Europeanness and Britishness in it as well. — Stephen Mallinder

Britain Quotes

Great Britain provided time; the United States provided money and Soviet Russia provided blood. — Joseph Stalin

How carelessly imperial power vivisected ancient civilizations. Palestine and Kashmir are imperial Britain's festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modem world. Both are fault lines in the raging international con�icts of today. — Arundhati Roy

That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. — Richard Henry Lee

If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea. — Winston Churchill

Whoever would have guessed that in the land of cheap sausages and mashed potatoes there could be such a change which would actually bring the French from Paris every weekend to invade Britain en masse to eat great food and drink great wine. — Robin Leach

It was a Conservative government that in 2016 introduced the national living wage, giving Britain's lowest-paid workers the biggest pay rise in 20 years. — Rishi Sunak

In Great Britain, an author published a book in which he claimed that Jesus Christ had children. Such statements don't trigger civil unrest and bloodshed in Europe. But write similar statements about Islam in Syria and you might see bloody uprisings. — Bashar al-Assad

If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers. — Nelson Mandela

It may be easily shown, and is of no small significance, that the two great ideas of which the Anglo-Saxon is the exponent are having a fuller development in the United States than in Great Britain. — Josiah Strong

The role of Italy and of Austria has diminished as has that of France and Britain; Germany and Japan have suffered catastrophically. — Emily Greene Balch

Great British Quotes

The Ottoman Empire, Persians, Alexander the Great, and the Umayyad dynasty all divided Iraq into three administrative regions based on religion and ethnicity. The British looked at the same area and combined the three into one, resulting in a mess. — Tim Marshall

It came as a great shock to me when I heard that England and Soviet Russia had become allies. So much so that I thought that the people responsible in London were acting in a manner that no longer coincided with British imperial interests. — John Amery

As many as three million people are expected to attend the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia. The security concerns and economic opportunities are great for both Canada and Washington state. — Rick Larsen

I love playing in China. The crowds here value success more than British people seem to. — Stephen Hendry

If we don't stop behaving like the British Empire, we will end up like the British Empire. — Pat Buchanan

Just as the British subject loves England despite her faults, so we must insist that all Germans who were part of the old Germany and helped shape her, recognize the greatness and worthiness of present-day Germany. — Gustav Stresemann

Set we forward; let A Roman and a British ensign wave Friendly together. So through Lud's town march, And in the temple of the great Jupiter Our peace we'll ratify, seal it with feasts. Set on there! Never was a war did cease, Ere bloody hands were washed, with such a peace. — William Shakespeare

I studied in Britain and spent great moments of my life there as a student living in Belsize Park. I admire the British trait of the stiff upper lip in the face of adversity. My wife studied in Britain too and both of us have many friends there. — Asif Ali Zardari

The minds of youth are perpetually led to the history of Greece and Rime or to Great Britain; Boys are constantly repeating the declamations of Demosthenes and Cicero, or debates upon some political question in the British Parliament. — Noah Webster

I've always had great respect for Paddington because he is amusingly English and eccentric. He is a great British institution and my generation grew up with the books and then Michael Horden's animations. — Stephen Fry

British History Quotes

While we remember that we are contending against brothers and fellow subjects, we must also remember that we are contending in this crisis for the fate of the British Empire. — John Burgoyne

Most of our people have never had it so good. — Harold MacMillan

I went back in British history. Some 204 people died there after a mine collapsed in 1838. In 1866, 361 miners died in Britain. In an explosion in 1894, 290 people died there. — Sayings

The long-established and noble rule of Law, one of the greatest products of the character and tradition of British history, has suffered a deadly blow. Blackmail has become respectable. — Robert Menzies

Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism. Jewish terrorists hanged two British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses. — Gerald Kaufman

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. — Mahatma Gandhi

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

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. — Thomas B. Macaulay

The wisest fool in Christendom. — King James I

No medieval monarch in the whole of British history ever had such power as every modern British Prime Minister has in his or her hands. Nor does any American President have power approaching this — Tony Benn

Modern Britain Quotes

I am confident that together we can ride out the storm. We can rebuild our economy, and we can become the modern brilliant Britain that I know we can be. — Liz Truss

As ever with modern Britain, we are let down by a vast, over-manned, over-funded, hidebound, obstructive, box-ticking and incompetent bureaucracy. — Frederick Forsyth

Peace is the wish of the French of Italy Spain Germany and all the world, and Great Britain alone the cause of preventing its accomplishment, and this not for any point of honour or even interest, but merely lest there should be an example in the modern world of a great powerful Republic. — Charles James Fox

In modern Britain the most dangerous place to be is in your mother's womb. It should be a place of sanctity. — Edward Leigh

We will reflect the country we aspire to govern, and the sound of modern Britain's is a complex harmony, not a male voice choir. — David Cameron

They don't think we're in touch with modern Britain, or understand modern Britain or like modern Britain. — Francis Maude

Childhood in large parts of modern Britain, at any rate, has been replaced by premature adulthood, or rather adolescence — Anthony Daniels

For Americans, the quickest way to understand modern Britain is to look at what LBJ's Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population. — Mark Steyn

Indeed, Britain was set to repeat the old, familiar cycle of boom and bust. Since then, we have created and rigorously adhered to a new framework of modern economic management — Gordon Brown

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

People Writing About Being British

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Maajid Nawaz

Maajid Nawaz
quotes on life, love and education

148 87
Read quotes by Cecil Rhodes

Cecil Rhodes

20 1782
Read quotes by Christopher Bailey

Christopher Bailey
quotes on leadership, love and education

13 124
Read quotes by Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen
quotes on fashion, nature

78 1053
Read quotes by Colin Firth

Colin Firth
quotes on love, marriage and life

103 476
Read quotes by Jules Verne

Jules Verne
quotes on life, sea and travel

198 765

More Being British Quotes

I considered the attacks on London useless, and I told the Fuhrer again and again that inasmuch as I knew the English people as well as I did my own people, I could never force them to their knees by attacking London. We might be able to subdue the Dutch people by such measures but not the British. — Hermann Goring

A century earlier, the British had learned they needed forward bases and coaling stations from which to project and protect their naval power. Now, with Britain in decline, the Americans looked lasciviously at the British assets and said, ‘Nice bases — we’ll have them.’ In the autumn of 1940, Britain desperately needed more warships. The Americans had fifty to spare and so, with what was called the Destroyers for Bases Agreement, the British swapped their ability to be a global power for help in remaining in the war. Almost every British naval base was handed over. This was, and is still, for all countries, about concrete. Concrete for the building of ports, runways, hangars, fuel depots, dry docks. In the East, after the defeat of Japan, America seized the opportunity to build these all over the Pacific; now they had bases right up to the Japanese island of Okinawa. — Tim Marshall

Last time I went Intercity there were a couple across the aisle having sex. Of course, this being a British train, nobody said anything. Then they finished, they both lit up a cigarette and this woman stood up and said, Excuse me, I think you'll find this is a non-smoking compartment. — Victoria Wood

There can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign oppressive British presence is removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally and economically. — Bobby Sands

When the Ottoman Empire began to collapse in 1916, the British drew a crude line called Sykes-Picot across a map of the Middle East that represented a secret agreement with France to divide the region into two spheres of influence — north was to be under French control, south under British. Prior to Sykes-Picot — Tim Marshall

In the Crusades, getting the Holy Land back was the goal, and any means could be used to achieve it. World War II was a crusade. The firebombing of Tokyo by Doolittle and the carpet bombing in Germany, especially by the British, showed that. — Stanley Hauerwas

The peril of the hour moved the British to tremendous exertions, just as always in a moment of extreme danger things can be done which had previously been thought impossible. Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas. — Erwin Rommel

I think American guys tend to be a bit more forward, a bit more chatty and open than the Brits. The Brits seem to have a darker sense of humor, though I have met some Americans who have adopted bits of the British dry sense of humor as well. — Hayley Atwell

The British are supposed to be particularly averse to intellectuals, a prejudice closely bound up with their dislike of foreigners. Indeed, one important source of this Anglo-Saxon distaste for highbrows and eggheads was the French revolution, which was seen as an attempt to reconstruct society on the basis of abstract rational principles. — Terry Eagleton

In the autumn of 1940, Britain desperately needed more warships. The Americans had fifty to spare and so, with what was called the Destroyers for Bases Agreement, the British swapped their ability to be a global power for help in remaining in the war. — Tim Marshall

There’s oil and gas offshore in and around the British Falkland Islands, known as Las Malvinas by Argentina. To regain the ‘Lost Sisters’ is a national cause and one that most of Argentina’s Latin neighbors support. In 1982, the British let their guard down and the Argentine military dictatorship ordered an invasion of the islands — which was considered a huge success until the British task force arrived eight weeks later and made short work of the Argentine army and reclaimed the territory. This in turn led to the fall of the dictatorship. If the Argentine invasion had happened in the present decade, Britain would not have been in a position to retake the islands, as it currently has no functioning aircraft carriers, a situation that will be remedied by 2020. Despite the lure of oil and gas, an Argentine invasion of the Falklands is unlikely since Argentina is now a democracy and knows that the vast majority of Falkland Islanders wish to remain under British control. — Tim Marshall

The leap from being an ordinary British teenager to joining the Islamic State is huge. But it is a much smaller step for someone raised in a climate in which dreams of resurrecting a caliphate and enforcing a distorted form of Islam are normalized. — Maajid Nawaz

I will have nothing to do with a bomb! [Response to being invited (1943) to work with Otto Robert Frisch and some British scientists at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb.] — Lise Meitner

The fierce pulsation of resurgent pride that disclaims servitude may one day cease to throb in the heart of Ireland - but the heart of Ireland will that day be dead. While Ireland lives, the brain and the brawn of her manhood will strive to destroy the last vestige of British rule in her territory — Thomas MacDonagh

Margaret Thatcher has shown that there is power and dignity to be won by defying the status quo and the majority rather than by adapting to them. If the British left, which she froze into immobility like Medusa, could bring itself to learn from this, then we might not have to look upon her like again. — Christopher Hitchens

Simply asking the British people to carry on accepting a European settlement over which they have had little choice is a path to ensuring that when the question is finally put - and at some stage it will have to be - it is much more likely that the British people will reject the EU. — David Cameron

I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India. — Muhammad Iqbal

If the deaf are to hear, the sound has to be very loud. When we dropped the bomb, it was not our intention to kill anybody. We have bombed the British Government. The British must quit India and make her free. — Bhagat Singh

It is a fallacy to believe that a Republic of any kind can be won through the shackled Free State. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The Free State is British created and serves British Imperialist interests. It is the buffer erected between British Capitalism and the Irish Republic. — Liam Mellows

[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

I think Americans still can't help but respond to the natural authority of this voice. Deep down they long to be told what to do by a British accent. That's why so many infomercials have British people. — Sayings

The American Constitution declares 'All men are born equal.' The British Socialist Party add: 'All men must be kept equal'. — Winston Churchill

The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right. — Quentin Crisp

I was determined that no British government should be brought down by the action of two tarts. — Harold MacMillan

The will of the British people must now be put into effect as quickly as possible. Under Article 50 of the EU Treaty the UK must leave the European Union within two years at the latest. — Jean-Claude Juncker

The British Airways steward announced that the in-flight movie would be Chariots of Fire. 'Is that the only one?' I asked. 'We are also showing Gandhi,' he replied. 'Where do I have to sit to see it?" I responded. 'I'm sorry, sir, but Gandhi is only showing in first class.' The irony seemed to escape him. — Jim Wallis

I have always liked clothes and fashion. And really, being a British male, I am automatically the best dressed person in any room - especially in America. — Tom Odell

The British Constitution has always been puzzling and always will be. — Elizabeth II

As for the United States' future in Afghanistan, it will be fire and hell and total defeat, God willing, as it was for their predecessors - the Soviets and, before them, the British. — Mohammed Omar

Basically, I have no place in organized politics. By coming to the British Parliament, I've allowed the people to sacrifice me at the top and let go the more effective job I should be doing at the bottom. — Bernadette Devlin

The British tend to shy away from the spotlight. We don't like being singled out in any way, and I think that is something which is important for me to learn to do. — Damon Hill

We did not lack for religious leaders to urge us into "godly" war [...]. All of this was part of a well-financed propaganda campaign on the part of British agents. As usual, the government of the United States was being "run" by the British Secret Intelligence Service. — Eustace Mullins

In Conclusion

Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of being british quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about being british to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.

Citation

Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of being british quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.

Embed HTML Link

Copy and paste this HTML code in your webpage