The English
The Sanity Inspector
politics who does not realize that this island of ours is and always
has been covered with a beautiful cloud. No one can be a good critic
of England who does not understand fogs. And no one can be a really
patriotic Englishman who does not like fogs. Of all national
histories the history of England must be the hardest to write, for the
English, with all their great epochs, not only did not know what they
were doing, but, so far as one can make out, did not want to know what
they were doing. They always did a thing in such a way that a hundred
years afterwards it could be maintained that they had done the precise
opposite. They always said a thing in such a way that it could mean
something different. This was not craft. It was their ingrained
poetry...The English law, for instance is is uncommonly like an
impressionist picture of a rainy day. The Code Napoleon is like a
coloured photograph of Rome.
--G. K. Chesterton, 'The English Way' _Daily News, 16 March
1905
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
--The Jam
Wilbert van Leijen
An Englishman is somebody who, looking at the fog over The Strait Of Dover,
announces:
"The Continent is now isolated"
The Sanity Inspector wrote in message
<3931871e...@news.mindspring.com>...
Robin Aldersey-Taylor
<w.van....@ksu.nl> wrote:
>As we like to say over here (English smugness):
>
>An Englishman is somebody who, looking at the fog over The Strait Of Dover,
>announces:
>
>"The Continent is now isolated"
>
Time was this was the absolute truth. When Britain started at the
Outer Hebrides, dropped to Land's End, crossed to the Azores, turned
left to Gibralter, Majorca (once) Minorca, Malta, Cyprus, Crete and
Egypt.
The only way out was through Russia (which explains quite a lot when
you think about it.)
Robin
England
England
The Sanity Inspector
--Heinrich Heine, _Lutetia_, 1840
The Romans merely took Palestine. The English have taken the
whole of its history and literature, But they have taken it
because--despite all the aberrations and iniquities of Imperialism--it
represents their own ideal of justice for all races.
--Israel Zanwell, _War for the World_, 1921
Here as in no other country, the teachings of Holy Writ are
venerated...Here, as in no other empire in the world, there breathes a
passionate love of freedom, a burning hatred of tyrant wrong.
--Hermann Adler, dedication to memorial of Jewish soldiers
killed in the Boer War, 1905
Jesper Skovhus Thomsen
: Their superiority consists in that they have no imagination.
: --Heinrich Heine, _Lutetia_, 1840
"An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable."
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
[Man and Superman, 1903]
"Continental people have sex life; the English have hot-water bottles."
-- George Mikes (1912-1987)
[How to be an Alien, 1946]
"The Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose."
-- Alan Patrick Herbert (1890-1971)
[Uncommon Law, 1935]
--
Jesper
Graham J Weeks
The Sanity Inspector wrote:
> Their superiority consists in that they have no imagination.
> --Heinrich Heine, _Lutetia_, 1840
>
> The Romans merely took Palestine. The English have taken the
> whole of its history and literature, But they have taken it
> because--despite all the aberrations and iniquities of Imperialism--it
> represents their own ideal of justice for all races.
> --Israel Zanwell, _War for the World_, 1921
Now why say English here and not British?
>
>
> Here as in no other country, the teachings of Holy Writ are
> venerated...Here, as in no other empire in the world, there breathes a
> passionate love of freedom, a burning hatred of tyrant wrong.
> --Hermann Adler, dedication to memorial of Jewish soldiers
> killed in the Boer War, 1905
Jews fighting with the British presumably? Funny because I thought it was
the Boers who were for freedom, their own freedom at least.
The British gave the world its first concentration camps there.
--
Graham J Weeks
http://www.weeks-g.dircon.co.uk/ My homepage of quotations
http://www.grace.org.uk/churches/ealing.html Our church
http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/Christiansquoting Daily quotes
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I have taken a vow of poverty. To annoy me send money.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Old Curmudgeon
>
>
>The Sanity Inspector wrote:
>
>> Here as in no other country, the teachings of Holy
>> Writ are
>> venerated...Here, as in no other empire in the world, there
>> breathes a passionate love of freedom, a burning hatred of
>> tyrant wrong.
>> --Hermann Adler, dedication to memorial of Jewish
>> soldiers
>> killed in the Boer War, 1905
>
>Jews fighting with the British presumably? Funny because I
>thought it was the Boers who were for freedom, their own
>freedom at least. The British gave the world its first
>concentration camps there. --
>
>
I'm puzzled by the quote also. Some extra context/explanation
perhaps?
--
Roy Archer
http://www.fonts.org.uk free fonts
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/archer the graphics gallimaufry
-
The Sanity Inspector
<wee...@dircon.co.uk> shared with usenet this thought:
>
>
>The Sanity Inspector wrote:
>
>> Their superiority consists in that they have no imagination.
>> --Heinrich Heine, _Lutetia_, 1840
>>
>> The Romans merely took Palestine. The English have taken the
>> whole of its history and literature, But they have taken it
>> because--despite all the aberrations and iniquities of Imperialism--it
>> represents their own ideal of justice for all races.
>> --Israel Zanwell, _War for the World_, 1921
>
>Now why say English here and not British?
Po-tae-to, po-tah-to...
The Sanity Inspector
Curmudgeon) shared with usenet this thought:
>I'm puzzled by the quote also. Some extra context/explanation
>perhaps?
'Fraid that's all I have on it. Maybe a Jewish society in
England or South Africa, or maybe a veterans' ministry might know more
about this monument.
Matti Lamprhey
Are you implying that "English" and "British" are equivalent?
> --
> bruce
> The dignified don't even enter in the game.
> --The Jam
Further to another questioner, what does this quote mean?
Matti
Nathanael Thompson
Many of them are learned. They know their classics, and so accurately
that I have lost little in not going to Italy. The English girls are divinely
pretty and they have one custom which cannot be too much admired.
When you go anywhere on a visit, the girls kiss you. They kiss you
when you arrive. They kiss you when you go away. They kiss you when
you return. Once you have tasted how soft and fragrant those lips are,
you could spend your life there."
-Erasmus on England, 1497
from _Life and Letters of Erasmus_
Nate Thompson
~*~
Free America Quotations http://www.essex1.com/people/thompsn/quote/quote.htm
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty or safety."
--Benjamin Franklin,
Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
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Before you buy.
Graham J Weeks
Nathanael Thompson wrote:
> "The air is soft and delicious. The men are sensible and intelligent.
> Many of them are learned. They know their classics, and so accurately
> that I have lost little in not going to Italy. The English girls are divinely
> pretty and they have one custom which cannot be too much admired.
> When you go anywhere on a visit, the girls kiss you. They kiss you
> when you arrive. They kiss you when you go away. They kiss you when
> you return. Once you have tasted how soft and fragrant those lips are,
> you could spend your life there."
> -Erasmus on England, 1497
> from _Life and Letters of Erasmus_
I have a recollection of an account of Sit Thomas More showing his disrobed
daughters to Erasmus.
Anyone have the story?
The Pied Typer
>
> The Sanity Inspector wrote:
>
> > The Romans merely took Palestine. The English have taken the
> > whole of its history and literature, But they have taken it
> > because--despite all the aberrations and iniquities of Imperialism--it
> > represents their own ideal of justice for all races.
> > --Israel Zanwell, _War for the World_, 1921
>
> Now why say English here and not British?
And why say Zanwell and not Zangwill (1864-1926)? Somebody's sources
are muddy!
-:-
"We set ourselves to cut a man down and our daggers
turn to rubber."
--R. A. Lafferty, "About a Secret Crocodile"
--
Col. G. L. Sicherman
home: col...@mail.monmouth.com
work: sich...@lucent.com
web: <http://www.monmouth.com/~colonel/>
Paul Bartram
The Sanity Inspector <choll...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> >Now why say English here and not British?
>
> Po-tae-to, po-tah-to...
>
Or as Dan Quale would have us believe, Po-tae-toe
Paul
The Sanity Inspector
shared with usenet this thought:
>In <395143F8...@dircon.co.uk>, wee...@dircon.co.uk wrote:
>>
>> The Sanity Inspector wrote:
>> > --Israel Zanwell, _War for the World_, 1921
>And why say Zanwell and not Zangwill (1864-1926)? Somebody's sources
>are muddy!
That one's my typo, for which _mea culpa_.
Jay
The English have the most rigid code of immorality in the world.
---Malcom Bradbury, _Eating People is Wrong_
The only infallible rule we know is, that the man who is always talking about
being a gentlemen never is one.
---R. S. Surtees, _Ask Momma_
The modesty of women in England is the pride of their husbands. But, however
submissive a slave may be,
her company soon grows burdensome. Hence the fact that the men find it
necessary to get gloomily drunk every evening,
instead of passing the time with their mistresses as in Italy.
---Stendhal (Marie Henri Beyle), _De L'Amour_ (On Love)
An English husband's pride very deftly exalts his poor wife's vanity. Above
all he convinces her that it will not do to be _vulgar_...Since it is vulgar to
ask for a glass of water when you are thirsty, Miss Burney's heroines duitfully
allow themselves to die of thirst.
---Stendhal, _De L'Amour_
The man who has stood on the Acropolis,
And look'd down over Attica; or he
Who has sail'd where picturesque Constantinople is,
Or seen Timbuctoo, or hath taken tea
In small-eyed China's crockery-ware metropolis,
Or sat amidst the bricks of Nineveh,
May not think much of London's first appearance --
But ask him what he thinks of it a year hence? ...
Don Juan, wrapt in contemplation,
Walk'd on behind his carriage, o'er the summit,
And lost in wonder of so great a nation,
Gave way to 't, since he could not overcome it.
"And here," he cried, "is Freedom's chosen station;
Here peals the people's voice, nor can entomb it
Racks, prisons, inquisitions; resurrection
Awaits it, each new meeting or election.
"Here are chaste wives, pure lives; here people pay
But what they please; and if that things be dear,
'T is only that they love to throw away
Their cash, to show how much they have a-year.
Here laws are all inviolate; none lay
Traps for the traveller; every highway's clear:
Here" -- he was interrupted by a knife,
With, -- "Damn your eyes! your money or your life!" --
---George Gordon, Lord Byron, _Don Juan_, Canto XI
-Jay
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If we are unwilling to let our ideals cost us anything,
our ideals aren't worth anything.
---Zora Neale Hurston
---------------------------------------------------------
Matti Lamprhey
If you're going to make fun of the poor chap's spelling, you could at least
spell his name correctly.
And Hey, Mr Sanity Inspector, you never answered my question.
Matti
The Sanity Inspector
<ma...@polka.bikini> shared with usenet this thought:
>And Hey, Mr Sanity Inspector, you never answered my question.
I can grasp the distinction between "English" and
"British"--but only just. The author of the quote I posted apparently
couldn't grasp it at all.
Obquote:
A difference that makes no difference is no difference.
--"Mr. Spock", in _Spock Must Die!_, James Blish
The Sanity Inspector
husbands... but English women only hope to find in their butlers.
--Evelyn Waugh
Old Curmudgeon
wriggling invertebrates, the miserable sodding rotters, the
flaming sods, the snivelling, dribbling, dithering, palsied,
pulseless lot that make up England today. They've got white of
egg in their veins, and their spunk is that watery it's a marvel
they can breed. They can nothing but frog-spawn - the gibberers!
God, how I hate them!"
D H Lawrence
quoted in McPhee, The Bumper Book of Insults, 1993
The Sanity Inspector
friend until he has known the candidate for at least five years, you
will find him a pretty good egg.
--Bill Mauldin, _Up Front_, 1944
Paul Bartram
> If you can get behind an Englishman's unholy fear of making a
> friend until he has known the candidate for at least five years, you
> will find him a pretty good egg.
> --Bill Mauldin, _Up Front_, 1944
The English, the English, the English are best-
Wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest...
~Flanders and Swann
Paul
Graham J Weeks
Paul Bartram wrote:
>
> The English, the English, the English are best-
> Wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest...
> ~Flanders and Swann
>
As was show at Lords this afternoon. I had a ticket but was persuaded by
my family I really ought to go to my son's graduation from seminary
instead. In was not too great a sacrifice as I saw most of the play on
TV.
--
Graham J Weeks
http://www.weeks-g.dircon.co.uk/ My homepage of quotations
http://www.grace.org.uk/churches/ealing.html Our church
http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/Christiansquoting Daily quotes
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Don't lend people money, it gives them amnesia.
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The Sanity Inspector
power, and of bigness for bigness' sake, the enthusiasm for
'organization' of everything (we now call it 'planning') and that
'inability to leave anything to the simple power of organic
growth'...are all scarcely less marked in England now than they were
in [pre-Nazi] Germany.
--Friedrich Hayek, _The Road to Serfdom_, 1944
Bingobaby78
>>
>> Or as Dan Quale would have us believe, Po-tae-toe
>
>If you're going to make fun of the poor chap's spelling, you could at least
>spell his name correctly.
Or better yet, spell POTATO correctly :o)
Graham J Weeks
us...@defaulthost.com wrote:
>
> Hi Graham,
>
> I disagree that the Boer camps were the worlds first
> concentration camps. Apparently the Romans set one up in
> Northumberland in 208AD to imprison the ancient British.
>
> References
> ----------
>
> The Herald (Glasgow) (2 August 1997 p3):
> `Riddle of Vindolanda fort: ancient Scots may have been held
> hostage in Roman Empire's only concentration camp'
much erudire research snipped
>
> So I can't agree we invented them, however, we used them sure enough,
> which is worse. If only we had invented them and not used them.
>
> Regards,
>
> "The Scarlet Pimple"
If only we could find one now for all the Scots dominating Westminster :-(
ObQuote
Lord grant that Marshall Wade
May by Thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush
Rebellious Scots to crush
God save the King.
National Anthem, circa 1745, the verse everyone omits
Graham J Weeks
Bingobaby78 wrote:
Spud.
In my youth, the autumn half term holidays were spud bashing time, aka devoted
to potato picking, a welcome source of pocket money.
I did it with horse and cart which had certain advantages over tractor and
trailer. It could be called to the next place in the field without anyone
having to leave the work.
ObQuote
Lady Godiva put everything she had on a horse.
W. C. Fields (1880-1946) "The Manager's Book of Quotations," by Lewis D. Eigen
and Jonathan P. Siegel, 1989.
Spuddie
<wee...@dircon.co.uk> an ignescent whangdoodle prone to nasute
stultiloquence, troked incessantly before uttering:
>> Or better yet, spell POTATO correctly :o)
>
>Spud
You rang?
OBQuote:
"An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one."
(George Mikes, "How to be an Alien")
Cheryl
~~~Try not to make a noise in the bathroom, dear~~~ (Hyacinth Bucket)
The Sanity Inspector
<spu...@england.NOSPAM.com> shared with usenet this thought:
>~~~Try not to make a noise in the bathroom, dear~~~ (Hyacinth Bucket)
"boo-KAY!!"
Graham J Weeks
Spuddie wrote:
snip
>
> "An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one."
> (George Mikes, "How to be an Alien")
>
> Cheryl
> ~~~Try not to make a noise in the bathroom, dear~~~ (Hyacinth Bucket)
Love that sig being more of the Onslow tendency myself.
Spuddie
<wee...@dircon.co.uk> a potomophilous clepsydra with vaigus
glycolimia decided to mocteroof and stated:
>Spuddie wrote:
>> "An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one."
>> (George Mikes, "How to be an Alien")
>>
>> Cheryl
>> ~~~Try not to make a noise in the bathroom, dear~~~ (Hyacinth Bucket)
>
>Love that sig being more of the Onslow tendency myself.
ObQuote: "We're soft, pink and runty little island people." (Emma
Thompson, on the English)
Cheryl...and just for you, Graham...ta-da:
~~~I'm sitting here completely surrounded by no beer.~~~
(Onslow)
Graham J Weeks
Spuddie wrote:
> Cheryl...and just for you, Graham...ta-da:
>
> ~~~I'm sitting here completely surrounded by no beer.~~~
> (Onslow)
I lllllllike it :-)
That's what's cool about working with computers. They don't argue, they
remember everything and they don't drink all your beer.
Paul Leary, 1991
The Sanity Inspector
limit the power of people who have their faces on half-crowns.
--Chamfort, _Maxims et Pensees_, 18th century
Graham J Weeks
The Sanity Inspector wrote:
> The English are the only nation which has found out how to
> limit the power of people who have their faces on half-crowns.
> --Chamfort, _Maxims et Pensees_, 18th century
We did it the previous century at the cost of the removal of one Head
of State. The French did it later in a much less civilised manner.
However, they have sadly triumphed over our coinage. Gone close to 30
years is the half crown which one should explain to the younger
readers was one eighth of a pound, two shillings and sixpence.
--
Graham J Weeks
http://www.weeks-g.dircon.co.uk/ My homepage of quotations
http://www.grace.org.uk/churches/ealing.html Our church
http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/Christiansquoting Daily quotes
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I was not born to be free. I was born to adore and to obey.- C.S.
Lewis
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The Sanity Inspector
head of the ideas of your century, and these ideas follow you and
support you. March behind them, and they drag you after them. March
against them, and they overthrow you.
--Napoleon III
Notice for the benefit of English gentlemen wishing to attend
the Siege of Paris. Comfortable apartments, completely shell-proof;
rooms in the basement, for impressionable persons.
--advertisement during the Franco-Prussian War
She's an English character. She's what they call in England
'a person'. She isn't a lady and she isn't a woman; she's a person.
--Henry James, on his landlady's daughter
It is difficult to speak adequately, or justly, of London. It
is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or easy, or exempt from
reproach. It is only magnificent.
--Henry James, 1882
The Sanity Inspector
The Sanity Inspector
sick of remittance-men and loafers sent out here. Because the English
are rotten with Socialism...they carry frills.
--Rudyard Kipling, _Letters of Travel_
tmw
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,1856-1950, The Man of Destiny.
Erica
**********************************************
The Sanity Inspector
product of long centuries of oppression and neglect, look forward to
the moment of their abandonment of field labour for the more lucrative
work on railways or in the mine. I well remember the little group in
a Yorkshire village who would frequently walk a couple of miles to
watch the express dash through the small station in the darkness.
--E. N. Bennett, _Problems of Village Life_, 1910, quoted in
Jacques Barzun, _From Dawn to Decadence_, 2000
The Sanity Inspector
melted butter.
--Marquis Caraccioli
An English summer: two fine days and a thunderstorm.
--Michael Denham
The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is
modest about it.
--James Agate
It takes some skill to spoil a breakfast -- even the English can't
do it.
--John Kenneth Galbraith
On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good
table manners.
--George Mikes
I hate London when it's not raining.
--Groucho Marx
The British capitalize on their accent when they don't want you to
know what they're saying. But if you wake them up at 4 A.M., they speak
perfect English, the same as we do.
--Henry Kissinger
An Englishman teaching an American about food is like the blind
leading the one-eyed.
--A.J. Liebling
The English have this extraordianry respect for longevity. The best
example of this was Queen Victoria, a most unpleasant
woman who achieved a sort of public affection simply by living to be an
enormous age.
--Malcolm Muggeridge
If one could only teach the English how to talk and the Irish how to
listen, society would be quite civilized.
--Oscar Wilde
What a pity it is that we have no other amusements in England but
vice and religion.
--Sydney Smith
If the British can survive their meals, they can survive anything.
--George Bernard Shaw
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
--The Jam
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Before you buy.
The Sanity Inspector
where you can park a car.
--Lord Aitlee, on why he attends the House of Lords
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
--The Jam