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Subjects | Fact sheet | Samples
United Kingdom and Ireland: Sample quotations
Edward Appleton
British physicist
You must not miss Whitehall. At one end you will find a statue of one of our kings who was beheaded; at the other a monument to the man who did it. This is just an example of our attempts to be fair to everybody.
[Referring to Charles I and Oliver Cromwell; speech, Stockholm, January 1948]
Herbert Asquith
British Liberal politician and prime minister
It is fitting that we should have buried the Unknown Prime Minister by the side of the Unknown Soldier.
[Remark attributed to Asquith after Law's funeral in Westminster Abbey, quoted in Robert Skidelsky Oswald Mosley ch. 27]
Clement Attlee
British Labour politician
I must remind the Right Honourable Gentleman that a monologue is not a decision.
[Remark to Winston Churchill, quoted in F Williams Prime Minister Remembers]
Horatio Herbert, Earl Kitchener of Khartoum Kitchener
British soldier and administrator
I don't mind your being killed, but I object to your being taken prisoner.
[To the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) when he asked to go to the Front in World War I, quoted in Viscount Esher's Journal 18 December 1914]
John Major
UK Conservative politician, prime minister 1990–97
I think I'll stay cool, calm and elected.
[Quoted in Time, 20 January 1997, during the run-up to the general election in May 1997.]
Charles James Napier
British general
Peccavi [Latin 'I have sinned']
I have Sind
[Punning message announcing his victory at Hyderabad 1843, which meant the capture of the Indian province of Sind]
Frederick North
British Tory politician and prime minister
I do not know whether our Generals will frighten the enemy, but I know they frighten me ...
[Attributed remark during American Revolution]
Hubert Plumer
British World War I general
Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography.
[Remark to his staff before the Battle of Messines 1917, in which mines were extensively employed]
Victoria
Queen of Great Britain and Ireland
He speaks to Me as if I was a public meeting.
[On her prime minister, Gladstone]
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