Quotes About English

It was all a fiction, of course, because the land was not really inane ac uacuum—void and vacant. As the English conceived it, however, any land had to be taken out of its natural state and put to commercial use—only then would it be truly owned.6

exploitation was the modus operandi of the English projectors who conceived an American colonial system at the end of the sixteenth century—before there were colonies.25

He imagined the Indians as useful allies in fulfilling English aspirations, possible trading partners, and subordinate, to be sure, but above all a natural resource to be exploited for the greater good.

Ex-soldiers formed one of the largest subgroups of English vagrants. Sailors were the vagrants of the sea, and were often drawn into piracy.

The English word know is a translation of the Hebrew yada, which means to know by experience.

Who invented political tolerance? The English invented it, it's something which has taken roots with some difficulty in Scottish politics.

Grandmother's English heritage meant that she had that Empire voice, that come-out-of-your-grass-huts-and-give-us-your-treasures-for-our-museums kind of voice. The woman could boom. It was seriously terrifying. Even years later when my father imitated her and she seemed part Margaret Thatcher and part horse Aeney and I were still frightened.

aiming for the English Channel. Its ultimate destination was top secret,

But the French still thought in terms of wooden ships and sail, as did the English across the Channel.

English, with its heavy stresses and wobbly intonation, was dirty and repugnant to his ears

I imagined Cei as the kind of English rugby player I used to know: mostly kind—if he thinks you're like him; not stupid but lazy and willing to learn only when prodded; and (mostly) just this side of being an asshole but (almost) always very close to the line. Basically, a jerk but with some good points, and useful in a fight. I've spent a lot of time in a lot of pubs with men like Cei.

An English friend says Australia seems so messy to her: 'Because of all the overhead wires - we don't have them like you do. Your country towns seem so untidy. The barbed wire for fences, all of that'.

I always loved English because whatever human beings are, we are storytellers. It is our stories that give a light to the future. When I went to college I became a history major because history is such a wonderful story of who we think we are. English is much more a story of who we really are.

When nature called, the men would relieve themselves in a pot at the sideboard without interrupting their conversation, an English custom instituted not so much for convenience as to preempt any excuse for the weak of stomach or head to sneak out before the drinking was finished.

The English love of tea as solution to life's ills does make us easy to poison.

ESTEBAN I always thought the English a very proper nation. ELOISE Not theatrically—their drama is extremely course. Really those Elizabethans!

i'm a poet who writes in english come to share the worlds witchu

alla my niggah temper came outta control & i wdnt dance wit nobody & i talked English loud & i love you more than i waz mad

Kitab-? Mukaddes'in Türkçesi çok kötü. ?ngilizcesi'nden kar??la?t?rarak okuyorum. Biri oturmu? çok kötü bir dille çevirmi?; bir kelimesi bile de?i?tirilemez ya: ondan sonra bir daha düzeltilmemi?. Çeviren, sanki ?sa'n?n Türkiye mümessili.

But what a language this was! For a foreigner, English is like a huge building which one has to get to know and, as somebody remarked, the closer you come to it, the taller and more daunting it appears. (One sign of its sheer size was that my best two-volume English—Russian dictionary contained 160,000 entries, compared with only 60,000 in a French—Russian dictionary of similar scope.)

I pass billboards that announce in black and white, in English, 'Jesus loves even you'. I feel uplifted by the unexpected encouragement; I'm only slightly alarmed by the 'even'. (page 336)

Americans might ponder two quotations. One is the much-cited, self-congratulatory saying attributed to Tocqueville (but whose source no one has so far been able to show me): "America is great because America is good." The other is the very real saying of Samuel Johnson, attacking the similar self-congratulatory "greatness" of the English: "We continue every day to show by new proofs, that no people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous.

The English country gentleman galloping after a fox -- the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.

Perhaps the Irish are so rich in the voice because twas the only thing the English could not take from them. It is why the Welsh sing.