Famous quotes containing the words british empire, british, empire, imperial and/or century:
“All of Western tradition, from the late bloom of the British Empire right through the early doom of Vietnam, dictates that you do something spectacular and irreversible whenever you find yourself in or whenever you impose yourself upon a wholly unfamiliar situation belonging to somebody else. Frequently it’s your soul or your honor or your manhood, or democracy itself, at stake.”
—June Jordan (b. 1939)
“His work was that curious mixture of bad painting and good intentions that always entitles a man to be called a representative British artist.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Without the Empire we should be tossed like a cork in the cross current of world politics. It is at once our sword and our shield.”
—William Morris Hughes (1864–1952)
“The formal Washington dinner party has all the spontaneity of a Japanese imperial funeral.”
—Simon Hoggart (b. 1946)
“Whoever happens to give birth to mischievous children lives always with unending grief in his spirit and heart.”
—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)