Famous quotes containing the words british empire, british and/or empire:
“It is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind every man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he should ever harbor it in his mind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Gaze not on swans, in whose soft breast,
A full-hatched beauty seems to nest
Nor snow, which falling from the sky
Hovers in its virginity.”
—Henry Noel, British poet, and William Strode, British poet. Beauty Extolled (attributed to Noel and to Strode)
“On September 16, 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)