British Empire/first British Empire 1583-1783

Famous quotes containing the words british and/or empire:

    It is very considerably smaller than Australia and British Somaliland put together. As things stand at present there is nothing much the Texans can do about this, and ... they are inclined to shy away from the subject in ordinary conversation, muttering defensively about the size of oranges.
    Alex Atkinson, British humor writer. repr. In Present Laughter, ed. Alan Coren (1982)

    I date the end of the old republic and the birth of the empire to the invention, in the late thirties, of air conditioning. Before air conditioning, Washington was deserted from mid-June to September.... But after air conditioning and the Second World War arrived, more or less at the same time, Congress sits and sits while the presidents—or at least their staffs—never stop making mischief.
    Gore Vidal (b. 1925)