Great Britain has lost an Empire and not yet found a role. The attempt to playa separate power roleöthat is, a role apart from Europe, based on a special relationship with the United States, on being the head of the Commonwealthöis about to be played out. Her Majesty's Government is now attempting, wisely in my opinion, to re-enter Europe.

-Acheson, Dean Gooderham
  Speech at West Point military academy, 5 Dec.  According to the NewYork Times, 23 Nov1969, Prime Minister Harold Wilson later countered,'Mr  Acheson is a distinguished figure who has lost a State Department and not yet found himself a role'.

   I'm Backing Britain.

-Anonymous
  Coined by publisher Robert Maxwell to encourage the public to buy British-made goods.

Britain is a Morris Minor country, but with Rolls Royce diplomacy.

-Anonymous
  Remark made during the Falklands crisis by a UN delegate,  Apr. Quoted in The Sunday Times Insight Team The Falklands War (1982).

I wish that I could bring Stonehenge to Nyasaland, to show that there was a time when Britain had a savage culture.

-Banda, Hastings Kamuzu
  In the Observer,10 Mar.

The most urgent tasks in Britain, once war is over, are, on the one hand, the making of a common attack on the giant evils of Want, Disease,Ignorance and Squalor, and on the other hand, the re-equipping of British industry.

-Beveridge,William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron
  Full Employment in a Free Society.

Britain must, and I am sure will, stand shoulder-to- shoulder withthe United States of America and peaceful nations across the world in deploying every possible resource to bring to justice the people responsible, and make sure terrorism never prevails.

-Blair,Tony (Anthony Charles Lynton)
Statement,11 Sep.

We have been prudent for a purpose: a stronger, fairer Britain.

-Brown, (James) Gordon
  Budget speech, 21 Mar.

It isabouttime wehad anend tothe old Britain, whereall that matters is the privileges you were born with, rather than the potential you actually have.

-Brown, (James) Gordon
  Speech, 25 May.

Britain has lived for too long on borrowed time, borrowed money, and even borrowed ideas.

-Baron
  Quoted in the Observer, 3 Oct.

It must be owned, that the Graces do not seem to be natives of Great Britain; and I doubt, the best of us here have more of rough than polished diamond.

-Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of
  Letter to his son,11 Nov.

Chicken masala is now Britain's true national dish, not only because it is the most popular, but because it is a perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences.

-Cook, Robin originally Robert Finlayson Cook
Speech to the Social Market Foundation, London,19  Apr.

Britainwill not be involved ina Europeanwar this year, or next year either.

-Daily Express
  Headline, 30 Sep. The newspaper used similar phrases frequently, up to11 Aug1939, three weeks before the outbreak of World War II.

Avery fine city; the four principal streets are the fairest for breadth, and the finest built that I have ever seen in one city together† In a word,'tis the cleanest and beautifullest, and best built city in Britain, London excepted.

-Defoe, Daniel
^7  Of Glasgow.  A  Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, letter12.

It does mean the end of Britain as an independent European state. It means the end of a thousand years of history.

-Gaitskell, Hugh
  On Britain joining the European Community. Labour Party conference speech, Oct.

Among the smaller islands there is one of fair size that is now called the Isle of Man† There was a great controversy in antiquity concerning the question: to which of the two countries should the island properly belong? Eventually, however, the matter was settled. All agreed that since it allowed poisonous reptiles to live in it, it should belong to Britain.

-Gerald of Wales also called Giraldus Cambrensis
  The History and Topography of Ireland, pt.2 (translated by John  J O'Meara,1951).

The House of Peers, throughout the war, Did nothing in particular, And did it very well: Yet Britain set the world ablaze In good King George's glorious days!

-Gilbert, Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck)
  Lord Mountarat's song, Iolanthe, act 2.

It seems that the historic inability in Britain to comprehend Irish feelings and sensitivities still remains.

-Haughey, CharlesJames
  In the Observer, Feb.

   What is our task? To make Britain a fit country for heroes to live in.

-Lloyd George (of Dwyfor), David, 1st Earl
  Speech at  Wolverhampton, Nov, at the end of  World War I.

In an era of precipitous decline for Britain and its once- global empire, Harold Wilson was a fixture for 30 years, a solid workingman's socialist in a rumpled ready-to- wear suit and his trademark Gannex mackintosh.

-McFadden, Robert D(ennis)
  Of Harold Wilson. In the NewYork Times, 25 May.

Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be 'too clever by half'. The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

-Major,John
  Quoted in the Observer,7  Jul.