13960 Quotes by English authors

English quotations carry a crisp, wry music: understatement sharpened by irony, tenderness tempered by restraint. They wander hedgerows and factory streets alike, weighing justice, manners, longing, and folly with a steady eye. Weather becomes character; time treads softly but leaves marks. From the cadence of the theater to the quiet sting of the essay, language delights in double meanings and exactness. Here humor is dry as chalk, romance practical, rebellion polite yet stubborn, and memory lit by drizzle, hearthlight, and a steadfast faith in ordinary courage.

See the complete list of authors from England

"A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell!"

Thomas Fuller, Clergyman

Thomas Fuller

"Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen"

George Savile, Politician

George Savile

"Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards"

Aldous Huxley, Novelist

Aldous Huxley

"Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort"

John Ruskin, Writer

John Ruskin

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested"

Francis Bacon, Philosopher

Francis Bacon

"Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn't commit"

Eli Khamarov, Writer

Eli Khamarov

"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question"

Charles Babbage, Mathematician

Charles Babbage

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known"

Charles Dickens, Novelist

Charles Dickens

"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly"

Gilbert K. Chesterton, Writer

Gilbert K. Chesterton

"The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo"

Desmond Morris, Scientist

Desmond Morris

"A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition"

Gilbert K. Chesterton, Writer

Gilbert K. Chesterton

"Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

William Shakespeare

"Don't just count your years, make your years count"

George Meredith, Novelist

George Meredith

"Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

William Shakespeare

"Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool that follows it?"

Alec Guinness, Actor

Alec Guinness

"Better one's house be too little one day than too big all the year after"

Thomas Fuller, Clergyman

Thomas Fuller

"Order is heaven's first law"

Alexander Pope, Poet

Alexander Pope

"Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath"

Michael Caine, Actor

Michael Caine

"Never trust a man who speaks well of everybody"

John Churton Collins, Critic

John Churton Collins

"When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

William Shakespeare

"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions"

Gilbert K. Chesterton, Writer

Gilbert K. Chesterton

"Errors are not in the art but in the artificers"

Isaac Newton, Mathematician

Isaac Newton

"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race"

H.G. Wells, Author

H.G. Wells

"Beware the fury of a patient man"

John Dryden, Poet

John Dryden

"My pride fell with my fortunes"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

William Shakespeare

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last"

Winston Churchill, Statesman

Winston Churchill

"Better murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unacted desire"

William Blake, Poet

William Blake

"Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table"

W. H. Auden, Poet

W. H. Auden

"A nomad I will remain for life, in love with distant and uncharted places"

Isabelle Eberhardt, Explorer

Isabelle Eberhardt

"I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself"

David Herbert Lawrence, Writer

David Herbert Lawrence

"Always live in the ugliest house on the street - then you don't have to look at it"

David Hockney, Artist

David Hockney

"If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all"

Elizabeth I, Royalty

Elizabeth I

"The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance"

Thomas Paine, Writer

Thomas Paine

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse"

John Stuart Mill, Philosopher

John Stuart Mill

"A light heart lives long"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

William Shakespeare

"'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'"

Lewis Carroll, Author

Lewis Carroll

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

William Shakespeare

"If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise"

William Blake, Poet

William Blake

"We forge the chains we wear in life"

Charles Dickens, Novelist

Charles Dickens

"Take away love and our earth is a tomb"

Robert Browning, Poet

Robert Browning

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