“We always have been, we are, and I hope that we always shall be detested in France.”
The Duke of Wellington according to AZ Quotes [https://www.azquotes.com/author/15482-Duke_of_Wellington]
“As if to underline the national decline [in Britain in the 1970s ], every flailing industry flew the moth-eaten flag: British Steel, British Coal, British Leyland. They were all owned by the state – even the last, which was the national automobile manufacturer. The government had taken all the famous British car marques – Austin, Morris, Rover, Jaguar, Triumph – and merged them into one. That’s right: the government made your car. Or, rather, a man called Red Robbo did, when he was in the mood, which wasn’t terribly often.”
Obit of James Callaghan by Mark Steyn in The Atlantic Monthly June 2005.
“At age seven, the much-tutored [future Queen] Victoria was reading British classics, perfecting her German and learning French. However, her frustrated piano master one day noted, ‘There is no royal road to music, Princess. You must practise like everybody else.’ Victoria slammed the piano shut. ‘There! You see there is no must about it!’”
Donna Jacobs “Monday Morning” in Ottawa Citizen May 21, 2007
“Lord Salisbury’s observation that ‘no lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust in experts’”
Michael Mandelbaum in New York Times June 16, 1985 [and widely quoted online but not, in any examples I found, with further attribution as to when or where Salisbury said it].
In my latest Epoch Times column I say surprising allies in the fight against bloated government could be the large number of people who find working in it miserable despite the pay and perks.
“If you’ve got to eat an elephant, you shouldn’t be surprised if after the first few mouthfuls you’re not down to the bones.”
“Britain’s top military officer … chief of defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup” quoted in Ottawa Citizen Sept. 10, 2007 [at a NATO meeting, re the Afghan mission, but it remains good advice despite the ultimate debacle there].
In my latest Loonie Politics column I ask, with respect to Jordan Peterson and others, how cancellation of anyone who questions authority became the default option in our society.
“It must be remembered that, though concord is in itself better than discord, discord may indicate a better state of things than is indicated by concord. Calamity and peril often force men to combine. Prosperity and security often encourage them to separate.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay The History of England