Colley Quotes & Sayings

Recognising that an ostentatious cult of heroism and state service served an important propaganda function for the British elite does not mean, of course, that we should dismiss it as artificial or insincere. All aristocracies have a strong military tradition, and for many British patricians the protracted warfare of the period was a godsend. It gave them a job, and, more important, a purpose, an opportunity to carry out what they had been trained to do since childhood: ride horses, fire guns, exercise their undoubted physical courage and tell other people what to do. — Linda Colley

Who fears t' offend takes the first step to please. — Colley Cibber

The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian domeOutlives in fame the pious fool that rais'd it. — Colley Cibber

Can it be entirely accidental that the most famous fictional spy of them all, James Bond, Number 007, deadly marksman, intriguer, the ultimate man behind the curtain, sexual athlete and ruthless patriot, is also a Scot, as was the author, whose wish-fulfilment he was? — Linda Colley

It would be wrong to interpret the growth of British national consciousness in this period in terms of a new cultural and political uniformity being resolutely imposed on the peripheries of the island by its centre. For many poorer and less literate Britons, Scotland, Wales and England remained more potent rallying calls than Great Britain, except in times of danger from abroad. And even among the politically educated, it was common to think in terms of dual nationalities, not a single national identity. — Linda Colley

Ever since the Reformation, the case of legislation confining Catholics had been constructed primarily to protect a nervously Protestant against what was assumed to be a fifth column in its midst ... Ministers believedm with some justice, that Catholics retained an attachment to their exiled co-religionists, the princes of the House of Stuart. After the Battle of Culloden had confirmed Jacobitism's insignificance, however, government attitudes towards Catholicism began perceptibly and logically to relax. — Linda Colley

I shall write a book some day about the appropriateness of names. Geoffrey Chaucer has a ribald ring, as is proper and correct, and Alexander Pope was inevitably Alexander Pope. Colley Cibber was a silly little man without much elegance and Shelley was very Percy and very Bysshe. — James Joyce

Sometimes, life can seem very uncertain. No matter what, find the source that keeps you strong and keep in alignment with that source. Don't be swayed or dismayed with the uncertainties, instead, be firm with that which you are certain of. — Eveth N Colley

When we are conscious of the least comparative merit in ourselves, we should take as much care to conceal the value we set upon it, as if it were a real defect; to be elated or vain upon it is showing your money before people in want. — Colley Cibber

Oh, say! what is that thing call'd light, Which I must ne'er enjoy? What are the blessings of the sight? Oh, tell your poor blind boy! — Colley Cibber

Strange, awkwardly written, and even shocking, it broke new ground in more than geographical and observational terms. — Linda Colley

These developments - a massive transfer of land by way of inheritance and purchase, an unprecedented rise in the profitability of land and increasing intermarriage between Celtic and English dynasties - helped to consolidate a new unitary ruling class in place of the more separate and specific landed establishments that had characterised England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland in the Tudor and Stuart eras. — Linda Colley

Contrary to received wisdom, the British are not an insular people in the conventional sense - far from it. For most of their early modern and modern history, they have had more contact with more parts of the world than almost any other nation - it is just that this contact has regularly taken the form of aggressive military and commercial enterprise. — Linda Colley

In the last quarter of the 20th century, Britons have been understandably obsessed with the problem of having too little power in the world. In the third quarter of the 18th century, by contrast, their forebears were perplexed by the problem of having acquired too much power too quickly over too many people. — Linda Colley

In the past, the British had signally failed to build an effective structure of royal authority and administration in their American colonies. As a result, no possibility existed of soothing and winning over influential and talented Americans, in the way that influential and talented Scotsmen were increasingly being won over, by giving them increased access to state employment. — Linda Colley

Life is a gift and it is what you make it. Yet, it does have many twist and turns, many lows as well as high moments.
Keep the fire of hope alive, even in the darkest of time. — Eveth N Colley

Loyal and substansial Catholic service on the battlefield undermined one of the most longstanding objections to emancipation: namely, that since Catholics owed religious allegiance to a foreign authority in the person of the Pope, their political and patriotic allegiance must necessarily be suspect. — Linda Colley

An unprecedented number of uniformed males, marching, parading and engaging in mock battles in every region of Great Britain brought a pleasant frisson of excitement into many normally quiet and deeply repetitive female lives. — Linda Colley

Jacobitism involved much more than a debate about the merits of a particular dynasty. Men and women were well aware that its success was almost certain to involved them in civil war. And the more politically educated knew that the Stuart Pretender was a pawn in a worldwide struggle for commercial and imperial primacy between Britain and France. — Linda Colley

Stolen sweets are best. — Colley Cibber

Oh! How many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding-ring! — Colley Cibber

The pre-war empire had been sufficiently informal and sufficiently cheap for Parliament to claim authority over it without having to concern itself too much about what this authority entailed. The post-war empire necessitated a much greater investment in administrative machinery and military force. This build-up of control had to be paid for, either by British taxpayers or by their colonists. — Linda Colley

It takes time for the absent to assume their true shape in our thoughts. After death they take on a firmer outline and then cease to change. — Colley Cibber

Ah! good Sir! no Whores before Dinner, I beseech you.
[Love's Last Shift] — Colley Cibber

Chilvalry's essential function, Maurice Keen has written, is always to hold up an idealised image of armed conflict in defiance of the harsh realities of actual warfare. By definition, chivalry also reaffirms the paramount importance of custom, hierarchy and inherited rank. — Linda Colley

Most Britons still lived and died without encountering anyone whose skin colour was different from their own. Slaves, in short, did not threaten, at least as far as the British at home were concerned. Bestowing freedom upon them seemed therefore purely an act of humanity and will, an achievement that would be to Great Britain's economic detriment, perhaps, but would have few other domestic consequences. — Linda Colley

We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman; scorned, slighted, dismissed without a parting pang. — Colley Cibber

Thou strange piece of wild nature! — Colley Cibber

A British imperium enabled Scots to feel themselves peers of the Ebglish in a way still denied them in an island kingdom. The language bears that out very clearly. The English and the foreign are still all too inclined to refer to the island of Great Britain as 'England'. But at no time have they ever customarily referred to an English empire. — Linda Colley

Practice increasing your time spent counting your blessings versus complaining. — Eveth N Colley

Human beings are many-layered creatures, and do not succumb to the hegemony of others as easily as historians and politicians sometimes imply. Those Welsh, Scottish and Anglo-Irish individuals who became part of the British Establishment in this period did not in the main sell out in the sense of becoming Anglicised look-alikes. Instead, they became British in a new and intensely profitable fashion, while remaining in their own minds and behavior Welsh, or Scottish, or Irish aswell. — Linda Colley

Possession is eleven points in the law. — Colley Cibber

In the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, as in so many later conflicts, British women seem to have been no more markedly pacifist than men. Instead, and exactly like so many of their male countrymen, some women found ways of combining support for the national interest with a measure of self-promotion. By assisting the war effort, women demonstrated that their concerns were by no means confined to the domestic sphere. Under cover of a patriotism that was often genuine and profound, they carved out for themselves a real if precarious place in the public sphere. — Linda Colley

What have I done? What horrid crime committed?
To me the worst of crimes-outliv'd my liking. — Colley Cibber

The happy have whole days, and those they choose. The unhappy have but hours, and those they lose. — Colley Cibber

Then let not what I cannot have
My cheer of mind destroy.
Whilst thus I sing, I am a king,
Although a poor blind boy! — Colley Cibber

In virtually every Continental state at this time, aristocracies had to live with the risk that their property might be pillaged or confiscated. Only in Great Britain did it prove possible to float the idea that aristocratic property was in some magical and strictly intangible way the people's property also. The fact that hundreds of thousands of men and women today are willing to accept that privately owned country houses and their contents are part of Britain's national heritage is one more proof of how successfully the British elite reconstructed its cultural image in an age of revolution. — Linda Colley

A fundamental reason why Britain was not torn apart by civil war after 1688 was that its inhabitants' aggression was channelled so regularly and so remorsely into war and imperial expansion abroad. — Linda Colley

Prithee don't screw your wit beyond the compass of good manners. — Colley Cibber

You know, one had as good be out of the world, as out of the fashion. — Colley Cibber

A weak invention of the Enemy. — Colley Cibber

Words are but empty thanks. — Colley Cibber

Tea! Thou soft, thou sober,
sage and venerable liquid ...
to whose glorious insipidity,
I owe the happiest moments of my life,
let me fall prostrate. — Colley Cibber

From the 15th century to 1688, England and Wales, like Scotland, had been peripheral kingdoms in the European power game, more often at war with each other that with Continental powers, and - except under Oliver Cromwell - scarcely very successful on those occasions when they did engage the Dutch, or the French, or the Spanish. — Linda Colley

Losers must have leave to speak. — Colley Cibber

Banish that fear; my flame can never waste,
For love sincere refines upon the taste. — Colley Cibber

I've lately had two spiders Crawling upon my startled hopes
Now though thy friendly hand has brushed 'em from me, Yet still they crawl offensive to mine eyes: I would have some kind friend to tread upon 'em. — Colley Cibber

At one level Great Britain at the beginning of the 18th century was like the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, both three and one, and altogether something of a mystery. — Linda Colley

So mourn'd the dame of Ephesus her love. — Colley Cibber

Tea! thou soft, sober, sage and venerable liquid;- thou female tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wink-tippling cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate. — Colley Cibber

Old houses mended, Cost little less than new before they're ended. — Colley Cibber

For women to be supplying the soldiery with banners, flannel shirts and other material comforts was, superficially, all of a piece with their ministrations to their menfolk at home. Such contributions to the war effort were socially acceptable because they could be seen as an extension into the military sphere of the traditional female virtues of charity, nurture and needlework. Yet in reality what the women were doing represented the thin end of a far more radical wedge. Consciously or not, these female patriots were staking out a civic role for themselves. And many of them relished it. — Linda Colley

In Great Britain, woman was subordinate and confined. But at least she was also safe. — Linda Colley

Colley Cibber, are apposite here: "It is not to the actor — Richard Eugene Burton

So there are many things outside of your control. Why not create positive control over the other things and add greater value to those? — Eveth N Colley

The happy have whole days, — Colley Cibber

Virtually every war fought since the Act of Union had gone badly at some stage, but before 1783 none had ended in defeat. Nor would any major war in which Britain was involved after this date end in defeat. Those who are curious about this country's peculiar social and political stability probably need look no further than this for essential cause. — Linda Colley

The wretch that fears to drown, will break through flames;
Or, in his dread of flames, will plunge in waves.
When eagles are in view, the screaming doves
Will cower beneath the feet of man for safety. — Colley Cibber

Faint is the bliss, that never past thro' pain. — Colley Cibber