Peculiar English Quotes & Sayings

If I never point out the sin and struggle in the hearts of my children, and merely direct their behavior to please me, then when will they know they need a Savior? — Kara Tippetts

He was in that state of highly respectful sulkiness which is peculiar to English servants. — Wilkie Collins

The main cause of the ineffectiveness of British propaganda is that those directing it seem to have lost their own belief in the peculiar values of English civilization or to be completely ignorant of the main points on which it differs from that of other people. The Left intelligentsia indeed, have so long worshiped foreign gods that they seem to have become almost incapable of seeing any good in the characteristic English institutions and traditions. That the moral values on which most of them pride themselves are largely the product of the institutions they are out to destroy, these socialists cannot, of course, admit. — Friedrich Hayek

But I came to the government under circumstances calculated to generate peculiar acrimony. I found all its offices in the possession of a political sect who wished to transform it ultimately into the shape of their darling model the English government." The Republican victory of 1800, Jefferson said, "had blown all their designs, and they found themselves and their fortresses of power and profit put in a moment into the hands of other trustees. Lamentations and invective were all that remained to them." The — Jon Meacham

It would no doubt be very sentimental to argue - but I would argue it nevertheless - that the peculiar combination of joy and sadness in bell music - both of clock chimes, and of change-ringing - is very typical of England. It is of a piece with the irony in which English people habitually address one another. — A. N. Wilson

It's human nature to be timid in the face of obstacles, but I have learned to believe that challenges are opportunities for genius to shine. In order to feel alive, we have to accomplish things that we once believed we could not. — Dominique Moceanu

The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. The African writer should aim to use English in a way that brings out his message best without altering the language to the extent that its value as a medium of international exchange will be lost. He should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience. — Chinua Achebe

If you're colored, you get the short end of the stick. If you're a woman, you get the short end of the stick. So what do we get for being colored and women? — Sherri L. Smith

In other words, you're justifying the Hundred Years' War.'

'More or less. For it enabled our two peoples to become deeply interdependent, allowing the most fruitful of intellectual exchanges.'

'You mean, the French are "anglicized" without knowing it.'

'And the English have assimilated their Continental experience from that time much more than you think. But this is what I was leading up to: the Englishman is essentially a mystical being. And, because he's scrupulous, he's apprehensive. And therefore susceptible to everything that might be interpreted as a superhuman manifestation, whether it be a legend of esoteric significance - as in this case - or an event of peculiar resonance. Don't forget, all the official bodies in Paris - parliament, clergy, and especially the university - were in favour of the English at the period I'm talking about.'

'Of course! — Jacques Yonnet

The art of change-ringing is peculiar to the English, and, like most English peculiarities, unintelligible to the rest of the world. (The change-ringer's) passion - and it is a passion - finds its satisfaction in mathematical completeness and mechanical perfection, and as his bell weaves her way rhythmically up from lead to hinder place and down again, he is filled with the solemn intoxication that comes of intricate ritual faultlessly performed. — Dorothy L. Sayers

I think the best thing about music is that someone could be writing a song that's so personal, and it tells so many other people's story at the same time. It kind of exemplifies that we are all kind of on the same wave[length] - it's amazing how comforting somebody else's story can be, because we have experienced their story in some way or another, and I can totally relate, and I get to feel that feeling and the expression of that emotion. I get to feel like as a listener, that somebody understands me, which is pretty incredible. — Theresa Wayman

It has also been the peculiar lot of our country to be visited by the worst kind of English travellers. — Washington Irving

I think when a campaign is dishonest in the ads they run about another candidate, it diminishes the campaign, it diminishes the candidate, and it diminishes the presidency. — Mitt Romney

I don't think I like her very much. She is very good looking, but I sometimes think she is like one of those beautiful pears one gets-they have a rosy flush and a rather waxen appearance-" He shook his head.
"And they're bad inside?" said Lydia. "How funny you should say that, Alfred!"
"Why funny?"
She answered:
"Because-usually-you are such a gentle soul. You hardly ever say an unkind thing about anyone. I get annoyed with you sometimes because yo're not sufficiently, oh, what shall I say?-sufficiently suspicious-not worldly enough! — Agatha Christie

The British are a peculiar race. My grandfather was transported to Malaya because they needed tin, and yet I've never once met a Briton to whom the thought had occurred that perhaps I spoke English because I am from one of their colonies. It is as if I were a piece of chess in a game played by people who never look down at their fingers. — Zen Cho

I realised with a prickle of discomfort why he bothered me: it was not so much that I resented the hearty backslapping bonhomie of English upper-class gentlemen, for I could tolerate it well enough in Sidney on his own. It was the way Sidney fell so easily into this strutting group of young men, where I could not, and the fear that he might in some ways prefer their company to mine. Once again, I felt that peculiar stab of loneliness that only an exile truly knows: the sense that I did not belong, and never would again. — S.J. Parris

I intended that when the curtain went up the scene should confront the public like the exaggerating mirror in the stories of Madame Leprince de Beaumont, in which the depraved saw themselves with dragons' bodies, or bulls' horns, or whatever corresponded to their particular vice. It is not surprising that the public should have been aghast at the sight of its other self, which it had never before been shown completely. This ignoble other-self, as Monsieur Catulle Mendes has excellently said, is composed "of eternal human imbecility, eternal lust, eternal gluttony, the vileness of instinct magnified into tyranny; of the sense of decency, the virtues, the patriotism & the ideals peculiar to those who have just eaten their fill." Really, these are hardly the constituents for an amusing play, & the masks demonstrate that the comedy must at the most be the macabre comedy of an English clown, or of a Dance of Death. — Alfred Jarry

In order to translate a sentence from English into French two things are necessary. First, we must understand thoroughly the English sentence. Second, we must be familiar with the forms of expression peculiar to the French language. The situation is very similar when we attempt to express in mathematical symbols a condition proposed in words. First, we must understand thoroughly the condition. Second, we must be familiar with the forms of mathematical expression. — George Polya

It was English, and the wych-elm that she saw from the window was an English tree. No report had prepared her for its peculiar glory. It was neither warrior, nor lover, nor god; in none of these roles do the English excel. It was a comrade, bending over the house, strength and adventure in its roots, but in its utmost fingers tenderness, and the girth, that a dozen men could not have spanned, became in the end evanescent, till pale bud clusters seemed to float in the air. — E. M. Forster

If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. — George Carlin

Let us consider an even simpler example of a random variable, the number obtained when you throw just one die. (Pedantic note : this is the singular of the word whose plural is dice. Two dice, one die. Like two mice, one mie.)(Well, two mice, one mouse. Like two hice, one house. Peculiar language, English.) — Christopher Dougherty

That there should be so wide a difference between us Americans and these English, from whom we were divided, so to say, but the other day, is one of the most peculiar physiological phenomena that the history of the world will have afforded. As — Anthony Trollope

The peculiar foreign superstition that the English do not like love, the evidence being that they do not talk about it. — V.S. Pritchett