United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a population of over 69 million in 2024. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of the smaller islands within the British Isles. It shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea, while maintaining sovereignty over the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. The capital and largest city of England and the UK is London; Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast are the national capitals of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

A

The people of Britain and the Dominions were not much given to self-glorification. We were indeed inclined to a certain self-depreciation which was not always understood outside our own family of nations; but this was an occasion when they might take a proper pride in themselves. The world knew that in the critical time after Hitler's victories in 1940 it was the British Commonwealth and Empire that stood alone in defence of freedom for a whole year. It was British steadfastness that held the line while the forces of freedom were gathering.
- Clement Attlee, Speech to the conference of representatives of the British and Dominion Labour parties, Westminster (12 September 1944), quoted in The Times (13 September 1944) p. 8

We want to lay the foundations of a new and better Britain worthy of our great people. That is why we propose in the interests of the whole nation that the community should become the master of its economic progress and prosperity, instead of leaving control in private hands to be used primarily for the private advantage of a few. In short, we are standing for the common weal.
- Clement Attlee, Message to Labour candidates, quoted in The Times (29 June 1945) p. 2

To-day the most comprehensive system of social security ever introduced into any country would start in Britain. The four Acts—National Insurance, Industrial Injuries, National Assistance, and National Health Service—represented the main body of the army of social security...We cannot create a scheme which gives the nation a whole more than they put into it, and it is always the general level of production that settles our standard of material well-being. Only higher output can give us more of the things we all need. This will decide the real value of the money payments.
- Clement Attlee, Broadcast (4 July 1948), quoted in The Times (5 July 1948) p. 6

In the coming months the need is for the people of this country to do two things. First, to increase the national production; and, secondly, to exercise restraint in demands for increased incomes and self-control in expenditure...I am confident that in peace just as we did in war, Britain will conquer them by determination, hard work, and by the cooperation of all.
- Clement Attlee, Speech to the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom at the Dorchester Hotel (13 October 1949), quoted in The Times (14 October 1949) p. 4

Ever since the end of the war Britain has been working against time. We must find a way to stand on our own feet, and that very soon. Since the end of the war, too, our reserves have been small. This means that any alteration in world trade conditions, any failure to produce and sell enough goods must land us in serious trouble...I would like every one of you, whether employer or employed, to start right away to consider how in your particular job you can increase and cheapen production, how you can check absenteeism and get the kind of public opinion in factory, mine, railway, or other workplace which will bring the person who is slacking up to the mark.
- Clement Attlee, Broadcast (24 October 1949), quoted in The Times (25 October 1949) p. 2

B

Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,
How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set;
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet,
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet.
- A. C. Benson, "Land of Hope and Glory" (1902)

Britain is blessed with a functioning political culture. It is dominated by people who live in London and who have often known each other since prep school. This makes it gossipy and often incestuous.
- David Brooks, "Britain Is Working", The New York Times (23 May 2011) [1]

I am constantly filled with admiration at this – at the way you can wander through a town like Oxford and in the space of a few hundred yards pass the home of Christopher Wren, the buildings where Halley found his comet and Boyle his first law, the track where Roger Banister ran the first sub-four minute mile, the meadow where Lewis Carroll strolled; or how you can stand on Snow's Hill at Windsor and see, in a single sweep, Windsor Castle, the playing fields of Eton, the churchyard where Gray wrote his 'Elegy,' the site The Merry Wives of Windsor was first performed. Can there anywhere on earth be, in such a modest span, a landscape more packed with centuries of busy, productive attainment?
- Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island (1995)

Through many a storm
His isles had floated on the abyss of time;
For the rough virtues chose them for their clime.
- Lord Byron, The Vision of Judgment, st. XLII (1822)

C

The sound of modern Britain is a complex harmony, not a male voice choir.
- David Cameron, Speech in Hereford (16 December 2005) [2]

I want to help try and build a more responsible society here in Britain, one where we don't just ask what are my entitlements but what are my responsibilities, one where we don't ask what am I just owed but more what can I give, and a guide for that society that those that can should and those who can't we will always help.
- David Cameron, First Speech as Prime Minister, 10 Downing Street (11 May 2010)

Britain is a special country. We have so many great advantages: a parliamentary democracy where we resolve great issues about our future through peaceful debate; a great trading nation with our science and arts, our engineering and our creativity, respected the world over. And while we are not perfect, I do believe we can be a model of a multiracial, multifaith democracy where people can come and make a contribution, and rise to the very highest that their talent allows.
- David Cameron, Resignation Speech as Prime Minister (24 June 2016) [3]

I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations. I am sorry, however, that he has not been mellowed by the great success that has attended him.
- Winston Churchill, "Mr. Churchill's Reply" in The Times (7 November 1938)

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.
- Winston Churchill, "We Shall Fight on the Beaches", Speech in the British House of Commons (4 June 1940)

When I warned them [the French] that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided cabinet, "In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken." Some chicken; some neck.
- Winston Churchill, "Some Chicken; Some Neck", Speech to the Canadian Parliament, Ottawa (30 December 1941)

British democracy approves the principles of movable party heads and unwaggable national tails.
- Winston Churchill, Address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, Washington, D.C. (17 January 1952)

Prussia possesses the best government in Europe. I would gladly give up my taste for talking politics to secure such a state of things in England. Had our people such a simple and economical government, so deeply imbued with justice to all, and aiming so constantly to elevate mentally and morally its population, how much better would it be for the twelve or fifteen millions in the British Empire, who, while they possess no electoral rights, are yet persuaded they are freemen, and who are mystified into the notion that they are not political bondmen, by that great juggle of the 'English Constitution'—a thing of monopolies, and Church-craft, and sinecures, armorial hocus-pocus, primogeniture, and pageantry!
- Richard Cobden, Letter to F. Cobden (11 September 1838). John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1905) p. 130

D

Daddy Neptune one day to Freedom did say,
If ever I live upon dry land,
The spot I should hit on wou'd be little Britain!
Says Freedom, "Why that's my own island!"
  O, it's a snug little island!
  A right little, tight little island,
  Search the globe round, none can be found
  So happy as this little island.
- Thomas John Dibdin, "The Snug Little Island", st. 1. The British Raft (c. 1797)

Look at England, whose mighty power is now felt, and for centuries has been felt, all around the world. It is worthy of special remark, that precisely those parts of that proud island which have received the largest and most diversified populations, are to day the parts most distinguished for industry, enterprise, invention and general enlightenment. In Wales, and in the Highlands of Scotland the boast is made of their pure blood, and that they were never conquered, but no man can contemplate them without wishing they had been conquered. They are far in the rear of every other part of the English realm in all the comforts and conveniences of life, as well as in mental and physical development. Neither law nor learning descends to us from the mountains of Wales or from the Highlands of Scotland. The ancient Briton, whom Julius Caesar would not have as a slave, is not to be compared with the round, burly, amplitudinous Englishman in many of his qualities of desirable manhood.
- Frederick Douglass, "Our Composite Nationality", Speech in Boston, MA (7 December 1869) [4]

Five generations ago, Britain was ashamed to write books in her own tongue. Now her language is spoken in all quarters of the globe.
- Frederick Douglass, "Self-Made Men", Address to the Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, PA (1872) [5]

E

We may...conclude it to be an evidence of strength, rather than of weakness, that the Scots language and the Scottish literature did not maintain a separate existence. It is not always recognized how fierce and fatal is the struggle for existence between literatures. In this struggle there is great advantage to be won if forces not too disparate can be united. Scottish, throwing in its luck with English, has not only much greater chance of survival, but contributes important elements of strength to complete the English: as, for instance, its philosophical and historical prose.
- T. S. Eliot, "Was There a Scottish Literature?" [Review of Scottish Literature: Character and Influence by G. Gregory Smith] in The Athenæum (1 August 1919) p. 681

G

Come cheer up, my lads! 'tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year;
To honour we call you, as free men not slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves?
Heart of oak are our ships, heart of oak are our men;
We always are ready, steady, boys, steady!
We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again.
- David Garrick, "Heart of Oak". Harlequin's Invasion (1759)

What is our task? To make Britain a fit country for heroes to live in.
- David Lloyd George, Speech in Wolverhampton (23 November 1918), quoted in The Times (25 November 1918), p. 13

H

The British monarchy inculcates unthinking credulity and servility. It forms a heavy layer on the general encrustation of our unreformed political institutions. It is the gilded peg from which our unlovely system of social distinction and hierarchy depends. It is an obstacle to the objective public discussion of our own history. It tribalises politics. It entrenches the absurdity of the hereditary principle. It contributes to what sometimes looks like an enfeeblement of the national intelligence, drawing from our press and even from some of our poets the sort of degrading and abnegating propaganda that would arouse contempt if displayed in Zaire or Romania. It is, in short, neither dignified nor efficient.
- Christopher Hitchens, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish (1990)

In today's Britain, the idea that there could be a Constitution more powerful – and even sacrosanct – than any crowned head or elected politician (thus abolishing the false antithesis between hereditary monarchs and capricious presidents) is thought of as a breathtakingly new and daring idea...Too many crucial things about this country turn out to be highly recommended because they are 'invisible'. There is the 'hidden hand' of the free market, the 'unwritten' Constitution, the 'invisible earnings' of the financial service sector, the 'magic' of monarchy and the 'mystery' of the Church and its claim to the interpretation of revealed truth. When we do get as far as the visible or the palpable, too much of it is deemed secret. How right it is that senior ministers, having kissed hands with the monarch, are sworn to the cult of secrecy by 'The Privy Council Oath'. How right it is that our major foreign alliance – the 'special relationship' with the United States – is codified by no known treaty and regulated by no known Parliamentary instrument.
- Christopher Hitchens, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish (1990)

Into my heart on air that kills
  From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
  What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
  I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
  And cannot come again.
- A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad (1896) XL

K

You know, here’s our old friend – what's his name – the British prime minister waxing lyrical down there in Cornwall. I mean, Britain is like an old theme park sliding into the Atlantic compared to modern China. China is just going to be huge.
- Paul Keating, Interviewed by Laura Tingle for the Australian National Press Club (10 November 2021) [6]

We weren't taught Shakespeare or Milton in order to understand our own situation—they were taught as the jewels in Queen Victoria's crown. The point of the colonial enterprise was that it had all these people to control. Our education was about imprinting on us the greatness of England, the idea that the people who could produce these works were of a superior kind of people...I came to understand that I should separate Shakespeare and all of the rest from Disraeli and Horatio Nelson—that the British Empire is one thing and literature another. I'll take everything except Kipling. Wordsworth would have been very upset to know that his wonderful poems were being used as a weapon of empire.
- Jamaica Kincaid, Interviewed by Darryl Pinckney for The Paris Review (2022) [7]

England is an amazing and paradoxical country; there are, in spite of the great emphasis upon "democracy," all indications of the existence of an aristocratic and [oligarchic rule, yet this generally recognized fact caused little if any human resentment among the lower classes. There are actually a few dissatisfied, ambitious people among the middle classes who have a personal grudge against the old school tie and the reverses in the present war have made their protests appear louder than they are. It may be argued that these sentiments expressed are rather antiplutocratic than antiaristocratic. Yet the tacit and genuine, human acceptance of aristocratic or at least upper class leadership gives Britain the right to call itself a "democracy" without being one in reality. Hierarchic feelings always were very strong in England, but the extreme elasticity of the class system has always mitigated the apprehensions if aroused. Nowhere are classes more receptive to new elements, nowhere is it easier to rise socially, yet nowhere are the differences between the classes so marked as in England (with the exception of India and certain sections of the United States).
- Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, The Menace of the Herd (1943) pt. 3, ch. 3

M

The masses now took prosperity for granted...The country simply did not realize that we were living beyond our income, and would have to pay for it sooner or later.
- Harold Macmillan, Letter to Nigel Nicolson (26 June 1957), quoted in Alistair Horne, Harold Macmillan, vol. 2 (1989) p. 64

Most of our people have never had it so good. Go around the country, go to the industrial towns, go to the farms, and you will see a state of prosperity such as we have never had in my life time—nor indeed ever in the history of this country. What is beginning to worry some of us is, is it too good to be true?—or perhaps I should say, is it too good to last? ... Our constant concern to-day is, can prices be steadied while at the same time we maintain full employment in an expanding economy? Can we control inflation? This is the problem of our time.
- Harold Macmillan, Speech at Bedford (20 July 1957), quoted in The Times (22 July 1957) p. 4

It breaks my heart to see (I can't interfere or do anything at my age) what is happening in our country today – this terrible strike of the best men in the world, who beat the Kaiser's army and beat Hitler's army, and never gave in. Pointless, endless. We can't afford that kind of thing. And then this growing division...of a comparatively prosperous south, and an ailing north and midlands. That can't go on.
- Harold Macmillan, Maiden speech in the House of Lords (13 November 1984)

The British tourist is always happy abroad as long as the natives are waiters.
- Robert Morley, as quoted in The Observer, "Sayings of the Week" (20 April 1958)—cited in J. M. and M. J. Cohen (eds.) The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations (1971) p. 162

O

As a result of the policy of Macmillan's government, Great Britain presents in the U.N. the face of Pecksniff and in Katanga the face of Gradgrind.
- Conor Cruise O'Brien, as quoted in Christopher Hitchens, Prepared for the Worst (1988) "Good and Bad", p. 44

P

As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood." ... That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.
- Enoch Powell, "Rivers of Blood", Speech to the West Midlands Area Conservative Political Centre (20 April 1968)

R

We have been told, to-day, that it was a woman that agitated Great Britain to its very centre, before emancipation could be effected in her colonies. Woman must go hand in hand with man in every great and noble cause, if success would be insured.
- Ernestine Rose, Speech at the Anniversary of West Indian Emancipation, Flushing, NY (4 August 1853) [8]

S

Nothing like a cuppa after an oggy-boggy that finished up better than a slap in the face with a wet kipper.
- Ami Onuki (Janice Kawaye) in Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, sn. 3, ep. 7a: "Motor-Psycho Mamas" (28 April 2006) written by Joelle Sellner

Oh England oh Scotland return the wind to sails,
Loose the flame again from the dragon of Wales,
Let Ireland blaze, as lady justice is raised,
And a balance returns to her scales.
- Jordan Smith, "Listen Britannia!", st. 5. "'Listen Britannia!': A Poem by Jordan Smith", The Society of Classical Poets, classicalpoets.org (29 August 2025)

Britain still thinks it's 1999.
- Irwin Stelzer, "Letter from Londonistan", The Weekly Standard (1 August 2005)

T

We shall have to learn again to be one nation, or one day we shall be no nation.
- Margaret Thatcher, "Winter of Discontent", Conservative Party TV broadcast (17 January 1979) [9]

I can't bear Britain in decline. I just can't.
- Margaret Thatcher, Interviewed by Michael Cockerell for BBC TV's Campaign '79 (27 April, 1979)

I came to office with one deliberate intent: to change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society – from a give-it-to-me, to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain.
- Margaret Thatcher, Speech to the Small Business Bureau Conference, Lakeside Country Club, Frimley, Surrey (8 February 1984) [10]

When Britain first, at heaven's command,
Arose from out of the azure main,
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung this strain:
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves.”
- James Thomson, "Rule, Britannia!", st. 1. Alfred (1740) act II, sc. x

The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
- James Thomson, "Rule, Britannia!", st. 2

To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine:
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
- James Thomson, "Rule, Britannia!", st. 5

The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest Isle! With matchless beauty crown'd,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
- James Thomson, "Rule, Britannia!", st. 6

W

O ye by wandering tempest sown
   'Neath every alien star,
Forget not whence the breath was blown
   That wafted you afar!
For ye are still her ancient seed
   On younger soil let fall—
Children of Britain's island-breed,
To whom the Mother in her need
   Perchance may one day call.
- William Watson, "England and Her Colonies", st. 2. Poems (1893)

The British have always fought, to be sure. No nation on Earth can be taken seriously in historical circles unless it has had at least one war with the British; it's like not having an American Express card. And yet the very idea of Britain in a contemporary war is a shock. Britain, one feels, fights in history books and not on TV.
- Gene Wolfe, "A Few Points About knife Throwing", Fantasy Newsletter (1983), reprinted in Castle of Days (1992)

It is not to be thought of that the Flood
Of British freedom, which, to the open sea
Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity
Hath flowed, "with pomp of waters, unwithstood,"
Roused though it be full often to a mood
Which spurns the check of salutary bands,
That this most famous Stream in bogs and sands
Should perish; and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung
Armoury of the invincible Knights of old:
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.—In every thing we are sprung
Of Earth's first blood, have titles manifold.
- William Wordsworth, "It Is Not to Be Thought Of". Poems in Two Volumes (1807)

Anonymous

Whereas in pursuance of his Majesty’s most gracious recommendation to the two houses of parliament in Great Britain and Ireland respectively, to consider of such measures as might best tend to strengthen and consolidate the connexion between the two kingdoms, the two houses of the parliament of Great Britain, and the two houses of the parliament of Ireland have severally agreed and resolved, that in order to promote and secure the essential interests of Great Britain and Ireland, and to consolidate the strength, power, and resources of the British empire, it will be adviseable to concur in such measures as may best tend to unite the two kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, into one kingdom, in such manner, and on such terms and conditions, as may be established by the acts of the respective parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland.
- Acts of Union 1800 (39 & 40 Geo. 3. c. 67)

Keep Calm and Carry On
- Motivational poster and slogan produced by the Ministry of Information in preparation for the Second World War (27 June – 6 July 1939)

God Save our gracious King,
Long live our noble King,
God Save The King!
Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us;
God Save the King!
[O Lord our God arise,
Scatter his enemies
And make them fall;
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks.
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God, save us all!]
Thy choicest gifts in store
On him be pleased to pour;
Long may he reign;
May he defend our laws,
And ever give us cause
To sing with heart and voice,
God save the King!
- "God Save the King" (authorised version)

Great Britain is a republic with a hereditary president, while the United States is a monarchy with an elective king.
- In The Knoxville Journal (9 February 1896)—cited in Peter Hays Gries, The Politics of American Foreign Policy (2014) p. 170

Some talk of Alexander, and some of Hercules.
Of Hector and Lysander, and such great names as these.
But of all the world's brave heroes, there's none that can compare
With a tow, row, row, row, row, row, to the British grenadiers!
- "The British Grenadiers", st. 1 (c. 1750)

The Mother Country
- British settlers and their descendants in the self-governing Dominions

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