Britain will be honoured by historians more for the way she disposed of an empire than for the way in which she acquired it.
quote by Lord Harlech
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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There Is A Legend Told
Once upon a time in a land of wishes,
Wishes that took ages to manifest,
Yet certainly coming true,
Supremacy, an empire emerged,
The King and Queen did stand,
So noble and highly honoured,
So marubic in her seat of honour,
Her highness viewed by the maltitude,
His majesty greatly honoured beyond,
Yes beyond the beyond of the beyond,
Such was the kingdom,
Such was their love like a kingdom
The vow to guard, and also to guide,
To distinguish a potatoe from an egg,
To separate a kiss from sex,
For love was the kingdom,
And sex became war unto them,
The priceless bravery of a kingdom,
To never seek out war,
But certainly to be ready for it,
Someone did show us,
Certainly how it looked like
It was beyond the thoughts of cowards,
A kingdom fighting a cause,
To defend their appluase,
Was it a plausible perfidy we saw,
Or maybe an indecent disire he had
For to love is like building an empire,
For to commit is like to stand still,
And for sex is like engaging in war,
So shall the empire never seek war,
Certainly, but, be prepared for it
The meanings hidden were unveiled,
The empire's parables were explained,
The poets did saw it coming,
Some fell and few stood still,
The legend of the empire
poem by Gaylord Munemo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Watching You, Watching Me, Watching You, Watching Everyone
So this is Great Britain
A green and pleasant land?
The home of CCTV Camera’s
To get speeding drivers banned
So this is Great Britain
The welfare state, & NHS
Great British Institutions?
Some think they’re in a mess
So this Is Great Britain
That once ruled the waves
An Empire and a Commonwealth?
Now issues ASBO’s if one misbehaves
So this is Great Britain
The Mother of Democracy?
The House of Commons and Lords
Ensuring justice & liberty?
So this is Great Britain
Where God saves the Queen
A land of hope & glory?
You can vote at age eighteen
So this is Great Britain
Are the pensioners in poverty?
They’ve never had it so good?
They’re all having a nice cup of tea
So this is Great Britain
A class system breeding inequality
Education, Education, Education?
Needing a dose of political honesty
So this is Great Britain
Still the mother of the free?
The police, council, & MI5
Are watching you or watching me
poem by Gordon David
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It is a cliche these days to observe that the United States now possesses a global empire - different from Britain's and Rome's but an empire nonetheless.
quote by Robert D. Kaplan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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For Britain Only
We blasted Glasgow
Invaded France
Assaulted Sweden
Took down our pants
And lovely England
My little kitten
Deliriously
Black widow Bitten
For Britain only
Only for Britain, yeah
For Britain only
Only for Britain
Jumped on the concord
Ain't much for sittin'
I told my boys, now
No public spiting
No bar room fighting
No bad head splitting
Behave yourself 'cause we're, we're back in Britain
For Britain only
Only for Britain
Cost six years of time and space
It took so long to change his face
To redesign his streamline face
Now strong and sleek but still no taste
Guilty
I'm guilty
Won't go to Hungary
Iran is out
Welcome to Moscow, huh
I have my doubts
Can't get near Libya
That boy's insane
Let's head for London
Where we can scream again
For Britain only
Only for Britain, yeah
For Britain only
Only for Britain
For Britain only
song performed by by Alice Cooper
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ika
Ika,
I’d love to write a poem
I’d be proud to write a poem
for you which would be
about you because
you deserve a poem
which would be about
you of course but also deeply, deeply,
about the tragic, comic, farcical
ironies of skin colour, history, earnings,
empire, class, prejudice, sheer
human thoughtlessness and cruelty; and yet
the essential goodness
of mankind
and it would somehow
have to cover
your proud Jamaican family,
stalwart, respected
in the community and then
the way that Britain invited
its fine colonial soldiers,
airman, sailors, who had
fought and lived and died
for a land they had never known,
for an Empire shortly to break up,
to come to Britain and
continue the proud record
of colonial servicemen
supported by our web of aristocracy
which knew and served and loved its Empire
full of human beings, humanity -
so that you, now retired
from the services, are
a hospital orderly who is
on nodding terms with lords and ladies,
millionaires and nobodies
and friend to everybody, who has
suffered the irony of being
mugged by white guys
disguised as joggers
because you dress so smart…
I think you’ve never quite
recovered from this
wound they’d never guess at…
and all this human thoughtlessness
and more, you turn upside down
by shopping at Harrods food store
on a hospital orderly’s pay;
while your nephews and nieces
educated in Jamaica and the States
are so magnificent, and well-off too…
there’s so much I’d like to put down
on paper, because I’m so proud
to have you as a friend, who
also represents
more recent human history
than a book of history
could contain; and yet
you’ve never lost your dignity
thank God
so
this is just to say,
you deserve a poem,
Ika,
and I’d be honoured
to write it but
I can’t even begin
you know how it is
yes indeed you do
poem by Michael Shepherd
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The English sent all their bores abroad, and acquired the Empire as a punishment.
quote by Edward Bond
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role.
quote by Dean Acheson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The reason is that a military defeat of Britain will bring about the disintegration of the British Empire. This would not be of any benefit to Germany.
quote by Franz Halder
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Beauty is always the result of an accident. Of a violent lapse between acquired habits and those yet to be acquired. It baffles and disgusts. It may even horrify. Once the new habit has been acquired, the accident ceases to be an accident. It becomes classical and loses its shock value.
quote by Jean Cocteau
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A good inclination is but the first rude draught of virtue, but the finishing strokes are from the will, which, if well disposed, will by degrees perfect it, as if all disposed will quickly deface it.
History Is A Story
Hunters write history;
Tigers have no historians.
Winners write history;
Losers have no historians.
Read the history as a story.
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.
quote by William Blake
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Vast Empire And Fallen Throne.
A vast empire surrounds us
But we stand with the fallen throne and
Confounded and crestfallen we are.
Our empire of amasses; not of accumulations!
Our empire of ownership; not of master-hood!
Our empire of intelligence; not of erudition!
The throne lies down with its jewels gone,
It lies at our feet and none can pick it up.
We feel on our skull the shame of past.
Our throne of civilisation; not of progress!
Our throne of peace; not of harmony!
Our throne of diamonds; not of copper
The empire will swell and explode next
And our throne will lie buried ever.
The empire will thereafter turn into a planet of its own
And go on the orbit of might and moss and
Our throne will join the fossils down deep!
The ides of the present remain told aloud!
poem by M.d Dinesh Nair
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All comparisons between America's current place in the world and anything legitimately called an empire in the past reveal ignorance and confusion about any reasonable meaning of the concept empire, especially the comparison with the Roman Empire.
quote by Donald Kagan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Our American past always speaks to us with two voices the voice of the past, and the voice of the present. We are always asking two quite different questions. Historians reading the words of John Winthrop usually ask, What did they mean to him Citizens ask, What do they mean to us Historians are trained to seek the original meaning all of us want to know the present meaning.
quote by Daniel J. Boorstin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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They don't think we're in touch with modern Britain, or understand modern Britain or like modern Britain.
quote by Francis Maude
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Britain leads the way in fund raising. I am so proud of Britain.
quote by Sharon Osbourne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Britain is not a country that is easily rocked by revolution... In Britain our institutions evolve. We are a Fabian Society writ large.
quote by William Hamilton
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But let her remember, that it is in Britain alone, that laws are equally favourable to liberty and humanity; that it is in Britain the sacred rights of nature have received their most awful ratification.
quote by Thomas Day
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ballad of Lieges
Son of our King: When yoemen sailed
From Britain to expand her sway,
The coward from High venture quailed,
The weakling sank beside the way.
None save the strong in that far day,
The brave, stood clear-eyed at the prow
To plan such parts as venturers play.
Here be their kin who greet you now.
Britain had failed if these had failed -
Stout pioneers whose sterner clay,
Reckless of that the task entailed,
Faced the unknown with no dismay.
Out to vast wildernesses they
Blazed pain-strewn paths, for axe plough
To earn this fruitful century's pay.
Here be their kin who greet you now.
When o'er an Empire bugles wailed
To summon liegemen to the fray,
In sons the olden urge prevailed;
Nor life, nor love might bid them stay.
Unblooded, in red war's array
They proved the breed, they kept the vow,
They paid the price as liegemen may.
Here be their kin who greet you now.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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