Famous quotes containing the words british, empire and/or decline:
“Comes from a fine family. So she tells me. Brother’s a priest, all that. But, you know, death, disaster, unfortunate investments. One day she’s a little princess, up on the hill. Next, she’s down there, working the bars for the best she can.”
—Peter Prince, British screenwriter, and Stephen Frears. Harry (Bill Hunter)
“Positively I sit here, and look at Europe sink, first one deck disappearing, then another, and the whole ship slowly plunging bow-down into the abyss; until the nightmare gets to be howling. The Roman Empire was a trifle to it.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“My opposition [to interviews] lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)