Such was the transformation which had come over European society in the course of ten Christian centuries. Slavery had gone, and in its place had com… - Hilaire Belloc

It was the defection of the English Crown, the immense booty rapidly obtained by a few adventurers, like the Cecils and Russells, and a still smaller number of old families, like the Howards, which put England, with all its profound traditions and with all its organic inheritance of the great European thing, upon the side of the Northern Germanies. It was inevitable, therefore, that in England the fruits should first appear, for here only was there deep soil. That fruit upon which our modern observation has been most fixed was Capitalism. Capitalism proceeded from England and from the English Reformation; but it was not fully alive until the early eighteenth century. In the nineteenth it matured.

It is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interests of the nation.

If we are to be happy, decent and secure of our souls: drink some kind of fermented liquor with one's food; go on the water from time to time; dance on occasions, and sing in a chorus...