Quotes to inspire and reflect

Love your enemy. But don’t forget he is not your friend.

The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won’t get much sleep.

He can speak French; and therefore he is a traitor.

France is a dog-hole.

France is a country where the money falls apart in your hands and you can’t tear the toilet paper.

To err is human. To loaf is Parisian.

France seems to interest herself mainly in high art and seduction.

I can never forgive God for creating the French.

France has neither winter nor summer nor morals—apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.

No matter how politely or distinctly you ask a Parisian a question, he will persist in answering you in French.

I never drink coffee at lunch—I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.

The French invented the only known cure for dandruff. It is called the guillotine.

Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.

I asked the waiter, “Is this milk fresh?” He said, “Lady, three hours ago it was grass.”

Food is an important part of a balanced diet.

I never drink water, because fish fuck in it.

I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond.

Chopsticks are one of the reasons the Chinese never invented custard.

Bread and butter, please. Cake is rarely seen at the best houses nowadays.

A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and champagne, the only true feminine and becoming viands.

With an evening coat and a white tie…anybody, even a stockbroker, can gain a reputation for being civilized.

I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick. Not wounded. Dead.

Is there anything worn under the kilt? No, it’s all in perfect working order.

I have always felt a gift diamond shines so much better than one you buy for yourself.

I would not be in some of your coats for twopence.

Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.

You can say what you like about long dresses, but they cover a multitude of shins.

She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest.

All Americans dress well—they get their clothes in Paris.

The only place men want depth in a woman is in her decolletage.

The greater part of every family is always odious; if there are one or two good ones in a very large family, it is as much as can be expected.

I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

I don’t have to look up my family tree, because I know that I’m the sap.

I’m very proud of my gold pocket watch. My grandfather, on his deathbed, sold me this watch.

The Family! Home of all social evils, a charitable institution for indolent women, a prison workshop for the slaving breadwinner, and a hell for children.

When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them.

I can’t help detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves.

A family is a unit composed not only of children, but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold.

They are like their own beer; froth on top, dregs at the bottom, the middle excellent.

We are a nation of governesses.

I rode over the mountains to Huddersfield. A wilder people I never saw in England. The men, women, and children filled the streets as we rode along, and appeared just ready to devour us.

Those comfortably padded lunatic asylums which are known, euphemistically, as the stately homes of England.

The English have a miraculous power to change wine into water.

The English are not an inventive people; they don’t eat enough pie.

For ‘tis a low, newspaper, humdrum, lawsuit Country…

If it is good to have one foot in England, it is still better, or at least as good, to have the other out of it.

The British have an umbilical cord which has never been cut and through which tea flows constantly. It is curious to watch them in times of sudden horror, tragedy, or disaster. The pulse stops apparently, and nothing can be done, and no move made, until “a nice cup of tea” is quickly made.

Silence can be defined as conversation with an Englishman.