“After all, in both languages we were dealing in large measure not with English and French, but with Scots and Irish, Bretons and Normans…. There could be no more eloquent illustration of the colonial mind-set than a bunch of Celts and Vikings in a distant northern territory insulting each other as les anglais and the French as if they were the descendants of the people who had subjected and ruined them.”

Reflections of a Siamese Twin (1997)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "After all, in both languages we were dealing in large measure not with English and French, but with Scots and Irish, Br…" by John Ralston Saul?
John Ralston Saul photo
John Ralston Saul 85
Canadian author and essayist 1947

Related quotes

John Hirst photo

“French, German, English and Spanish are four admirable languages and I manage to express myself in all of them with more or less skill.”

Albert Caraco (1919–1971) French-Uruguayan philosopher

Source: Journal of 1969, p. 45

Halldór Laxness photo

“Icelanders! You are the descendants of Nordic vikings! Down with Irish slaves!”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

The True Icelanders of Sviðinsvík
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Three: The House of the Poet

Jay Leno photo
Joni Madraiwiwi photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Meg Cabot photo

“French: why does this language even exist? Everyone there speaks english anyway.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Princess in Waiting

Bertrand Russell photo

“If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

As quoted in Think, Vol. 27 (1961), p. 32
Disputed

William I of England photo

“I attacked the English of the Northern Shires like a lion. I ordered their houses and corn, with all their belongings, to be burnt without exception and large herds of cattle and beasts of burden to be destroyed wherever they were found. It was there I took revenge on masses of people by subjecting them to a cruel famine; and by doing so — alas!”

William I of England (1028–1087) first Norman King of England

I became the murderer of many thousands of that fine race.
Part of a speech on his deathbed in 1087, referring to the Harrying of the North, written down by a monk named Ordericus Vitalis in 1123; as quoted in Empires and Citizens : The Roman Empire, Medieval Britain, African Empires (2003) by Ben Walsh, p. 60

Miranda July photo

“I cried in English, I cried in french, I cried in all the languages, because tears are the same all around the world.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

Related topics