“Great Britain is in a better state than at any former time to inflict a severe blow upon and to read a lesson to the United States which will not soon be forgotten.”

—  Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

Letter to Queen Victoria (5 December 1861), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (London: Constable, 1970), p. 554.
1860s

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 "Great Britain is in a better state than at any former time to inflict a severe blow upon and to read a lesson to the Un…" by Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston?
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston 72
British politician 1784–1865

Related quotes

David Lloyd George photo

“Great Britain would spend her last guinea to keep a navy superior to that of the United States or any other power.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Quoted in Colonel Edward House's diary entry (4 November 1918), quoted in Charles Seymour (ed.), The Intimate Papers of Colonel House. Volume IV (Boston, 1928), p. 180
Prime Minister

George Bernard Shaw photo

“The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Widely attributed to Shaw begin31 (187ning in the 1940s, esp. after appearing in the November 1942 Reader’s Digest, the quotation is actually a variant of "Indeed, in many respects, she [Mrs. Otis] was quite English, and was an excellent example of the fact that we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language" from Oscar Wilde's 1887 short story "The Canterville Ghost".
Misattributed
Variant: The English and the Americans are two peoples divided by a common language.

Sam Houston photo

“Deprived of the protection of the Union, of the aegis of the Constitution, they would soon dwindle into petty States, to be again rent in twain by dissensions or through the ambition of selfish chieftains, and would become a prey to foreign powers. They gravely talk of holding treaties with Great Britain and other foreign powers, and the great advantages which would arise to the South from separation are discussed. Treaties with Great Britain! Alliance with foreign powers! Have these men forgotten history? Look at Spanish America! Look at the condition of every petty State, which by alliance with Great Britain is subject to continual aggression!”

Sam Houston (1793–1863) nineteenth-century American statesman, politician, and soldier, namesake of Houston, Texas

1860s, Speech in Austin (1860)

Thomas Paine photo

“Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. XIII
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

Isoroku Yamamoto photo

“In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.”

Isoroku Yamamoto (1884–1943) Japanese Marshal Admiral

Statement to Japanese cabinet minister Shigeharu Matsumoto and Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoe, as quoted in Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan (1985) by Ronald Spector. This remark would later prove prophetic; precisely six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese navy would suffer a major defeat at the Battle of Midway, from which it never recovered.

Dorothy Thompson photo

“No citizen should be permitted to become a member of or contribute to any organization whose members are pledged, or have ever been pledged, to tender prior loyalty to any state other than the United States, or to defend any state other than the United States in case of war, except as in such a war the United States might formally be allied with another power.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, “The Truth about Communism” https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051180423&view=1up&seq=5 (1948), p. 16

Patrick Buchanan photo

“As China is the one nation with the size, population, ideology and power to contest the United States for hegemony in Asia, is war inevitable? Answer: No more inevitable than was war between Germany and Great Britain in 1914.”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

2000s, Where the Right Went Wrong (2004)

Theresa May photo

“It is not clear why other EU member states would give Britain a better deal than they themselves enjoy.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech as Home Secretary on the UK and European Union https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretarys-speech-on-the-uk-eu-and-our-place-in-the-world (25 April 2016)

William Graham Sumner photo

“Any prosperity policy is a delusion and a path to ruin. There is no economic lesson which the people of the United States need to take to heart more than that. In the second place the Spanish mistakes arose, in part, from confusing the public treasury with the national wealth.”

William Graham Sumner (1840–1910) American academic

"The Conquest of the United States by Spain”, speech at Yale 1899 http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/sumner-boll-11-w-g-sumner-the-conquest-of-the-united-states-by-spain-1898.

Related topics