“A strange people, for whom it is out of the question that anyone can be moral without reading the Bible, and strong without playing cricket, and a gentleman without being English! And it is this that makes them so detested. They never fuse, they never lose their Englishness.”

— José Maria Eça de Queiroz, book Cartas de Inglaterra

Estranha gente, para quem é fora de dúvida que ninguém pode ser moral sem ler a Bíblia, ser forte sem jogar o críquete e ser gentleman sem ser inglês! E é isto que os torna detestados. Nunca se fundem, nunca se desinglesam.
"Os Ingleses no Egipto"; "The English in Egypt" pp. 159-60.
Cartas de Inglaterra (1879–82)

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 "A strange people, for whom it is out of the question that anyone can be moral without reading the Bible, and strong wit…" by José Maria Eça de Queiroz?

José Maria Eça de Queiroz14

Portuguese writer 1845–1900

Related quotes

“English: "We are going to win without question."”

Carlos Menem (1930) Argentine politician who was President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999

Said on April 28th, 2003, after winning the first election round

“Never choose anyone as a friend without

understanding

and never lose him/her because of

misunderstanding.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“I was never allowed to read the popular American children's books of my day because, as my mother said, the children spoke bad English without the author's knowing it.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

Source: A Backward Glance http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200271.txt (1934), Ch. 3

“The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

“You can never solve a problem without talking to people with whom you disagree.”

Olympia Snowe (1947) United States Senator from Maine

As quoted in "Andrea Mitchell's exclusive interview with Sen. Olympia Snowe" by Weesie Vieira (29 February 2012) http://info.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/29/10541107-transcript-andrea-mitchells-exclusive-interview-with-sen-olympia-snowe. <br class="br">Context: What are our obligations to the country and to the people we represent? It's the coming up with effective solutions, sitting down and working with the issues. Sitting around table and sorting through the differences.<br>You can never solve a problem without talking to people with whom you disagree. The United States Senate is predicated and based on consensus building. That was certainly the vision of the founding fathers. And if we abandon that approach, then we do it at the expense of the country and the issues that we need to address to put us back on track.

“I do not think anyone can define "behavior that tends toward extinction" as being "moral" without stretching the word "moral" all out of shape.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

The Pragmatics of Patriotism (1973)
Context: I now define "moral behavior" as "behavior that tends toward survival." I won't argue with philosophers or theologians who choose to use the word "moral" to mean something else, but I do not think anyone can define "behavior that tends toward extinction" as being "moral" without stretching the word "moral" all out of shape.