Rhetoric & Quotations

‘The glory of my crown’: royal quotations past and present

By Susan Ratcliffe

With the celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s diamond jubilee only a few days away, it is perhaps a good moment to look back at some other long-serving monarchs of the British Isles. Inevitably, those who rule for a long time come to the throne early: Queen Victoria was 18 at her accession, and was described by Thomas Carlyle on her Coronation as ‘Poor little Queen! She is at an age when a girl can hardly be trusted to choose a bonnet for herself, yet a task is laid on her from which an archangel might shrink.’ After her reign of 63 years, H. G. Wells thought differently: ‘Queen Victoria was like a great paper-weight that for half a century sat upon men’s minds, and when she was removed their ideas began to blow about all over the place haphazardly’.

‘If you want anything said, ask Mrs Thatcher’

By Susan Ratcliffe
In May 1979 the United Kingdom elected its first female Prime Minister, in spite of her own comment ten years earlier: ‘No woman in my time will be Prime Minister or Chancellor or Foreign Secretary—not the top jobs. Anyway I wouldn’t want to be Prime Minister. You have to give yourself 100%’. A few years later, having become Prime Minister (although she didn’t want the job?) Margaret Thatcher went on to say ‘In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman’. In fact, the things she said were so memorable that she has become one of the most quoted politicians of modern times. Everyone recognizes ‘there is no real alternative’, ‘the lady’s not for turning’, ‘the Falklands Factor’, ‘Rejoice, rejoice!’, ‘Victorian values’, ‘We can do business together’, and ‘There is no such thing as Society’.

Happy Birthday, James Madison!

Today would be the 260th birthday of the 4th American president, James Madison. Long honored as the “Father of the Constitution” for his role at the Federal Convention of 1787, Madison is also regarded as the most thoughtful and creative constitutional theorist of his generation. This reputation owes much to his celebrated contributions to The Federalist, the set of essays that he wrote with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in support of the Constitution. Two of these essays, the 10th and 51st, are widely viewed as paradigmatic statements of the general theory of the Constitution.

Lend Me Your Ears

In recognition of the US midterm elections, I decided to have a browse through Lend Me Your Ears: The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations and share with you a few entries that have come from the American political world.

The President Doth Gesture Too Much

Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at Obama’s gestures. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.

Not a Time for Soundbites: Tony Blair in Quotations

Tony Blair in quotations.