Hugh Bonneville Quotes

The First World War, and especially the latest one, largely swept away what was left in Europe of feudalism and of feudal landlords, especially in Poland, Hungary, and the South East generally.

The year of my birth, 1940, was the fulcrum of America in the twentieth century, when the nation was balanced precariously between the darkness of the Great Depression on one side and the storms of war in Europe and the Pacific on the other.

I'm fascinated by the period that goes from the Industrial Revolution to right after World War II. There's something about that period that's epic and tragic.

Under the ominous shadow which the second World War and its attendant circumstances have cast on the world, peace has become as essential to civilized existence as the air we breathe is to life itself.

Moreover, in Russia there was an enormous amount of landed property to be divided, large estates, crown lands, government land, and the estates held by the monasteries.

World War II, the atomic bomb, the Cold War, made it hard for Americans to continue their optimism.

Let's not forget we created that ideal middle class by destroying all of our industrial competitors during World War II.

I am imprinted with the whole sense of European history, especially German history, going back to World War I, which really destroyed all the old values and culture. My grandparents had been reasonably well-off but they became quite poor, living in an attic apartment.

Britain kept its position as the dominant world power well into the 20th century despite steady decline. By the end of World War II, dominance had shifted decisively into the hands of the upstart across the sea, the United States, by far the most powerful and wealthy society in world history.

World War II was the last government program that really worked.

America was probably Europe's equal scientifically by the end of World War I and certainly surpassed it after the chaos of World War II.

I wonder how many people would have thought at the end of World War II that the capitalist system would be one that was meeting the challenges and making things better for people as we approach the 21st century.

In France … the Gentry who may possess Lands, live in good condition, though the Peasants are little better then Slaves, because they can possess nothing but at the will of others.

Halve the income of the country and you double the risk of civil war.

Nineteen forty-five marked the nadir of Western Civilization.

The evils of European society were rooted in feudalism and entrenched in privilege.

We saw Vietnam disintegrating before our eyes—at least the structure of the state disintegrating.

There is only one class in the state, the Volk, (the people), and the king belongs to this class as well as the peasant

We are on the verge of events, the like of which the world has not seen since the time of the barbarian invasion. Soon everything that constitutes our lives will strike the world as useless. A period of barbarism is about to begin and it will last for decades.

A World War with its incalculable ramifications will strengthen social democracy which sermonizes the virtues of peace. War could easily cost some rulers their thrones.

The concept of a 'job' is pretty recent. If you go back a few hundred years, everyone was either a slave or a serf, or living off slave or serf labor to pursue science or philosophy or art.

And a revolution of automation finds machines replacing men in the mines and mills of America, without replacing their incomes or their training or their needs to pay the family doctor, grocer and landlord.

… if one person owns the preponderance of land in a given territory, the result is monarchy; if a few own it, we have aristocracy; if the whole people be landlords, it is a commonwealth.

An interesting agricultural evolution has been taking place in Central Europe and in Russia in the breaking up of the large estates and the placing of the land in the hands of the peasants. The first effect of this great change, extending over tens of thousands of square miles, may be but little--in fact in some cases it is possible that production may decline. But ultimately I am quite sure that the peasants will greatly increase it, and by just that much the American market for farm produce will be injured.

England's battles, it used to be said, were won on the playing fields of Eaton.... America’s battles can be won on the assembly lines of Detroit.