Thomas Beecham Quotes
Sounds like two skeletons copulating on a corrugated tin roof.
Thomas Beecham, 1879-1961, English conductor, On a harpsichord, Quoted in Newman, Beecham Stories, 1978
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
When Britain and America invaded Iraq and toppled the Saddam government, massive looting broke out. Britain and America were criticized by some for not protecting museums, government buildings and other targets of the looters, blaming the coalition for not maintaining law and order. Kilroy-Silk and others disagreed and blamed the looters primarily.
The Isle of Man self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. It has become an offshore International banking haven for tax evasion and money laundering.
This is one of the most cutting put downs of a politician in a formal parliamentary session. Farage was fined 2000 Euros for this speech which had violated the rules against personal attacks.
Baldwin when Prime Minister would not arm England to stop Germany and after he left office, supported his successor, Neville Chamberlain, in his peace efforts which turned out to be appeasement, See {626936}.
1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. Baldwin, a moralistic prig, and others including the rest of the Royal Family, pressured the King to give up Simpson, but the King instead abdicated and married Simpson who had been divorced and remarried when she began her affair with King Edward VIII.
This quotation is an excellent example of the attitude of many upper class Englishmen towards the United States in the early part of the 19th century. With the notable exception of Ben Franklin, American Science was undeveloped, and the arts were equally unrefined. However, in assessing the United States, nothing was more derogatory than American Slavery which was totally primitive and barbaric by sophisticated European standards. What is amazing about this quotation was its truth and accuracy which shows us the amazing American development that the United States underwent in the next hundred years when it would be equal to any nation on earth. The American freedom, the abolition of slavery and the brilliance of welcoming immigrants from the world to help develop the free nation produced the greatest country on Earth.
Fox hunting was a sport engaged in only by the very wealthy. The House of Lords tends to represent the views and norms of the British upper classes who engage in Fox hunting. Skinner and the House of Commons wanted to ban Fox Hunting because it is a very cruel sport with dozens of dogs chasing a single fox and often tearing him apart before the riders arrive.
This is one of the great political putdowns in history. He in effect called Dundas a liar without ever being overt or nasty.
Some people erroneously claim that Clement Atlee was the target of this insult. He was not according to Churchill himself.
Metternich, the Chancellor of Austria under the Emperor was a very gifted and imposing diplomat. However he had little vision of the inevitable progress towards democracy and the liberalization of and limitation of the power of monarchs. His advice was on how to be better autocratic monarchs, not on how to reform and he saw no need for absolute monarchy to reform. He advocated press censorship and saw the press as a major enemy. See {630724}. The result was most of the monarchs who took his advice ended up being forced from power or required to cede much of their powers and “rights”. The English monarchs, after their disastrous civil war and its aftermath, in contrast, often led the reform to a constitutional monarchy where the powers and rights of the monarch was defined and limited by a Constitution. Victoria was one of the greatest of the English reforming monarchs, and saw Metternich’s conservatism as responsible for most of the disasters that befell the crowned heads of Europe while she had no such problems. See {607340} for Metternich’s negative view of Constitution.
Czar Nicholas II was a relative of Queen Victoria and her uncle, King Leopold. They were both skilled and popular monarchs. In contrast, the Czar was not only hated by his own people, but as this private letter shows, was not thought very well of by his own more accomplished relatives and fellow monarchs. Nicholas II was so bad, that he was the last of the Czars as the Communist Russian Revolution forced him to abdicate and then he was murdered.
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras. From the early 20th century until his death, Beecham was a major influence on the musical life of Britain and, according to the BBC, was Britain's first international conductor.
