A Quote by David Starkey

Compare the scale and magnifcence of Versailles with St James's - the brick-built hovel in which the 18th-century kings of England lived. What was then the most powerful monarchy in the world housed its sovereigns in a converted leper hospital, yet, at the same time, parliament provided the magnificent palaces of Chelsea and Greenwich as hospitals for retired soldiers and sailors.

David Starkey

Quote Topics

Brick Built Century Chelsea Compare Converted England Greenwich Hospital Hospitals James Kings Leper Lived Magnificent Monarchy Most Most Powerful Palaces Parliament Powerful Provided Retired Sailors Same Same Time Scale Soldiers Then Time Versailles Which World

Quote Author

David Starkey
English - Historian
Born: January 3, 1945

If you lived in 18th-century England, you probably lived in a village, worked on the land, and your greatest fears were probably dying in a famine or of disease or in a war.

Lucy Worsley

In the 20th century, the position of the monarch as head of the Church of England was given a meaning which it never had before. You took the fact that the monarch was head of the Church of England to mean that the British monarchy was itself a religious or moral institution and the monarchy became a symbol of national public morality.

David Starkey

We are a constitutional monarchy. I don't order laws, I propose them. Article 35 of our constitution states that the king can only refuse a law of parliament once, then he has to sign it - if the same law is then supported by a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament.

Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa

the pyramids were built for pharaohs on the happy theory that they could take their stuff with them. Versailles was built for kings on the theory that they should live surrounded by the finest stuff. The Mall of America is built on the premise that we should all be able to afford this stuff. It may be a shallow culture, but it's by-God democratic. Sneer if you dare; this is something new in world history.

Molly Ivins

It always trips me out that America, the most powerful and magnificent nation in the history of the world, whose might was built by immigrants from all over the world, only speaks one language.

Cheech Marin

My father being a soldier, every time I saw soldiers marching - 'Well,' I thought, 'my father's that,' and these soldiers were always looking magnificent. And I thought they were powerful; they were all-powerful. I knew that they were an elite in India.

Spike Milligan

This London City, with all of its houses, palaces, steam-engines, cathedrals, and huge immeasurable traffic an tumult, what is it but a Thought, but millions of Thoughts made into One-a huge immeasurable Spirit of a Thought, embodied in brick, in iron, smoke, dust, Palaces, Parliaments, Hackney Coaches, Katherine Docks, and the rest of it! Not a brick was made but some man had to think of the making of that brick.

Thomas Carlyle

I wanted to create a believable feeling for 18th Century reality in the Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer. I didn't want this typical film feel of strange people in strange costumes, not really knowing what to do or how to move. If you put an 18th Century costume on Alan Rickman, it looks like he's been wearing it forever because he inhabits the stuff. He is a character that can really travel in time as an actor and transform into this 18th Century person with seemingly no effort.

Tom Tykwer

If you go to old houses on Long Island you will see painted Chinese wallpaper, which was big in the 18th century. Throughout history, notable, established families have always tried to link to the 18th century.

Catherine Martin

There is one thing more powerful than kings and all the soldiers in the world, and that is a visionary who has the courage to persevere.

Paul Delaroche

To keep providing our soldiers, sailors and Marines with 21st-century firepower, Picatinny needs 21st-century laboratories and research and development facilities.

Rodney Frelinghuysen

Even well-known historians like Edward Gibbon are talking about how the soldiers of the 18th century were not able to do the same type of exercise [like Romans].

Garry Kasparov

Big things are built one brick at a time. Victories are achieved one choice at a time. A life well lived is chosen one day at a time.

Lysa TerKeurst

We just lost Carol Channing, who performed 'Hello, Dolly!' at the St. James Theatre. I played the St. James Theatre as well. To know that you walked the same boards as somebody like that is so extraordinary.