Quotes and text excerpts about "Wales"

“ Wales is a country interesting in many respects, and deserving of more attention than it has hitherto met with. Though not very extensive, it is one of the most picturesque countries in the world, a country in which Nature displays herself in her wildest, boldest, and occasionally loveliest forms. The inhabitants, who speak an ancient and peculiar language, do not call this region Wales, nor themselves Welsh. They call themselves Cymry or Cumry, and their country Cymru, or the land of the Cumry. ”

“ Wales is a row of hills, rising between the Irish Sea on the west and the English plains on the east. If you come from the west along the sea, or if you cross the Severn or the Dee from the east, you will see that Wales is a country all by itself. It rises grandly and proudly. If you are a stranger, you will think of it as “Wales”—a strange country; if you are Welsh, you will think of it as “Cymru”—a land of brothers. ”

“ The population of Wales has not departed across the Atlantic, like that of the Highlands; it remains at home, and a remarkable population it is—very different from the present inhabitants of several beautiful lands of olden fame, who have strangely degenerated from their forefathers. Wales has not only a population, but a highly interesting one—hardy and frugal, yet kind and hospitable—a bit crazed, it is true, on the subject of religion, but still retaining plenty of old Celtic peculiarities, and still speaking Diolch i Duw!—the language of Glendower and the Bards. ”

“ Any Englishman's life was safe anywhere, and Wales became one of the most easily governed countries in all the wonderful British Empire.
And in the great world-war, that even children, who read these stories, can remember, Wales, the Land of the Free, the Home of Deathless Democracy, led all the British Isles, colonies, islands, or coaling stations around the wide world, in loyalty, valor and sacrifice. And the handsome son of the King, George, the Prince of Wales, led the descendants of Welsh archers, now called the Fusileers. ”

“ The history of New South Wales is quite unparalleled in that of the world. The management of the penal settlements of Australia is one of the most striking instances of the thoroughly admirable system of colonisation on record. With a country like Australia—in view of its distance—the trying and capricious climate—the wretched poverty of the soil—it could never have been colonised by free emigration. It needed the indomitable energy, and the spirit of enterprise of a British Government, and the pluck of the Anglo-Saxon race, to cope with the difficulties of such an enterprise. ”

“ Next to its unity, a characteristic of modern Wales is its democratic feeling. It is a country with a thoughtful and intelligent peasantry, and it is a country without a middle class. There is a very small upper class—the old Welsh land-owning families who once, before they turned their backs on Welsh literature, led the country. They have never been hated or despised, they are simply ignored. Their tendency now is to come into touch with the people, and they are always welcomed. ”

“ Wales is a single and indivisible entity— [hear, hear] —with a life of its own, drawing its vitality from the ancient past, and both, I believe, in the volume and in the reality of its activity never more virile than it is to-day. ”

“ ENTERING WALES The best way into Wales is the way you choose, provided that you care. Some may like the sudden modern way of going to sleep at London in a train and remaining asleep on a mountain-side, which has the advantage of being the most expensive and the least surprising way. Some may like to go softly into the land along the Severn, on foot, and going through sheath after sheath of the country, to reach at last the heart of it at peaty Tregaron, or the soul of it on Plynlimmon itself. ”

“ In fact, in Wales, the gates of every man’s being have been opened. It is possible to know much of the grammar, and the history, and the lexicography of things, and yet to be so utterly ignorant of things as never to have felt the sentiment of strangeness and of terror; and without having been informed about the names of things, it is possible to have been brought into the presence and power of things themselves. Thus, the ignorance of one man may be higher than the intelligence of another. ”

“ Deaths are common subjects of superstitious lore in almost every county. Wales, not less than other places, rejoices in the belief of corpse candles, which, when seen by parties in good health, betoken, like the Banshee of the west, the death of one of the members of the family. In some cases, indeed, not only a corpse candle, but a whole spectral funeral has appeared to persons coming home late at night, in which they have been able to foretell, from seeing the name on the coffin plate, which of their friends or acquaintance would be the next subject. ”

“ In North Wales I hardly ever saw a village school mistress other than a married woman. Owing to the deplorably low moral tone of the people it was said to be impossible for a single girl to hold such an appointment. In Norfolk there was not a shadow of hesitation on this account: brains were scarce there, as everywhere, but morals were sound: a good girl at £50 was better than a bad man at £80, and the managers took their chance of the good girl who would go, in preference to the bad man who would stay. ”

“ The usual weather in New South Wales is uncommonly bright and clear, and the common weather there, in spring and autumn, is equal to the finest summer day in England. This purity and warmth of atmosphere, it may be naturally inferred, must be particularly favourable to the growth of shrubs and plants, which flourish exceedingly, and attain to a degree of perfection and beauty which is unknown to the inhabitants of this country. The woods and fields present a boundless variety of the choicest productions of nature, which gratify the senses with their fragrance and magnificence ”

“ A damper is a very good thing, but not commonly seen in California, excepting among men from New South Wales. A quantity of flour and water, with a pinch or two of salt, is worked into a dough, and, raking down a good hardwood fire, it is placed on the hot ashes, and then smothered in more hot ashes to the depth of two or three inches, on the top of which is placed a quantity of the still burning embers. A very little practice enables one to judge from the feel of the crust when it is sufficiently cooked. ”

“ It hath been commonly reported that the ground of Wales is neither so fruitful as that of England, neither the soil of Scotland so bountiful as that of Wales, which is true for corn and for the most part; otherwise there is so good ground in some parts of Wales as is in England, albeit the best of Scotland be scarcely comparable to the mean of either of both. Howbeit, as the bounty of the Scotch doth fail in some respect, so doth it surmount in other, God and nature having not appointed all countries to yield forth like commodities. ”

“ We visited the Vale of Llangollen, the Vale of Clwyd, the Vale of Conway, saw Bettws-y-Coed, the Pass of Llanberis, and, indeed, the best things in all North Wales, including lakes, rivers, waterfalls, and glorious romance without end. The warm-hearted, impulsive Welsh people almost carried us all off our feet with their unbounded enthusiasm, and the tremendous warmth of their welcome. They are the greatest singers in the world. Indeed, all Wales is one sea of song, and they sing well, and they even dearly love to sing. ”

“ Cease to do evil, learn to do good, was the upshot of its exhortations to the Welsh; by evil, the Times understanding all things Celtic, and by good, all things English. ‘The Welsh language is the curse of Wales. Its prevalence, and the ignorance of English have excluded, and even now exclude the Welsh people from the civilisation of their English neighbours. An Eisteddfod is one of the most mischievous and selfish pieces of sentimentalism which could possibly be perpetrated. It is simply a foolish interference with the natural progress of civilisation and prosperity. ”

“ The kind of dog used for coursing the kangaroo is generally a cross between the greyhound and the mastiff or sheep-dog; but in a climate like New South Wales they have, to use the common phrase, too much lumber about them. The true bred greyhound is the most useful dog: he has more wind; he ascends the hills with more ease; and will run double the number of courses in a day. He has more bottom in running, and if he has less ferocity when he comes up with an `old man,' so much the better, as he exposes himself the less, and lives to afford sport another day. ”

“ There is still a third class of our countrymen to be met with here, whose downcast and sneaking looks proclaim them to be runaway convicts from New South Wales. These unhappy men are treated with derision and contempt by all classes; and the New Zealanders, being perfectly aware of their state of degradation, refuse all intercourse with them. They are idle, unprincipled, and vicious in the extreme, and are much feared in the Bay of Islands; for when by any means they obtain liquor, they prove themselves most dangerous neighbours. ”

“ No country in the world perhaps has been so advantageous to adventurers as New South Wales. The Free Settlers who have come out as adventurers have never felt their dignity injured by trading in every way with convicts ... ”

“ Every country-town, almost every hill and mound in the district, has its legend, its romance, which lives in the hearts of an intensely patriotic and imaginative people, and blends the past and the present into one.
This is the reason why, in these peeps at various spots in Wales, we have often chosen those unknown to the tourist, but interesting to those who care for the people as well as for the place, because of some legend or history that paints, as nothing else can do, their life in the days of old. ”

“ It has been remarked, that curiosity, or the desire of knowledge, is that which most distinguishes man from the brute, and the greater the mind is, the more insatiable is that passion: we may, without flattery, say no man had a more boundless one than our hero; for, not satisfied with the observations he had made in England and Wales, (which we are well assured were many more than are usually made by gentlemen before they travel into foreign parts,) he now resolved to see other countries and manners. ”

“ Generosity isn't understood nowadays, and what the people don't understand is either 'mad' or 'cronk'. Failure has no case, and you can't build one for it.... I started out in life very young—and very soft.”
. . . . .
“I thought you were going to tell me your story, Steely,” remarked Smith.
Steelman smiled sadly.
About the author:
Henry Lawson was born near Grenfell, New South Wales, Australia on 17 June 1867. Although he has since become Australia's most acclaimed writer, in his own lifetime his writing was often “on the side”—his “real” work being whatever he could find. ”

“ Of all crimes, there should seem to be none for which change of climate is so effectual a cure as for forgery; and as there is none which involves in itself so little moral depravity, nor which is so frequently committed, it is evident that these needless executions deprive New South Wales of those who would be its most useful members, men of ingenuity, less depraved, and better educated in general, than any other convicts. ”

“ Mutiny is unknown; the convicts are their own masters and the ship‘s, but the shrewd callousness of the old jail-bird teaches all that there is nothing to be gained even by momentary success. Rage and violence are seldom seen, but there is a humor that is worse than blows,—conversation that transcends all crime in infamy.
It will be long before the last traces of convict disease disappear from Tasmania and New South Wales; the gold-find has done much to purify the air, free selection may lead to a still more bright advance, manufacturing may lend its help ”

“ I see no necessity for vice being necessarily allied to success in life. I believe sometimes it is rather the other way. But you were always headstrong; slave to imagination, that misleader of humanity.4 Go on your own path, and you may convert all the Papuans, Australians, New Zealanders, or whatever they are, that you are going to waste your life among, if you have sufficient breathing time before you are roasted.’
‘I am going to New South Wales, in Australia, where they don’t roast people any more than in Bucks. ”

“ The human mind is not generally disposed to grasp very big things all at once. Indeed, in the light of fuller knowledge, one is disposed to admire the caution of these geographers, whose beliefs were carefully reasoned but erroneous, in face of, for instance, such a wild ebullition of venturesome theory as that attributed to an aforetime Gottingen professor,* (*Professor Blumenbach according to Lang, Historical Account of New South Wales, 1837 2 142.) who considered that not only was Australia one country, but that it made its appearance upon this planet in a peculiarly sudden fashion. ”

“ Each day’s a world where good or ill holds sway:
For through life’s spacious vistas as we stray
Hour after hour we sow with varying grain.
Sown even to the wayside, down the plane
Of Time thus passes every flying day—
Never, till Time’s brief seasons fade away
Into Eternity, to rise again.
But ’neath the ripening rays of righteous fate,
To blade and ear the seed grows silently,
’Gainst that great day whose reapers angels are:
When all Time’s hours before the Throne laid bare,
World heaped on world, shall for the sickle wait
Of endless death—or immortality.
The Poets of Wales. ”

“ I could feel that the blessings, Nature had bestowed on me were not worth much in London, where men are enslaved by customs and laws that subject the million to the dominion of the few. I determined, therefore, on going, where I should be regarded as the equal of those around me, where there was room for me to move, without the danger of being crushed by a crowd of self-sufficient creatures—most of whom were in reality more insignificant than myself. I should join “The Elephant” in New South Wales; and perhaps become a man of some influence in a land where the sun is to be seen every day. ”

“ Annoying user, good content Jimmy Wales at Wikimania 2014
One of the classic problems we have is -- and we have this a lot in English Wikipedia -- is the annoying user, who at least allegedly produces good content. There are users in the community who have a reputation for creating good content, and for being incredibly toxic personalities. ”

“ The Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Consolidated Revenue Fund.
17 Vic. No. 41, s. 47.39. All taxes, imposts, rates, and duties, and all territorial, casual, and other revenues of the Crown (including royalties) , from whatever source arising within New South Wales, and over which the Legislature has power of appropriation, shall form one Consolidated Revenue Fund, to be appropriated for the Public Service of New South Wales, in the manner and subject to the charges hereinafter mentioned. ”