The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (157 page)

1856
Tribune
19 Jan. 188
Some few years ago, we followed O'Connell, and when he declared that ‘England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity’, we threw our hats in the air.
1916
in
New York Times
(Mag.) 9 Apr. 2
The cry that ‘England's Difficulty Is Ireland's Opportunity’ is raised in the old senseless, spiteful way as a recommendation to stab England in the back when she is fighting some one else.
1969
Year of Liberty
i.
Successive plantations—of Scottish Presbyterians in Ulster .. did not secure Ireland. The Catholics' watchword remained: ‘England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity.’
1982
in
Observer
17 Oct. 7
During the Second World War, de Valera executed Republicans who tried to put into practice that impeccably Republican motto ‘England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity.’
1997
Times
15 Oct. 8
Britain's difficulty became Ireland's opportunity last night when .. Sir Denis Mahon presented three Baroque paintings originally destined for Liverpool to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.
opportunity
;
politics

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

see also
the CAT, the rat, and Lovell the dog, rule all England under the hog
;
what MANCHESTER says today, the rest of England says tomorrow
;
TURKEY, heresy, hops, and beer came into England all in one year
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Attributed to Napoleon in B. E. O'Meara
Napoleon in Exile
(1822) I. 103
L'Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers
. The concept of the shopkeeping nation is however earlier:
1766
J. TUCKER
Letter from Merchant
46 A Shop-keeper will never get the more Custom by beating his Customers; and what is true of a Shop-keeper, is true of a Shop-keeping Nation;
1776
A. SMITH
Wealth of Nations
II.
IV
. vii. To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers.
1831
Young Duke
I. xi.
Hast thou brought this, too, about that ladies' hearts should be won .. over a counter … We are indeed a nation of shopkeepers.
1911
Times Weekly
17 Feb. 132
Napoleon .. described the English as a nation of shopkeepers. Uttered in a sneering spirit, it embodied .. the profound truth that our prosperity is based upon our trade.
1981
Put on by Cunning
xiv.
Americans .. are a nation of salesmen just as the English are a nation of small shopkeepers.
national characteristics

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Now also used of other nationalities, and in different proportions.
1599
Henry V
III. vi. 144
When they were in health … I thought upon one pair of English legs Did march three Frenchmen.
1745
Letter
13 July (1941) IX. 17
We, who formerly .. could any one of us beat three Frenchmen, are now so degenerated that three Frenchmen can evidently beat one Englishman.
1834
Peter Simple
III. viii.
My men .. there are three privateers … It's just a fair match for you—one Englishman can always beat three Frenchmen.
1851
Lavengro
I. xxvi.
In the days of pugilism it was no vain boast to say, that one Englishman was a match for two of t'other race [the French].
1913
Harrovians
i.
Peter knew that an Englishman can tackle three foreigners, and forgot that the inventor of this theory took care to oppose three Englishmen to one foreigner as often as possible.
1981
London Review of Books
16 July–5 Aug. 5
Spain's conquest of Mexico ‘gave Europeans a new and potent myth’, the conviction of one European as equal to twenty others.
boasting
;
national characteristics

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search