Address to Parliament, November 1941 - George's speech at the state opening of parliament in 1941. These speeches are generally pretty lengthy, so the version presented here is probably the "edited highlights".
Britannia - Short biographical article with links to related sites.
The King George VI Time Line - Nicely laid out chronology of George's reign, from a company specialising in the stamps of British Commonwealth countries during this period.
King George VI. - Portraits, photograph and description of tomb in Windsor Castle, related interments, and interactive visitor comments from Find A Grave.
About King George VI - Biography by royal historian Will Swift. Includes photo and related links.
"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments." (Anonymous) All marriages are happy. It's living together afterwards that is difficult.
-- Anonymous Here's a toast to your new bride who has everything a girl could want in her life, except for good
taste in men!
-- Wedding Toast Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
- Jean-Paul Sartre Before I married, I had three theories about raising children and no children. Now, I have three
children and no theories.
-- John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester George VI Mother-in-law: A woman who destroys her son-in-law's peace of mind by giving him a piece of
hers.
-- Anonymous "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." (Abraham Lincoln, 1809-65) "Do something for the joy of doing it and pray you won't be punished." (Sammy Cahn) George VI
The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.
-- Paul Ehrlich Marriage was all a woman's idea and for man's acceptance of the pretty yoke, it becomes us to
be grateful.
-- Phyllis McGinley None but a good man is really a living man, and the more good any man does, the more he really
lives. All the rest is death, or belongs to it.
-- Herman Melville "One of the things about acting is it allows you to live other people's lives without having to pay the price. I've never been one of those actors who has touted myself as a fascinating human being. I In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person
must be fired.
-- Conway's Law George VI A little girl at the wedding afterwards asked her mother why the bride changed her mind. "What
do you mean?" responded her mother. "Well, she went down the aisle with one man, and came
back with ano The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing
changes and yet everything is completely different.
-- Aldous Huxley Good Night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,
that I shall say good night till it be morrow.
-- Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare. Act II, Scene II, lines 220-221 George VI
Never look at the trombones. You'll only encourage them.
-- Richard Strauss, on conducting "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." (Thomas Paine) Not everything that can be counted counts; and not everything that counts can be counted.
-- Albert Einstein The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing -- and then marry him.
-- Cher "I know we're not saints or virgins or lunatics; we know all the lust and lavatory jokes, and most of the dirty people; we can catch buses and count our change and cross the roads and talk real senten George VI Children should be like waffles--you should be able to throw the first one away.
-- Mary Alice Messenger I'd wipe the machines off the face of the earth again, and end the industrial epoch absolutely, like
a black mistake.
-- D. H. Lawrence A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.
-- Robert Frost George VI
Teach a parrot the terms "supply and demand" and you've got an economist.
-- Thomas Carlyle How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.
-- Alexandre Dumas fils Life is a succession of lessons enforced by immediate reward, or, oftener, by immediate
chastisement.
-- Ernest Dimnet An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her. -- Agatha Christie If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor
one.
-- Dr. W.C. Heuper of the National Cancer Institute, as quoted in the New York Times on Apri George VI "When even one American--who has done nothing wrong--is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth--then all Americans are in peril." (Harry S. Truman) Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly.
-- Rose Franken If it weren't for electricity we'd all be watching television by candlelight.
-- George Gobel George VI
I don't think I'll get married again. I'll just find a woman I don't like and give her a house.
-- Lewis Grizzard Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other.
-- W. Somerset Maugham War is a profession by which a man cannot live honorably; an employment by which the soldier, if
he would reap any profit, is obliged to be false, rapacious, and cruel.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli I have a daughter who goes to SMU. She could've gone to UCLA here in California, but it's one
more letter she'd have to remember.
-- Shecky Greene A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
-- John Ciardi George VI Never go to bed angry. Stay up and fight.
-- Phyllis Diller "Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers." (Socrates) "I couldn't find the sports car of my dreams, so I built it myself." (Dr. Ferdinand Porsche) George VI
All that is gold does not glitter. Not all those who wander are lost;
-- J.R.R. Tolkein The English country gentleman galloping after a fox--the unspeakable in full pursuit of the
uneatable.
-- Oscar Wilde A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.
-- George Bernard Shaw "A man is only as faithful as his opportunity." (Chris Rock) Whenever I'm caught between two evils, I take the one I've never tried.
-- Mae West George VI Basically, I no longer work for anything but the sensation I have while working.
- Albert Giacometti (sculptor) Disclaimer: Even my wife doesn't agree with everything I say, and she loves me dearly. My employers don't love me nearly as much as she does. Draw your own conclusions. He who laughs last is generally the last to get the joke.
-- Terry Cohen George VI
We are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities,
talents, direction, missions, callings.
-- Abraham Maslow Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
-- Lauren Bacall I've been asked to say a couple of words about my husband, Fang. How about "short" and
"cheap"?
-- Phyllis Diller Love is an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses.
-- Lord Dewar A wasted youth is better by far than a wise and productive old age.
-- Meat Loaf, from the song "Wasted Youth" on the album Bat Out of Hell II George VI A person is not given integrity. It results from the relentless pursuit of honesty at all times.
-- Anon. "I would rather die standing than live on my knees!" (Emiliano Zapata) Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
-- Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle George VI
"Politics is my hobby. Smut is my vocation." (Larry Flynt) Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
-- Harriet Beecher Stowe "I've just had eighteen straight whiskies. I think that's the record." (Dylan Thomas, final words) It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince "What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul." (Joseph Addison) George VI Marrying a man is like buying something you've been admiring for a long time in a shop window.
You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn't always go with everything in the house.
-- Jean Ke When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the
problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
-- Buckminster Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and
begin slitting throats.
- Henry Louis Mencken George VI
Education is the state-controlled manufacture of echoes.
-- Norman Douglas Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
-- Seen on a bumper sticker "Someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any compliment and limit, but only o Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.
-- G. K. Chesterton Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
-- Oscar Wilde George VI Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than
yourself.
-- William Faulkner We have children because we want immortality and this is the most reliable way of getting it.
-- Woodrow Wyatt "Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn; my God, do you learn!" (Clive Staples Lewis) George VI
When you've spent half your political life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment... it's
exciting to have a real crisis on your hands.
-- Margaret Thatcher, on the Falklands Conflict God help the man who won't marry until he finds a perfect woman, and God help him still more if
he finds her.
-- Benjamin Tillett People may or may not say what they mean ... but they always say something designed to get
what they want.
-- David Mamet Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way
around the laws.
- Plato Whoever controls the media--the images--controls the culture.
-- Allen Ginsberg George VI Obedience is the gateway through which knowledge, yes, and love, too, enter the mind of the
child.
-- Anne Sullivan "It is neccessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live." (Alexander Dumas) To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself.
-- Francis Crawford George VI
"The sickness of our times for me has been just this damn thing that everything has been getting smaller and smaller and less and less important, that the romantic spirit has dried up, that there is n Suicide is belated acquiescence in the opinion of one's wife's relatives. When Baby's cries grew hard to bear I popped him in the Frigidaire. I never would have done so if
I'd known that he'd be frozen stiff. My wife said, "George, I'm so unhappy! Our darling's now
comple Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and
joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality--not
as I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence.
-- Doug MacLeod George VI Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley
Temple could do it at the age of four.
-- Katharine Hepburn Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.
-- Chinese Proverb There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 George VI
