萧伯纳在其《支配命运的人》一书中曾借拿破仑之口来概括英国人的民族性格，“当英国人觊觎一件东西，他从来不说出他觊觎它。他耐心地等候着，直到他的心里不知怎样地发生出一道热切的信念，认为把他所觊觎的那东西的主人征服乃是他的道德和宗教天职……他从来就不缺乏恰到好处的道貌岸然的姿态。他以捍卫自由和民族独立的伟大战士的身份去征服和兼并了半个世界，美其名曰殖民。当他需要为他的掺杂的棉织品获得新的市场，他就派遣一个传教士去向当地土人宣传和平福音。土人杀死传教士，他就马上动武来保卫基督教；为基督教而战；为基督教而从事征服，终于作为上天的酬报占领了市场……他吹嘘奴隶只要踏上大不列颠的土地便成为自由人；他却把穷人们才满六岁的女儿出卖，在鞭子的威胁下要他们在工厂里一天做十六小时的工作……他干什么都是讲原则的。他跟你作战是根据爱国主义的原则……他欺负你是根据大丈夫的原则；他拥护自己的国王是根据忠顺的原则；他砍掉自己国王的头是根据共和的原则……”

No, because the English are a race apart. No Englishman is too low to have scruples: no Englishman is high enough to be free from their tyranny. But every Englishman is born with a certain miraculous power that makes him master of the world. When he wants a thing, he never tells himself that he wants it. He waits patiently until there comes into his mind, no one knows how, a burning conviction that it is his moral and religious duty to conquer those who have got the thing he wants. Then he becomes irresistible. Like the aristocrat, he does what pleases him and grabs what he wants: like the shopkeeper, he pursues his purpose with the industry and steadfastness that come from strong religious conviction and deep sense of moral responsibility. He is never at a loss for an effective moral attitude. As the great champion of freedom and national independence, he conquers and annexes half the world, and calls it Colonization. When he wants a new market for his adulterated Manchester goods, he sends a missionary to teach the natives the gospel of peace. The natives kill the missionary: he flies to arms in defence of Christianity; fights for it; conquers for it; and takes the market as a reward from heaven. In defence of his island shores, he puts a chaplain on board his ship; nails a flag with a cross on it to his top-gallant mast; and sails to the ends of the earth, sinking, burning and destroying all who dispute the empire of the seas with him. He boasts that a slave is free the moment his foot touches British soil; and he sells the children of his poor at six years of age to work under the lash in his factories for sixteen hours a day. He makes two revolutions, and then declares war on our one in the name of law and order. There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles; he supports his king on loyal principles, and cuts off his king's head on republican principles. His watchword is always duty; and he never forgets that the nation which lets its duty get on the opposite side to its interest is lost.