The Bible and The English speaking peoples - A Bíblia e a comunidade de países que falam o Inglês

"The King James Bible is a cornerstone of our culture and our language. Whatever our faith, whatever we believe, we have to recognise that the rhetorical power of this book, and in particular its power to fuse history with poetry, connects at the most fundamental level with our own history and poetry."
- Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate 1999-2009
 
"There is no doubt in my mind that the King James Bible not Shakespeare set this language on its path to become a universal language on a scale unprecedented before or since."
 
"So the Bible became the book of the British Empire and the British Empire was succeeded by an American Empire speaking English.(...)the King James Bible version swept round the globe in school assemblies, far flung churches, remotely stationed battalions ...it was the Book of the community of English speaking peoples."

 
" New words  included in the Bible we still use : "scapegoat", "let there be light", "the powers that be", "my brother's keeper", "filthy lucre", "fight the good fight", "sick unto death", "flowing with milk and honey", "the apple of his eye", "a man after his own heart", "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak", "signs of the times", "ye of little faith", "eat drink and be merry", "broken hearted", "clear eyed". And hundreds more: "fishermen", "landlady", "sea-shore", "stumbling block", "taskmaster", "two-edged", "viper", "zealous" and even "Jehovah" and "Passover" come into English through Tyndale. "Beautiful", a word which has meant only human beauty, was greatly widened by Tyndale, as were many others."
- Lord Melvyn Bragg of Wigton

http://www.kingjamesbibletrust.org/news/2008/11/20/speech-made-by-lord-melvyn-bragg-of-wigton