17 quotes found
"Hong Kong, once a vibrant and politically diverse community is slowly becoming a totalitarian state. The rule of law is profoundly compromised in any area about which the government feels strongly... Intimidated or convinced by the darkening political mood, many judges have lost sight of their traditional role as defenders of the liberty of the subject, even when the law allows it"
"Success is admirable in a king, but failure is compelling and usually better recorded."
"England, however, was endowed with a precociously advanced system of government which made its kings powerful beyond anything warranted by its comparatively modest resources. Unlike France, which had developed as a nation by the gradual coalescence of ancient autonomous provinces, each with its own distinct political and cultural traditions, England had been conquered in the space of a few years in the eleventh century by the Norman kings, who had created a centralized, unitary state and settled it with a new, alien aristocracy. Three centuries later, Englishman still had a highly developed notion of public authority."
"It is one of the paradoxes of England’s medieval history that in spite of its strong central institutions it was known mainly for its chronic political instability."
"The Tuscan poet Dante Alighieri had a simple explanation for England’s problematic status in fourteenth-century Europe. The difficulty, he thought, lay in their national character. The English were a proud and covetous people, ever eager for conquest and incapable of remaining peaceably within their own borders. Dante’s opinion echoed the conventional sentiment of his day, which regarded England as a society to which violence and aggression came naturally."
"The government of Mortimer and Isabella was intensely hated. It proved to be just as vindictive, despotic and unstable as that of the Despensers but a great deal less competent."
"Finance was always Edwards III’s weak point. He had little understanding of the problems of taxation or credit and was bored by administration. He tended to fund his enterprises on a hand-to-mouth basis, without budgets or forecasts."
"Some of the troops had been conscripted, the last occasion when compulsion played a significant part in the recruitment of Edward’s armies. But most of them were volunteers serving for adventure, honour and money. This remarkable reversal of the English nobility’s traditional objection to foreign military service was arguably Edward III’s most significant achievement."
"Edward’s chief asset was his personality. He was uncomplicated and likable. He was flamboyant, extrovert and generous. His household and his war retinue became famous centres of chivalry. He presided at splendid entertainments at court. He was addicted to practical jokes and fancy-dress parties. He fought in the lists himself, with the same reckless courage that he would later show in battle. For his humbler subjects, it was enough that he behaved as a king was expected to behave, and favoured the sort of people whom a king was expected to favour."
"Edward III’s claim to the crown of France was a bargaining counter, to be surrendered as part of a permanent territorial settlement. Edward always had an exaggerated idea of its value, just as he had an unrealistic view of the strength of his bargaining position generally. He would pass the next decade trying to exploit his victory at Crécy and discovering how much more complicated the world really was."
"Edward III had always greatly overestimated the help that conspirators and malcontents could bring him."
"In chess, the capture of the king marks the end of the game. In politics, it may be only the beginning."
"Charles understood better than his father or his adversary that the chief material of war was money."
"He had achieved spectacular victories in the field and in the conference chamber. But the treaty of Brétigny, which marked the high point of his achievement, could never have represented a permanent settlement. The circumstances which produced it were too extraordinary. So Edward was condemned to see thirty years of conquest reversed in less than five. After a lifetime devoted to conquest in Scotland and France, he ended his reign with precisely the territory that he had started with. He died leaving his realm exhausted by intensive taxation and persistent military failure. He had healed the bitter divisions which he had inherited from his father, but bequeathed others to his successor, Richard II, which would one day contribute to his destruction."
"...to all those who have an interest in the art of governing subject races who have hearts to love them , and sympathies wide enough to care for their best interests , moral , material and spiritual."
"What is now required is a carefully and scientifically edited Dictionary or Gazetteer of the Castes, and Tribes, and social distinctions of British India, arranged alphabetically under the leading name, but carefully giving all the synonyms, and alternative names, carefully transliterated in the Roman Character, and given also in the local Indian Character. It is an idle war to fight against Caste, which exists in the atmosphere of India. The English is but an additional Caste to the previously existing catalogue. There are also many compensating advantages. All secret societies of a dangerous political character are impossible in a population, which is honeycombed with deep, though innocent, fissures: the panchayet of the Caste is a welcome and powerful ally to a just Ruler: the old Roman proverb applies, Divide et impera. Difference of Religion and language, great as they are, are scarcely so operative as difference of Caste. Then, again, the necessity of a general poor law to relieve the indigent is obviated by the existence of Caste. The respectability of a community is maintained by the enforcement of wise Caste-rules: they are felt, though not written, by Europeans in their own country. The English Government has steadily ignored Caste, as far as the administration of public affairs is concerned, but respected the private rights of every class of its subjects, and the Civil Courts will give a remedy for any wanton outrage of the feelings of the meanest of its subjects; while, on the other hand, any attempt to monopolize the use of wells, or other places of public convenience, or to place any section of the community under a ban, causing injury to person or property, is sternly repressed. I am glad to hear that there is a prospect of an Ethnological Survey of British India."
"In the Divorce Court women complain of losing weight. Outside the Divorce Court they complain of putting it on."