Lawyers from England

"There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience."

"We are the masters at the moment and shall be for some considerable time."

"Let us not foist this humbug on the world."

"All my moves were designed to promote the happiness and wellbeing of my family, rather than fame."

"I know that in my public life I fell below the standards that I had set myself... I have seen what is wrong but not done enough to put it right. I have been more critical than correct. I have had opportunities of great positions in the service of the state, but I have put them aside. I know that I have not devoted myself enough to promoting the good of others."

"I feel that I've had a happy life, not a very useful life, but a happy one."

"Getting up and criticising the other fellow because he's in and you are not seems to me a futile waste of time. Especially as you know in your heart that you would be doing more or less the same thing if you were in his place."

"Though Truth and Falsehood be Near twins, yet Truth a little elder is."

"On a huge hill, Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and hee that will Reach her, about must, and about must goe; And what the hills suddenness resists, winne so; Yet strive so, that before age, deaths twilight, Thy Soule rest, for none can worke in that night."

"Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the Devil's foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind."

"And swear No where Lives a woman true and fair. If thou find'st one, let me know, Such a pilgrimage were sweet; Yet do not, I would not go, Though at next door we might meet, Though she were true, when you met her, And last, till you write your letter, Yet she Will be False, ere I come, to two, or three."

"I have done one braver thing Than all the Worthies did; And yet a braver thence doth spring, Which is to keep that hid."

"But he who loveliness within Hath found, all outward loathes, For he who color loves, and skin, Loves but their oldest clothes."

"And dare love that, and say so too, And forget the He and She."

"Busy old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?"

"Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time."

"She is all states, and all princes, I, Nothing else is."

"For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love."

"The Phoenix riddle hath more wit By us, we two being one, are it. So to one neutral thing both sexes fit, We die and rise the same, and prove Mysterious by this love."

"As well a well-wrought urn becomes The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs."

"I am two fools, I know, For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry."

"Who are a little wise, the best fools be."

"Sweetest love, I do not go, For weariness of thee, Nor in hope the world can show A fitter love for me; But since that I Must die at last, 'tis best, To use my self in jest Thus by feigned deaths to die."

"Yesternight the sun went hence, And yet is here today."

"But think that we Are but turned aside to sleep."

"When I died last, and dear, I die As often as from thee I go."

"Oh do not die, for I shall hate All women so, when thou art gone."

"Twice and thrice had I loved thee, Before I knew thy face or name."

"'Tis true, 'tis day; what though it be? O wilt thou therefore rise from me? Why should we rise, because 'tis light? Did we lie down, because 'twas night? Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither Should in despite of light keep us together."

"All Kings, and all their favorites, All glory of honors, beauties, wits The sun itself, which makes times, as they pass, Is elder by a year, now, than it was When thou and I first one another saw: All other things, to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay; This, no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday, Running, it never runs from us away, But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day."

"Let us love nobly, and live, and add again Years and years unto years, till we attain To write threescore: this is the second of our reign."

"Send home my long strayed eyes to me, Which (Oh) too long have dwelt on thee."

"The world's whole sap is sunk: The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk, Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk, Dead and interred; yet all these seem to laugh, Compared with me, who am their epitaph."

"For I am every dead thing, In whom love wrought new alchemy. For his art did express A quintessence even from nothingness, From dull privations, and lean emptiness He ruined me, and I am re-begot Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not."

"Come live with me, and be my love, And we will some new pleasures prove Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, With silken lines, and silver hooks."

"Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it."

"Our two souls therefore which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat."

"If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two, Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do."

"Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread Our eyes, upon one double string; So to entergraft our hands, as yet Was all the means to make us one, And pictures in our eyes to get Was all our propagation."

"We then, who are this new soul, know Of what we are composed and made, For the' atomies of which we grow Are souls, whom no change can invade. But oh alas, so long, so far, Our bodies why do we forbear? They're ours, though they're not we; we are The intelligences, they the spheres."

"That subtle knot which makes us man: So must pure lovers' souls descend T' affections, and to faculties, Which sense may reach and apprehend, Else a great Prince in prison lies."

"Love's mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book."

"I long to talk with some old lover's ghost, Who died before the god of love was born."

"To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend, All is the purlieu of the god of love."

"Who ever comes to shroud me, do not harm Nor question much That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm; The mystery, the sign you must not touch, For 'tis my outward soul, Viceroy to that, which then to heaven being gone, Will leave this to control, And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution."

"A bracelet of bright hair about the bone."

"Take heed of loving me."

"So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss, Which sucks two souls, and vapors both away."

"Ah cannot we As well as cocks and lions jocund be, After such pleasures?"

"Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls; For, thus friends absent speak."

"And new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is quite put out; The sun is lost, and the earth, and no man's wit, Can well direct him where to look for it. And freely men confess that this world's spent, When in the planets, and the firmament They seek so many new; then see that this Is crumbled out again to his atomies. 'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone; All just supply, and all relation: Prince, subject, Father, Son, are things forgot."

"We understood Her by her sight; her pure, and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, That one might almost say, her body thought."

"Since I am coming to that holy room, Where, with thy choir of saints forevermore, I shall be made thy music; as I come I tune the instrument here at the door, And what I must do then, think here before."

"Whilst my physicians by their love are grown Cosmographers, and their map, who lie Flat on this bed."

"When my mouth shall be filled with dust, and the worm shall feed, and feed sweetly upon me, when the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction if the poorest alive tread upon him, nor the poorest receive any contentment in being made equal to princes, for they shall be equal but in dust."

"Absence, hear thou my protestation Against thy strength, Distance, and length; Do what thou canst for alteration"

"Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies."

"Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love."

"She, and comparisons are odious."

"No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace, As I have seen in one autumnal face."

"The heavens rejoice in motion, why should I Abjure my so much loved variety."

"Who ever loves, if he do not propose The right true end of love, he's one that goes To sea for nothing but to make him sick."

"The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts Not of two lovers, but two loves the nests."

"Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright."

"O my America! my new-found land."

"Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee, As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be, To taste whole joys."

"Licence my roving hands, and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below. O, my America, my Newfoundland My kingdom, safest when with one man mann's, My mine of precious stones, my empery; How am I blest in thus discovering thee ! To enter in these bonds, is to be free ; Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.""

"I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den? ’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee. And now good-morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love, all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest; Where can we find two better hemispheres, Without sharp north, without declining west? Whatever dies, was not mixed equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die."

"I am a little world made cunningly Of elements, and an angelic sprite."

"At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go."

"All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain."

"If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damned; alas; why should I be?"

"Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so, For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me."

"Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke."

"One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die."

"What if this present were the world's last night?"

"Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend."

"Show me, dear Christ, Thy spouse, so bright and clear."

"Variable, and therefore miserable condition of man; this minute I was well, and am ill, this minute."

"Man, who is the noblest part of the earth, melts so away as if he were a statue, not of earth, but of snow."

"It is too little to call man a little world, except God, man is a diminutive to nothing. Man consists of more pieces, more parts, than the world; than the world doth, nay, than the world is."

"Enlarge this meditation upon this great world, man, so far, as to consider the immensity of the creatures this world produces; our creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are born giants; that reach from east to west, from earth to heaven, that do not only bestride all the sea and land, but span the sun and firmament at once; my thoughts reach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mystery; I their creator am in a close prison, in a sick bed, anywhere, and any one of my creatures, my thoughts, is with the sun, and beyond the sun, overtakes the sun, and overgoes the sun in one pace, one step, everywhere."

"And then as the other world produces serpents, and vipers, malignant, and venomous creatures, and worms, and caterpillars, that endeavour to devour that world produces them, and monsters compiled and complicated of diverse parents, and kinds, so this world, ourselves produces all these in us, in producing diseases and sicknesses of all those sorts; venomous and infectious diseases, feeding and consuming diseases..."

"I observe the physician, with the same diligence, as he the disease; I see he fears, and I fear with him..."

"A man that is not afraid of a Lion is afraid of a Cat; not afraid of starving, and yet is afraid of some joint of meat at the table, presented to feed him; not afraid of the sound of drums, and trumpets, and shot, and those, which they seek to drown, the last cries of men, and is afraid of some particular harmonious instrument; so much afraid, as that with any of these the enemy might drive this man, otherwise valiant enough, out of the field."

"I know not what fear is, nor I know not what it is that I fear now; I fear not the hastening of my death, and yet I do fear the increase of the disease... my weakness is from nature, who hath but her measure, my strength is from God, who possesses and distributes infinitely."

"Age is a sickness, and Youth is an ambush."

"Let not one bring Learning, another Diligence, another Religion, but every one bring all."

"I do nothing upon myself, and yet am mine own executioner."

"The flea, though he kill none, he does all the harm he can."

"He drinks misery, and he tastes happiness; he mows misery, and he gleaned happiness; he journeys in misery, he does but walked in happiness."

"How deep do we dig, and for how coarse gold?"

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

"What gnashing is not a comfort, what gnawing of the worm is not a tickling, what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation, to be secluded eternally, eternally, eternally from the sight of God?"

"Now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons."

"I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in and invite God and his angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door."

"And what is so intricate, so entangling as death? Who ever got out of a winding sheet?"

"Poor intricated soul! Riddling, perplexed, labyrinthian soul!"

"When God's hand is bent to strike, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; but to fall out of the hands of the living God is a horror beyond our expression, beyond our imagination."

"He was the Word, that spake it: He took the bread and brake it; And what that Word did make it, I do believe and take it."

"To read Dryden, Pope, &c., you need only count syllables; but to read Donne you must measure time, and discover the time of each word by the sense of passion."

"I have heard it said, by the way, that Donne's intolerable defect of ear grew out of his own baptismal name, when harnessed to his own surname -- John Donne. No man, it was said, who had listened to this hideous jingle from childish years, could fail to have his genius for discord, and the abominable in sound, improved to the utmost."

"His writings, like his actions, were faulty, violent, a little morbid even, and abnormal. He was not, and did not attempt to be, an average man. But actions and writings alike, in their strangeness and aloofness, were unadulterated by a tinge of affectation."

"Donne is the most inharmonious of our versifiers, if he can be said to have deserved such a name by lines too rugged to seem metre. Of his earlier poems many are very licentious; the later are chiefly devout. Few are good for much; the conceits have not even the merit of being intelligible; it would perhaps be difficult to select three passages that we should care to read again."

"think: poems fixed this landscape: Blake, Donne, Keats"

"Donne, more than any other of his lifetime, understood that flair is its own kind of truth: if you want to make your point, make it so vivid and strange that it cuts straight throughyour interlocutor's complacent attention. To read his verse is to hear him insist, across the gap of hundreds of years: for God's sake, will you listen."

"Sorry, old cock, to leave it in this shape."

"The Conservative Party has one overriding concern in foreign policy, and that is the growth of Communist power and influence in the world, and the dangers it can bring for all of us."

"There comes a time in every man's life when he must make way for an older man."

"For God's sake, bring me a large Scotch. What a bloody awful country."

"No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails."

"Do we want blanks, asterisks and exclamation marks which people can fill in with their own imaginations, or are we prepared and strong enough to tolerate, even if we do not approve, the strong Anglo-Saxon, realistic and vivid language?"

"I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print."

"The shelf life of the modern hardback writer is somewhere between the milk and the yoghurt."

"I found criminal clients easy and matrimonial clients hard. Matrimonial clients hate each other so much and use their children to hurt each other in beastly ways. Murderers have usually killed the one person in the world that was bugging them and they're usually quite peaceful and agreeable."

"People will go to endless trouble to divorce one person and then marry someone who is exactly the same, except probably a bit poorer and a bit nastier. I don't think anybody learns anything."

"Beliefs about how you live your life, matters of private decision, views best kept for private enjoyment, prejudice or entertainment, can't be imposed by the operation of criminal law. Attempts to enforce such views can only make the government the subject of ridicule."

"A barrister's job is to put the case for the defence as effectively and clearly as would his client if he had an advocate's skills. The barrister's belief or disbelief in the truth of this story is irrelevant: it's for the jury to decide this often difficult question."

"And in spite of David and Jonathan, Hamlet and Horatio, Caesar and Antony, Bush and Blair, women have a greater gift, I think, for friendship."

"The three towering geniuses of European culture, Shakespeare, Mozart and Leonardo da Vinci were not allowed to appear on the euro note as they might, in their separate ways, cause offense: Mozart because he was a "womanizer," Shakespeare because he wrote The Merchant of Venice, a play judged to be anti-Semitic, and Leonardo because he was reported to fancy boys. Now the euro note carries a picture of a rather dull bridge."

"Childhood, after all, has to be an age of discovery. These are days you'll remember vividly all your life, even when you're old and forget why you came into a room. It must never be allowed to become the age of anxiety. The anxiety has been greatly increased by this government's multiplication of exams and emphasis on starting training as a middle manager in a computer company from the age of six. Parents have made things worse by worrying unduly about exam results and seeing that their children work a great deal harder than most middle managers in computer companies."

"Most people in the West, certainly everyone in Israel, would agree that the Palestinian suicide bombers, who kill women and children, are terrorists. Not many people remember when Palestine, as the land of Israel was once called, was in that obscure state, a British Protectorate. Were the Jewish members of the Stern Gang, those who hanged a British sergeant with piano wire or organized the bomb in the King David Hotel with murderous results (the organization in which Prime Minister Begin started his political career), ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘terrorists’? What, looking at the matter from an entirely neutral standpoint, would we call them now? A terrorist, the dictionary tells us, is ‘one who favours or uses terror-inspiring methods of governing or of coercing government or community’. This would certainly cover Russian activities in Chechnya and Israeli invasions into Palestinian territory, killing innocent men, women and children and even employees of the United Nations, in a prolonged attempt to fight ruthless terrorism with ruthless terrorism. The word ‘terrorist’ could certainly have been applied to Nelson Mandela before his trial. If it means the calculated mass killing of civilians to obtain an end, it must be applied to the destruction of Hamburg and Düsseldorf and, of course, to the dropping of H-bombs. So all these activities can be defined as ‘terrorism’ if they are committed by an enemy or ‘freedom-fighting’ if by a friend. If so, the conception of a ‘war’ against it calls for the most careful thought."

"Of the old, violent anarchist groups it was said that they always contained one pathological killer, one selfless idealist and one police spy. It was difficult, at first glance, to tell which was which, but the idealist was always the most dangerous. A "war against terrorism" is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism. The feelings on both sides are not that they are taking part in some evil and criminal act but risking their lives heroically for what they consider to be a just cause. You could understandably reduce terrorism by improving security and increasing the number of police spies, but it can only finally be reduced by removing the number of just causes. ANC terrorism was pointless after the end of apartheid. Terrorism in Israel will stop only when a just solution has been agreed to and the occupied territories handed back. Terrorism has existed in Ireland since Elizabeth I sent the Earl of Essex out in an unsatisfactory attempt to quell the rebels. However, since former terrorists have become government ministers in Northern Ireland, some progress has been made and sometimes the signs are hopeful."

"The doctor who makes a friend of his patients, the lawyer who defends death penalty cases in distant countries for no fee, the schoolteacher who opens a child's eyes to a new world of books and poetry — such people do nothing that can be measured in marketplaces. The greatest painters, composers and writers don't offer you choices, they present you with what only they can do, and you must take it or leave it. So when such subjects as the values of the marketplace are discussed, you will probably not have much to contribute. You can repeat a poem in your head and wait until the conversation is over. But if anyone starts talking about "level playing fields," get up and steal quietly from the room."

"If you can't sleep with your own wife wearing a false beard, what can you do?"

"Are people naturally destructive, immoral, predatory and self-seeking, only to be kept in order by harsh laws and fiercely deterrent mandatory sentences? Or are men and women naturally orderly, merciful, humane and bred with a need for justice and mutual aid? Of course these qualities, or defects, are not evenly distributed, and undoubtedly there is much of each in all of us, but when it comes to the law some sort of distinction can be drawn. Are you a Shylock or a Bassanio? Shylock pinned his faith on the words in the contract, the nature of his bond and the duty of the state to uphold the letter of the law regardless of human suffering. Bassanio put another point of view. More important than the sanctity of the law was the plight of the individual parties in the particular case."

"Jewish custom, which traces descent solely from the mother, is more sensible and more discreet. Our own lawgivers can't accept the fact that there are many things in family life that are best kept shrouded in mystery."

"I have to say that I haven't met an aggressive beggar in London. In New York, crossing 58th Street from the Plaza Oyster Bar to the Wyndham Hotel, I came up against a huge black man in a long, dark overcoat who said, in deep and threatening tones, "Give me fifty dollars!" I managed to ask him if he would be content with thirty-five and, rather to my surprise, he said, "All right, give me thirty-five dollars!" And so the deal was done."

"It's tempting to wonder how many of the inventions of the past century we might have been better off without. Take the aeroplane for instance. It has transformed warfare from an event in which trained soldiers kill each other on distant battlefields to occasions when death is rained down indiscriminately on innocent civilians, while the professional fighters fly at a great height in comparative safety."

"The "medium is the message" is one of the world's silliest remarks. The message is the message, and it doesn't matter whether you send it by e-mail, a note in a bottle or on a picture postcard. The book, or the poem, or the play is what counts and it doesn't matter if it's written with a pen on a long sheet of ruled paper, as I am writing now, or on the most highly developed word processor. No machine can help with the rhythms of your prose, even if it can spell better than you can."

"We wondered why we ever thought there was, during the Cold War, any serious danger of Russia conquering the world when they couldn't even deliver the scenery for The Tempest."

"Our system, which we call democracy, at least leaves us the right from time to time to get rid of those who wish to govern us. And, if it's nowhere near Utopia, it is probably the best of all imperfect systems. All I can do is to advise you to be very cautious of those who claim to represent you and order you about for your own good."

"Mother brings a child late to contact by half-an-hour; father then requires an extra half-hour the next week. This is getting silly. If, in fact, the father does not see the child at all, of course he should see the child on another occasion, but there are fathers who actually add up the minutes and produce it and say "Now I should have so much more contact because I lost five minutes last week and ten minutes the week before"."

"Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government … The newspaper reader feels a sickening sense of impotence. Yet if these feelings of disgust could be united into common action, something effective could be done."

"Pressure of opinion a hundred years ago brought about the emancipation of the slaves'."

"Forty years on, Amnesty International has secured many victories. Its files are full of letters from former prisoners of conscience or torture victims thanking the organisation for making a difference. Torture is now banned by international agreement. Every year more countries reject the death penalty. The world will soon have an International Criminal Court that will be able to ensure that those accused of the worst crimes in the world will face justice. The Court's very existence will deter some crimes. But the challenges are still great. Torture is banned but in two-thirds of the world's countries it is still being committed in secret. Too many governments still allow wrongful imprisonment, murder or "disappearance" to be carried out by their officials with impunity. Those who today still feel a sense of impotence can do something: they can support Amnesty International. They can help it to stand up for freedom and justice."

"That great dust-heap called ‘history’."

"A great library easily begets affection, which may deepen into love."

"It is pleasant to be admitted into the birth-chamber of a great idea destined to be translated into action."

"We do not get many glimpses of Bodley's habits of life or ways of thinking, but there is no difficulty in discerning a strenuous, determined, masterful figure, bent during his later years, perhaps tyrannously bent, on effecting his object. He was not, we learn from a correspondent, 'hasty to write but when the posts do urge him, saying there need be no answer to your letters till more leisure breed him opportunity.' 'Words are women, deeds are men,' is another saying of his which I reprint without comment."

"Great is bookishness and the charm of books."

"Personally, I am dead against the burning of books."

"Oh, those scoundrelly Charity Commissioners! […] By the side of these anthropoid apes, the genuine bookworm, the paper-eating insect, ravenous as he once was, has done comparatively little mischief."

"There were no books in Eden, and there will be none in heaven."

"There are no habits of man more alien to the doctrine of the Communist than those of the collector."

"It can never be wrong to give pleasure."

"I do not wish...to call myself any Thing but an Independent Whig. Which in words is hardly a distinction, as every one alike pretends to it."

"Most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust and diabolical."

"What I have now offered is meant merely for the sake of my country, for the simple question is: will you change your Ministers and keep the Empire, or keep your Ministers and lose the Kingdom?"

"That beautiful frame of government which had made us the envy and admiration of mankind, in which the people were entitled to hold so distinguished a share, was so far dwindled and departed from its original purity, that the representatives ceased, in a great degree, to be connected with the people. It was the essence of the constitution, that the people had a share in the government by the means of representation; and its excellency and permanency was calculated to consist in this representation, having been designed to be equal, easy, practicable, and complete. When it ceased to be so; when the representative ceased to have connection with the constituent, and was either dependent on the Crown or the aristocracy; there was a defect in the frame of representation, and it was not innovation, but recovery of constitution, to repair it."

"I feel, Sir, at this instant, how much I had been animated in my childhood by a recital of England's victories:—I was taught, Sir, by one whose memory I shall ever revere, that at the close of a war, far different indeed from this, she had dictated the terms of peace to submissive nations. This, in which I place something more than a common interest, was the memorable aera of England's glory. But that aera is past...the visions of her power and pre-eminence are passed away... Let us examine what is left, with a manly and determined courage... Let us feel our calamities—let us bear them too, like men."

"I will repeat then, Sir, that it is not this treaty, it is the Earl of Shelburne alone whom the movers of this question are desirous to wound. This is the object which has raised this storm of faction; this is the aim of the unnatural coalition to which I have alluded. If, however, the baneful alliance is not already formed, if this ill-omened marriage is not already solemnized, I know a just and lawful impediment, and, in the name of the public safety, I here forbid the banns."

"You may take from me, Sir, the privileges and emoluments of place, but you cannot, and you shall not, take from me those habitual and warm regards for the prosperity of Great Britain which constitute the honour, the happiness, the pride of my life, and which, I trust, death alone can extinguish."

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."

"I came up no backstairs... Little did I think to be ever charged in this House with being the tool and abettor of secret influence. The novelty of the imputation only renders it so much the more contemptible. This is the only answer I shall ever deign to make on the subject, and I wish the House to bear it in their mind, and judge of my future conduct by my present declaration: the integrity of my own heart, and the probity of all my public, as well as my private principles, shall always be my sources of action."

"Considering the treaty in its political view, he should not hesitate to contend against the too-frequently advanced doctrine, that France was, and must be, the unalterable enemy of Britain. His mind revolted from this position as monstrous and impossible. To suppose that any nation could be unalterably the enemy of another, was weak and childish. It had neither its foundation in the experience of nations, nor in the history of man. It was a libel on the constitution of political societies, and supposed the existence of diabolical malice in the original frame of man."

"William Pitt: Never fear, Mr. Burke: depend on it we shall go on as we are, until the day of judgment. Edmund Burke: Very likely, Sir. It is the day of no judgment that I am afraid of."

"We must not count with certainty on a continuance of our present prosperity during such an interval [15 years]; but unquestionably there never was a time in the history of this country when, from the situation of Europe, we might more reasonably expect fifteen years of peace, than we may at the present moment."

"What is it which has produced, in the last hundred years, so rapid an advance, beyond what can be traced in any other period of our history? What but that, during that time, under the mild and just government of the illustrious Princes of the family now on the throne, a general calm has prevailed through the country, beyond what was ever before experienced; and we have also enjoyed, in greater purity and perfection, the benefit of those original principles of our constitution, which were ascertained and established by the memorable events that closed the century preceding? This is the great and governing cause, the operation of which has given scope to all the other circumstances which I have enumerated. It is this union of liberty with law, which, by raising a barrier equally firm against the encroachments of power, and the violence of popular commotion, affords to property its just security, produces the exertion of genius and labour, the extent solidity of credit, the circulation and increase of capital; which forms and upholds the national character, and sets in motion all the springs which actuate the great mass of the community through all its various descriptions."

"Let us remember, that the love of the constitution, though it acts as a sort of natural instinct in the hearts of Englishmen, is strengthened by reason and reflection, and every day confirmed by experience; that it is a constitution which we do not merely admire from traditional reverence, which we do not flatter from prejudice or habit, but which we cherish and value, because we know that it practically secures the tranquillity and welfare both of individuals and of the public, and provides, beyond any other frame of government which has ever existed, for the real and useful ends which form at once the only true foundation and only rational object of all political societies."

"[W]e have become rich in a variety of acquirements, favoured above measure in the gifts of Providence, unrivalled in commerce, pre-eminent in arts, foremost in the pursuits of philosophy and science, and established in all the blessings of civil society; we are in the possession of peace, of happiness, and of liberty; we are under the guidance of a mild and beneficent religion; and we are protected by impartial laws, and the purest administration of justice: we are living under a system of government which our own happy experience leads us to pronounce the best and wisest which has ever yet been framed; a system which has become the admiration of the world."

"It is in this view, Sir,—it is an atonement for our long and cruel injustice towards Africa, that the measure proposed by my honourable friend most forcibly recommends itself to my mind. The great and happy change to be expected in the state of her inhabitants, is, of all the various and important benefits of the abolition, in my estimation, incomparably the most extensive and important. I shall vote, Sir, against the adjournment; and I shall also oppose to the utmost every proposition, which in any way may tend either to prevent, or even to postpone for an hour, the total abolition of the slave-trade: a measure which, on all the various grounds which I have stated, we are bound, by the most pressing and indispensable duty, to adopt."

"We learn with concern, that not only a spirit of tumult and disorder has shown itself in acts of insurrection, which required the interposition of a military force in support of the civil magistrate, but that the industry employed to excite discontent has appeared to proceed from a design to attempt, in concert with persons in foreign countries, the destruction of our happy constitution, and the subversion of all order of government."

"We owe our present happiness and prosperity, which has never been equalled in the annals of mankind, to a mixture of monarchical government. We feel and know we are happy under that form of government. We consider it as our first duty to maintain and reverence the British constitution, which, for wise and just reasons of lasting and internal policy, attaches inviolability to the sacred person of the Sovereign, though, at the same time, by the responsibility it has annexed to government, by the check of a wise system of laws, and by a mixture of aristocratic and democratical power in the frame of legislation, it has equally exempted itself from the danger arising from the exercise of absolute power on the one hand, and the still more dangerous contagion of popular licentiousness on the other. The equity of our laws, and the freedom of our political system, have been the envy of every surrounding nation. In this country no man, in consequence of his riches or rank, is so high as to be above the reach of the laws, and no individual is so poor or inconsiderable as not to be within their protection. It is the boast of the law of England, that it affords equal security and protection to the high and the low, to the rich and the poor."

"They have explained what that liberty is which they wish to give to every nation; and if they will not accept of it voluntarily, they compel them. They take every opportunity to destroy every institution that is most sacred and most valuable in every nation where their armies have made their appearance; and under the name of liberty, they have resolved to make every country in substance, if not in form, a province dependent on themselves, through the despotism of jacobin societies. This has given a more fatal blow to the liberties of mankind, than any they have suffered, even from the boldest attempts of the most aspiring monarch. We see, therefore, that France has trampled under foot all laws, human and divine. She has at last avowed the most insatiable ambition, and greatest contempt for the law of nations, which all independent states have hitherto professed most religiously to observe; and unless she is stopped in her career, all Europe must soon learn their ideas of justice—law of nations—models of government—and principles of liberty from the mouth of the French cannon."

"England will never consent that France shall arrogate the power of annulling at her pleasure, and under the pretence of a natural right of which she makes herself the only judge, the political system of Europe, established by solemn treaties, and guaranteed by the consent of all the powers. Such a violation of rights as France has been guilty of, it would be difficult to find in the history of the world. The conduct of that nation is in the highest degree arbitrary, capricious, and founded upon no one principle of reason or justice."

"He had already given it as his opinion, that if there was no other alternative than either to make war or depart from our principles, rather than recede from our principles a war was preferable to a peace; because a peace, purchased upon such terms, must be uncertain, precarious, and liable to be continually interrupted by the repetition of fresh injuries and insults. War was preferable to such a peace, because it was a shorter and a surer way to that end which the house had undoubtedly in view as its ultimate object—a secure and lasting peace. What sort of peace must that be in which there was no security? Peace he regarded as desirable only so far as it was secure. If...you entertain a sense of the many blessings which you enjoy, if you value the continuance and safety of that commerce which is a source of so much opulence, if you wish to preserve and render permanent that high state of prosperity by which this country has for some years past been so eminently distinguished, you hazard all these advantages more, and are more likely to forfeit them, by submitting to a precarious and disgraceful peace, than by a timely and vigorous interposition of your arms. By tameness and delay you suffer that evil which might now be checked, to gain ground, and which, when it becomes indispensable to oppose, may perhaps be found irresistible."

"How little progress these principles had made in this country they might be sufficiently convinced by that spirit, which had displayed itself, of attachment to the constitution, and those expressions of a firm determination to support it, which had appeared from every quarter. If, indeed, they mean to attack us, because we do not like French principles, then would this indeed be that sort of war which had so often been alleged and deprecated on the other side of the house—a war against opinions. If they mean to attack us because we love our constitution, then indeed it would be a war of extirpation; for not till the spirit of Englishmen was exterminated, would their attachment to the constitution be destroyed, and their generous efforts be slackened in its defence."

"They clearly shewed their enmity to that constitution, by taking every opportunity to separate the King of England from the nation, and by addressing the people as distinct from the government. Upon the point of their fraternity he did not wish to say much: he had no desire for their affection. To the people they offered fraternity, while they would rob them of that constitution by which they are protected, and deprive them of the numerous blessings which they enjoy under its influence. In this case, their fraternal embraces resembled those of certain animals who embrace only to destroy."

"The system of the present governors [of France] has its root in the same unqualified rights of man, the same principles of liberty and equality—principles, by which they flatter the people with the possession of the theoretical rights of man, all of which they vitiate and violate in practice. The mild principles of our government are a standing reproach to theirs, which are as intolerant as the rankest popish bigotry. Their pride and ambition lead them not so much to conquer, as to carry desolation and destruction into all the governments of Europe."

"But having, in fact, no disposition for peace, and led away by false and aspiring notions of aggrandizement, the government of France offered us such terms as they knew could not possibly be complied with. Did they know the spirit, temper, and character of this country, when they presumed to make such arrogant proposals? These proposals I will leave to the silent sense impressed by them in the breast of every Englishman. I am, thank God! addressing myself to Britons, who are acquainted with the presumption of the enemy, and who, conscious of their resources, impelled by their native spirit, and valuing the national character, will prefer the chances and alternatives of war to such unjust, unequal, and humiliating conditions."

"The natural defence of this kingdom, in case of invasion, is certainly its naval force. This presents a formidable barrier, in whatever point the enemy may direct their attack. In this department, however, little now remains to be done, our fleet at this moment being more respectable and more formidable than ever it was at any other period in the history of the country."

"The attachment and loyalty of the people of this country, I trust, has experienced no diminution. It lives, and is cherished by that constitution which...still remains entire. Under the protection and support which it derives from the acts passed by the last parliament, the constitution inspires the steady affection of the people, and is still felt to be worth defending with every drop of our blood. The voice of the country proclaims that it continues to deserve and to receive their support. Fortified by laws in perfect unison with its principles and with its practice, and fitted to the emergencies by which they were occasioned, it still possesses that just esteem and admiration of the people which will induce them faithfully to defend it against the designs of domestic foes, and the attempts of their foreign enemies."

"I trust also that we shall not be disappointed in our expectation of the spirit of the public collectively or individually; that they will not be wanting in their exertions in such a crisis; that they will be animated, collectively and individually, with a spirit that will give energy and effect to their exertions; that every man who boasts, and is worthy of the name of an Englishman, will stand forth in the metropolis, and in every part of the kingdom, to maintain the authority of the laws, and enforce obedience to them, to oppose and counteract the machinations of the disaffected, and to preserve a due principle of submission to legal authority. I trust that all the inhabitants of the kingdom will unite in one common defence against internal enemies, to maintain the general security of the kingdom, by providing for the local security of each particular district; that we shall all remember, that by so doing we shall give the fullest scope to his Majesty's forces against foreign enemies, and also the fullest scope to the known valour and unshaken fidelity of the military force of the kingdom against those who shall endeavour to disturb its internal tranquillity. Such are the principles which I feel, and upon which I shall act for myself, and such are the principles, and will be the conduct, I hope, of every man in this house and out of it; such are the sentiments that are implanted in us all; such the feelings that are inherent in the breast of every Englishman."

"I verily believe, in the present state of Europe, that if we are not wanting to ourselves, if, by the blessing of Providence, our perseverance, and our resources, should enable us to make peace with France upon terms in which we taint not our character, in which we do not abandon the sources of our wealth, the means of our strength, the defence of what we already possess; if we maintain our equal pretensions, and assert that rank which we are entitled to hold among nations—the moment peace can be obtained on such terms, be the form of government in France what it may, peace is desirable, peace is then anxiously to be sought. But unless it is attained on such terms, there is no extremity of war, there is no extremity of honourable contest, that is not preferable to the name and pretence of peace, which must be in reality a disgraceful capitulation, a base, an abject surrender of every thing that constitutes the pride, the safety, and happiness of England."

"[I]f we look to the whole complexion of this transaction, the duplicity, the arrogance, and violence which has appeared in the course of the negociation, if we take from thence our opinion of its general result, we shall be justified in our conclusion, not that the people of France, not that the whole government of France, but that that part of the government which had too much influence, and has now the whole ascendancy, never was sincere; was determined to accept of no terms but such as would make it neither durable nor safe, such as could only be accepted by this country by a surrender of all its interests, and by a sacrifice of every pretension, to the character of a great, a powerful, or an independent nation."

"[Y]ou have it stated in the subsequent declaration of France itself, that it is not against your commerce, that it is not against your wealth, it is not against your possessions in the east, or colonies in the west, it is not against even the source of your maritime greatness, it is not against any of the appendages of your empire, but against the very essence of your liberty, against the foundation of your independence, against the citadel of your happiness, against your constitution itself, that their hostilities are directed. They have themselves announced and proclaimed the proposition, that what they mean to bring with their invading army is the genius of their liberty: I desire no other word to express the subversion of the British constitution,—and the substitution of the most malignant and fatal contrast—and the annihilation of British liberty, and the obliteration of every thing that has rendered you a great, a flourishing, and a happy people. This is what is at issue; for this are we to declare ourselves in a manner that deprecates the rage which our enemy will not dissemble, and which will be little moved by our entreaty. Under such circumstances are we ashamed or afraid to declare, in a firm and manly tone, our resolution to defend ourselves, or to speak the language of truth with the energy that belongs to Englishmen united in such a cause?"

"[I]f we love that degree of national power which is necessary for the independence of the country, and its safety; if we regard domestic tranquillity, if we look at individual enjoyment, from the highest to the meanest among us, there is not a man, whose stake is so great in the country, that he ought to hesitate a moment in sacrificing any portion of it to oppose the violence of the enemy; nor is there, I trust, a man in this happy and free nation, whose stake is so small, that would not be ready to sacrifice his life in the same cause... There may be danger, but on the one side there is danger accompanied with honour; on the other side, there is danger with indelible shame and disgrace; upon such an alternative, Englishmen will not hesitate."

"[T]here is one great resource, which I trust will never abandon us, and which has shone forth in the English character, by which we have preserved our existence and fame, as a nation, which I trust we shall be determined never to abandon under any extremity, but shall join hand and heart in the solemn pledge that is proposed to us, and declare to his Majesty, that we know great exertions are wanting, that we are prepared to make them, and at all events determined to stand or fall by the laws, liberties, and religion of our country."

"Certainly much depends upon the posture in which you converse of peace. What is the real foundation of the strength of a nation? Spirit, security, and conscious pride, that cannot stoop to dishonour. It comprehends a character that will neither offer nor receive an insult. Give me peace consistently with that principle, and I will not call it a peace "nominal or delusive;" and there is no man who will go farther than I will to obtain it. To any thing dishonourable I will never submit; nor will this country ever submit to it, I trust. There can be no man who has an English heart within his bosom who can wish it; or can wish that you may, by an untimely diminution of your strength, expose yourselves to the renewal, with aggravated insults, of those evils which we have already had too much reason to deplore."

"[W]e must also do justice to the wisdom, energy, and determination of the parliament who have furnished the means, and the power, by which all the rest was sustained and accomplished. Through them all the departments of his Majesty's government had the means of employing the force whose achievements have been so brilliant; through the wisdom of parliament the resources of the country have been called forth, and its spirit embodied in a manner unexampled in its history. By their firmness, magnanimity, and devotion to the cause, not merely of our own individual safety, but of the cause of mankind in general, we have been enabled to stand forth the saviours of the earth. No difficulties have stood in our way; no sacrifices have been thought too great for us to make; a common feeling of danger has produced a common spirit of exertion, and we have cheerfully come forward with a surrender of a part of our property as a salvage, not merely for recovering ourselves, but for the general recovery of mankind. We have presented a phenomenon in the character of nations."

"I feel in common with every gentleman who hears me, the proud situation in which we have been placed, and the importance it has given us in the scale of nations. The rank that we now hold, I trust, we shall continue to cherish, and that, pursuing the same glorious course, we shall all of us feel it to be a source of pride and consolation that we are the subjects of the king of Great Britain."

"We are not in arms against the opinions of the closet, nor the speculations of the school. We are at war with armed opinions; we are at war with those opinions which the sword of audacious, unprincipled, and impious innovation seeks to propagate amidst the ruins of empires, the demolition of the altars of all religion, the destruction of every venerable, and good, and liberal institution, under whatever form of polity they have been raised."

"We will not leave the monster to prowl the world unopposed, He must cease to annoy the abode of peaceful men. If he retire into the cell, whether of solitude or repentance, thither we will not pursue him; but we cannot leave him on the throne of power."

"[W]hat was required of us by France was, not merely that we should acquiesce in her retaining the Netherlands, but that, as a preliminary to all treaty, and before entering upon the discussion of terms, we should recognise the principle, that whatever France, in time of war, had annexed to the republic, must remain inseparable for ever, and could not become the subject of negociation. I say, that, in refusing such a preliminary, we were only resisting the claim of France, to arrogate to itself the power of controlling, by its own separate and municipal acts, the rights and interests of other countries, and moulding, at its discretion, a new and general code of the law of nations."

"Look then at the fate of Switzerland, at the circumstances which led to its destruction, add this instance to the catalogue of aggression against all Europe, and then tell me, whether the system I have described has not been prosecuted with an unrelenting spirit, which cannot be subdued in adversity, which cannot be appeased in prosperity, which neither solemn professions, nor the general law of nations, nor the obligation of treaties (whether previous to the revolution or subsequent to it), could restrain from the subversion of every state into which, either by force or fraud, their arms could penetrate. Then tell me, whether the disasters of Europe are to be charged upon the provocation of this country and its allies, or on the inherent principle of the French revolution, of which the natural result produced so much misery and carnage in France, and carried desolation and terror over so large a portion of the world."

"The all-searching eye of the French revolution looks to every part of Europe, and every quarter of the world, in which can be found an object either of acquisition or plunder. Nothing is too great for the temerity of its ambition, nothing too small or insignificant for the grasp of its rapacity."

"What then was the nature of this system? Was it any thing but what I have stated it to be? an insatiable love of agrandizement, an implacable spirit of destruction directed against all the civil and religious institutions of every country. This is the first moving and acting spirit of the French revolution; this is the spirit which animated it at its birth, and this is the spirit which will not desert it till the moment of its dissolution, "which grew with its growth, which strengthened with its strength," but which has not abated under its misfortunes, nor declined in its decay; it has been invariably the same in every period, operating more or less, according as accident or circumstances might assist it; but it has been inherent in the revolution in all its stages."

"Thus qualified, thus armed for destruction, the genius of the French revolution marched forth, the terror and dismay of the world. Every nation has in its turn been the witness, many have been the victims of its principles, and it is left for us to decide, whether we will compromise with such a danger, while we have yet resources to supply the sinews of war, while the heart and spirit of the country is yet unbroken, and while we have the means of calling forth and supporting a powerful co-operation in Europe."

"If we carry our views out of France, and look at the dreadful catalogue of all the breaches of treaty, all the acts of perfidy at which I have only glanced, and which are precisely commensurate with the number of treaties which the republic have made (for I have sought in vain for any one which it has made and which it has not broken); if we trace the history of them all from the beginning of the revolution to the present time, or if we select those which have been accompanied by the most atrocious cruelty, and marked the most strongly with the characteristic features of the revolution, the name of Buonaparte will be found allied to more of them than that of any other that can be handed down in the history of the crimes and miseries of the last ten years. His name will be recorded with the horrors committed in Italy, in the memorable campaign of 1796 and 1797, in the Milanese, in Genoa, in Modena, in Tuscany, in Rome, and in Venice."

"[O]n what grounds are we to be convinced that he [Napoleon] has an interest in concluding and observing a solid and permanent pacification? Under all the circumstances of his personal character, and his newly acquired power, what other security has he for retaining that power, but the sword? His hold upon France is the sword, and he has no other. Is he connected with the soil, or with the habits, the affections, or the prejudices of the country? He is a stranger, a foreigner, and an usurper; he unites in his own person every thing that a pure Republican must detest; every thing that an enraged Jacobin has abjured; every thing that a sincere and faithful Royalist must feel as an insult. If he is opposed at any time in his career, what is his appeal? He appeals to his fortune; in other words to his army and his sword. Placing, then, his whole reliance upon military support, can he afford to let his military renown pass away, to let his laurels wither, to let the memory of his achievements sink in obscurity? Is it certain that, with his army confined within France, and restrained from inroads upon her neighbours, he can maintain, at his devotion, a force sufficiently numerous to support his power? Having no object but the possession of absolute dominion, no passion but military glory, is it certain, that he can feel such an interest in permanent peace, as would justify us in laying down our arms, reducing our expense, and relinquishing our means of security, on the faith of his engagements?"

"The advocates of the French revolution boasted in its outset, that by their new system they had furnished a security for ever, not to France only but to all countries in the world, against military despotism; that the force of standing armies was vain and delusive; that no artificial power could resist public opinion; and that it was upon the foundation of public opinion alone that any government could stand. I believe, that in this instance, as in every other, the progress of the French revolution has belied its professions; but so far from its being a proof of the prevalence of public opinion against military force, it is instead of the proof, the strongest exception from that doctrine, which appears in the history of the world. Through all the stages of the revolution military force has governed; public opinion has scarcely been heard. But still I consider this as only an exception from a general truth; I still believe, that, in every civilized country (not enslaved by a jacobin faction) public opinion is the only sure support of any government."

"He defies me to state, in one sentence, what is the object of the war. I know not whether I can do it in one sentence; but is one word, I can tell him that it is SECURITY: security against a danger, the greatest that ever threatened the world. It is security against a danger which never existed in any past period of society. It is security against a danger which in degree and extent was never equalled; against a danger which threatened all the nations of the earth; against a danger which has been resisted by all the nations of Europe, and resisted by none with so much success as by this nation, because by none has it been resisted so uniformly, and with so much energy. This country alone, of all the nations of Europe, presented barriers the best fitted to resist its progress. We alone recognised the necessity of open war, as well with the principles, as the practice of the French revolution. We saw that it was to be resisted no less by arms abroad, than by precaution at home; that we were to look for protection no less to the courage of our forces, than to the wisdom of our councils; no less to military effort, than to legislative enactment. At the moment when those, who now admit the dangers of jacobinism while they contend that it is extinct, used to palliate its atrocity, and extenuate its mischief, this house wisely saw that it was necessary to erect a double safeguard against a danger that wrought no less by undisguised hostility than by secret machination."

"[W]e had not an option at this moment, between the blessings of peace and the dangers of war that from the fatality of the times, and the general state of the world, we must consider our lot as cast, by the decrees of Providence, in a time of peril and trouble that he trusted the temper and courage of the nation would conform itself to the duties of that situation that we should be prepared, collectively and individually, to meet it with that resignation and fortitude, and, at the same time, with that active zeal and exertion, which, in proportion to the magnitude of the crisis, might be expected from a brave and free people; and that we should reflect, even in the hour of trial, what abundant reason we have to be grateful to Providence, for the distinction we enjoy over most of the countries of Europe, and for all the advantages and blessings which national wisdom and virtue have hitherto protected, and which it now depends on perseverance in the same just and honourable sentiments, still to guard and to preserve."

"The amount of our danger, therefore, it would be impolitic to conceal from the people. It was the first duty of ministers to make it known, and after doing so, it should have been their study to provide against it, and to point out the means to the country by which it might be averted."

"Much has been said of the danger of arming the people. I confess that there was a time when that fear would have had some weight; but there never was a time when there could have been any fear of arming the whole people of England, and particularly not under the present circumstances. I never, indeed, entertained any apprehensions from a patriot army regularly officered, according to the manner specified in the measure before the house, however I might hesitate to permit the assemblage of a tumultuary army otherwise constituted. From an army to consist of the round bulk of the people, no man who knows the British character could have the least fear if it even were to include the disaffected; for they would bear so small a proportion to the whole, as to be incapable of doing mischief, however mischievously disposed. There was indeed a time when associations of traitors systematically organized, excited an apprehension of the consequences of a sudden armament of the populace: but that time is no more, and the probability is now, as occurred in the case of the volunteers, that, if there are still any material number of disaffected, by mixing them with the loyal part of the community, the same patriotic zeal, the same submission to just authority will be soon found to pervade the whole body, and that all will be equally anxious to defend their country or perish in the attempt."

"[I]f we are not wanting to ourselves, if we have not forgotten our national character, but remember who we are, and what we are contending for, the contest will be glorious to us, and must terminate in the complete discomfiture of the enemy, and ultimate security to this kingdom."

"That we shall have no difficulty in procuring the men who are to compose this force, I am perfectly satisfied, because the spirit of the country is now raised in the capital, and will from thence rapidly pervade all the extremities of the empire. That spirit was first kindled in the north, from thence it has extended to the metropolis, and is now catching from town to town, from village to village, and very shortly the whole kingdom will, I am convinced, manifest one scene of activity, of animation, and of energy, displaying in its native lustre the character of Englishmen."

"We ought to have a due sense of the magnitude of the danger with which we are threatened; we ought to meet it in that temper of mind which produces just confidence, which neither despises nor dreads the enemy; and while on the one hand we accurately estimate the danger with which we are threatened at this awful crisis, we must recollect on the other hand what it is we have at stake, what it is we have to contend for. It is for our property, it is for our liberty, it is for our independence, nay, for our existence as a nation; it is for our character, it is for our very name as Englishmen, it is for every thing dear and valuable to man on this side of the grave."

"[T]he result of this great contest will ensure the permanent security, the eternal glory of this country; that it will terminate in the confusion, the dismay, and the shame, of our vaunting enemy; that it will afford the means of animating the spirits, of rousing the courage, of breaking the lethargy, of the surrounding nations of Europe; and I trust, that, if a fugitive French army should reach its own shores after being driven from our coasts, it will find the people of Europe reviving in spirits, and anxious to retaliate upon France all the wrongs, all the oppressions, they have suffered from her; and that we shall at length see that wicked fabric destroyed which was raised upon the prostitution of liberty, and which has caused more miseries, more horrors to France and to the surrounding nations, than are to be paralleled in any part of the annals of mankind."

"I need not remind the house that we are come to a new era in the history of nations; that we are called to struggle for the destiny, not of this country alone, but of the civilized world. We must remember that it is not for ourselves alone that we submit to unexampled privations. We have for ourselves the great duty of self-preservation to perform; but the duty of the people of England now is of a nobler and higher order. We are in the first place to provide for our security against an enemy whose malignity to this country knows no bounds: but this is not to close the views or the efforts of our exertion in so sacred a cause. Amid the wreck and the misery of nations, it is our just exultation, that we have continued superior to all that ambition or that despotism could effect, and our still higher exultation ought to be, that we provide not only for our own safety, but hold out a prospect to nations now bending under the iron yoke of tyranny, what the exertions of a free people can effect; and that at least in this corner of the world, the name of liberty is still revered, cherished, and sanctified."

"I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me; but Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example."

"Prostrate the beauteous ruin lies; and all That shared its shelter perish in its fall."

"Oh my country! How I love my country!"

"I think I could eat one of Bellamy's mutton pies."

"Roll up that map; it will not be wanted these ten years."

"His talents, quickness, temper and application well qualified him to have been a Prime Minister in the real sense of the word."

"Not merely a chip of the old 'block', but the old block itself."

"Mr. Pitt is, at the head of his own table, exactly what hits my taste—attentive without being troublesome—mixing in the conversation without attempting to lead it—laughing often and easily—and boyish enough if it should fall in his way, to discuss the history of Cock Robin."

"I think I have never left him without liking him better than before. I could not admire or love him more, even if I had no obligations to him; though, in that case, I should give a freer, because less suspicious testimony of the claims which, I think, he has to be both loved and admired."

"Here's to the Pilot that weather'd the Storm!"

"In attacking France, Pitt preserved social order in England, and kept civilisation in the paths of that regular and gradual progress which it has followed ever since. He loved power not as an end but as a means."

"The greatest statesman of his century."

"He was far too practical a politician to be given to abstract theories, universal doctrines, watchwords, or shibboleths of any kind. He knew of no political gospel that was to be preached in season and out of season alike. When he thought reform wholesome, he proposed it: when he ceased to think it wholesome, he ceased to propose it. Whether his memory would be claimed by Reformers or anti-Reformers was a question upon which he troubled himself very little. In the same way he urged Catholic Emancipation, even at the cost of power, when he judged that the balance of advantages was on its side. He abandoned it with equal readiness as soon as the King's strong resistance and the necessity of avoiding intestine division in the face of foreign peril had placed the balance of advantage on the other side. The same untheoretical mind may be traced in all his legislation. The great merit of his measures, so far as they had a trial, was that they were admirably calculated to attain the object they had in view, with the least possible damage to the interests which any great change must necessarily affect. Their demerit was, if demerit it be, that they were justifiable on no single theory, and were often marred by what seemed to be logical contradictions, which damaged them in argument, though they did not hinder them in practice."

"Time and again he showed a rare sense of what was due to the occasion. With astonishing magnanimity he forebore to reveal Charles James Fox's involvement in an intrigue with the Russian court in 1790, traversing ministerial policy, which by any standard came near to the verge of a treasonable misdemeanour and gives a lamentable impression of Fox's flawed political integrity. When a bad harvest sent bread prices rocketing Pitt plunged into state trading in grain – until Parliament imposed its veto. In these and other ways...the liberal impulses in Pitt's mind survived against revolution after 1790. And this was also true of foreign affairs... Even under the stress of war the Pittite circle preserved its sympathy for the idea of French constitutional monarchy, was not averse to seeing those elements that were of value salvaged from the Revolution of 1789 and...hung back from any endorsement of the Bourbon princes' demands for a return to the pre-revolutionary regime."

"But did he live or die a Tory? Ehrman is surely right to answer no. Pitt called himself a Whig. His personal commitment to the Anglican Church and to the monarchy was limited. He took a utilitarian view of traditional institutions, ruthlessly transforming them when necessary. In an ideal world, he thought Tom Paine was right. He was conservative only in his conviction that an ideal world was unattainable and that property should be preserved. Only after his death was a renovated Tory party forged, with him as a crucial part of its mythology."

"To all appearance, indeed, the better part of the work achieved by Chatham was in ruins. Its restoration, so far as restoration was now possible, was the task which lay before his son. He brought to it great gifts of intellect and character—a swift comprehensive mind, eloquence, patience, unbending courage, intense devotion to his country, and, most useful of all, a capacity to face facts as they are and to shape policy in accordance with the lessons of experience."

"I will only here sum up what I have to say to those Tory gentlemen who belong to what are called Pitt Clubs, that the two most formidable objects of their apprehensions, Parliamentary Reform and Catholic Emancipation, were the measures of Mr. Pitt."

"His reputation has suffered both from hero-worship, which skimmed over the contradictions of his character, and from denigration, which was oblivious to its complexities. He remains an enigma, for his correspondence does not abound in those flashes of exuberant self-revelation which make Charles Fox and Edmund Burke so vivid and compelling. But the stabilisation of British economy after the American War, the reform of the customs, the pruning of wasteful expenditure, the restoration of national self-respect, and the courageous defence of English and European liberties threatened by an absolutism more powerful than the old, constitute an enduring claim to fame."

"Were the Tories inimical to national improvement when under Pitt they first applied philosophy to commerce, and science to finance; when under their auspices the most severe retrenchment was practised in every department of the public expenditure; when a bill for the Commutation of Tithes was not only planned but printed; and when nothing but the violence of the French Revolution prevented the adoption of a matured scheme of Ecclesiastical Reform, which would not have left our revolutionary oligarchs a single pretext to veil their present plundering purpose? Why! the cry of Parliamentary Reform was first raised by a Tory minister, struggling against the bigoted and corrupt authority of the Whig oligarchy."

"He created a plebeian aristocracy and blended it with the patrician oligarchy. He made peers of second-rate squires and fat graziers. He caught them in the alleys of Lombard Street, and clutched them from the counting-houses of Cornhill."

"[W]ith that last breath expired the last hopes of this country... [I]t is deprived of the services of such a man whose like we shall never look upon again."

"What I have found remarkably agreeable in any conversation I have had with Mr. Pitt on business is not only the extreme quickness of his apprehension but the undivided and unprejudiced attention which he gives."

"I have been this morning with Lady Hester Pitt, and there is little William Pitt, not eight years old, and really the cleverest child I ever saw, and brought up so strictly and so proper in his behaviour, that, mark my words, that little boy will be a thorn in Charles's side as long as he lives."

"Impossible, impossible; one feels as if there was something missing in the world—a chasm, a blank that cannot be supplied."

"[O]ur reverence for the memory of that statesman, to whom it is, in our opinion, mainly owing that those institutions are still preserved to us, and that the continuance of that policy is still within our power; that these nations now enjoy the blessings of domestic tranquillity, and that what remains of independent Europe is now leaning with confidence upon our aid... [T]hat great minister, who united in himself, beyond the example of all former ministers, the confidence of his fellow-subjects with the favour of his sovereign... [T]hose stupendous talents, of which even the most ordinary exercise was a source of wonder and delight; which resembled, in the mightiness of their force, the elementary powers of nature, and in the truth and precision of their movement, the most exquisite process of art."

"No one who really knew Pitt intimately would have called him cold. A man who is Prime Minister at twenty-six, cannot carry his heart on his sleeve and be "Hail, fellow! well met," with every Jack, Tom, and Harry. Pitt's manner by nature, as well as by habit and necessity, was in public always dignified, reserved, and imperious; but he had very warm feelings and, had it not been for the obligations of the official position, which lay on him almost throughout his whole life, I believe he might have had nearly as many personal friends as Fox."

"I am certain that, up to the very last, it was Pitt's determination to have kept clear from the European wars consequent on the French Revolution. Nothing was more unjust than the charge constantly brought against him that he did not do all that a patriotic minister could do to preserve peace. His personal interests and predilections were all in favour of peace, and nothing but the outrageous conduct of the French compelled him to take part in the war, which no English minister could have long avoided, unless by joining the French in their onslaught upon all the old governments in Europe."

"Mr. Pitt, like other men, had his errors; and the country is still smarting for them. But I cannot refer even to the errors of so great a man without avowing my respect and veneration for his memory. [A Laugh.] Sir, I am under no obligation to profess such a sentiment; it is our right and duty to read the characters of public men in the light of history; but I say simply, because it is the truth, that I look with sincere and profound respect upon the political character and the genius of Mr. Pitt."

"Mr. Pitt has gain'd himself great Credit by his two or three last Speeches. His Language and Oratory amazes, but the sensible thinking People are astonished at his knowledge. The Opposition even cannot help expressing Astonishment. Your Papa says that he is a most wonderful young man. His Passions are all guided by Reason, with a mind so improved, such Discretion, and so perfect a Knowledge of the Commerce, Funds, and Government of the Country that one must imagine to hear him on these subjects, that he had the experience of fifty years, and at the same Time so clever, lively, and agreeable in Society, without the least assuming, that it is impossible to know him without liking him and wondering at his Knowledge and Parts."

"William Pitt, the greatest Parliamentary statesman whom England has produced... He...was...the one man upon whom, through long years of danger both from foreign and domestic enemies, a nation reposed confidence, whose removal from power was the signal for general despair, whose restoration revived the public spirit as sunrise renews the daylight, and whose death was lamented by the tears not only of personal friends and Parliamentary supporters, but by thousands who had never seen him, yet felt themselves reduced to sudden helplessness by the loss of their tried protector. Such a position as this no other man in English history has ever occupied; and this, which is wholly independent of particular measures or combinations, is Pitt's title to immortality."

"You must know (I think) that I was very much attached to Mr. Pitt, as a public Man; but You cannot know, for it is difficult to conceive the enthusiasm I felt for him, and still feel for his memory. I am almost disposed to repeat, what I once heard Lord Muncaster say, "that he considered him as something supernatural, something between God and man." Without going quite that length I consider him the greatest Statesman this, or any other Country ever produced; and moreover, as good, and as honest as a public man could be."

"If Mr. Pitt had lived in 1832, it is our firm belief that he would have been a decided Reformer."

"Little as I revere the memory of Mr. Pitt, I must confess that, comparing the plan he formed with the policy of Cromwell and William, he deserves praise for great wisdom and humanity. The Union of Ireland with Great Britain was part of his plan, an excellent and essential part of it, but still only a part. It never ought to be forgotten that his scheme was much wider in extent, and that he was not allowed to carry it into effect. He wished to unite not only the kingdoms, but the hearts and affections of the people. For that object the Catholic disabilities were to be removed, the Catholic clergy were to be placed in an honourable, comfortable, and independent position, and Catholic education was to be conducted on a liberal scale. His views and opinions agreed with, and were, I have no doubt, taken from those of Mr. Burke, a man of an understanding even more enlarged and capacious than his own. If Mr. Pitt's system had been carried into effect, I believe that the Union with Ireland would fully now have been as secure, and as far out of the reach of agitation, as the Union with Scotland. The Act of Union would then have been associated in the minds of the great body of the Catholic Irish people with the removal of most galling disabilities."

"From personal knowledge I am therefore enabled to state, that no Minister ever understood so well the commercial interests of the country. He knew that the true sources of its greatness lay in its productive industry, and he therefore encouraged that industry."

"He erected a screen against the winds of change, tempering their strength, yet permitting a few zephyrs to filter through: a sinecure suppressed here, a rationalization of tax there. There was no fear that he would upset the structure of government or attempt to realign the basis of power. And when, as he often did, he made a messy compromise, he stayed in power, nothing daunted. What Pitt did was to provide aloof, capable, deeply conservative leadership about which the traditional forces in society, fragmented by the humiliation of the American War, could coalesce. In consequence, they could face the greater problems created by the growing gulf in English life between the political nation and those who held political property, and make certain of the victory of the latter."

"In 1783 ruin financial as well as ruin military stared Britain in the face: she was impoverished, isolated and – except at sea – ignominiously helpless. The nation wanted financial and personal integrity in government, a break with the politics and the politicians that had betrayed it, and a lengthy period of uninterrupted convalescence. The bleak independence of the Younger Pitt, his superb parliamentary and economic talents, and the aura of authority which he diffused gave Britain what she needed, and knew that she needed, in the years between peace in 1783 and war in 1797. The man fitted the moment. If there had been no Pitt, Britain could well have been the image, instead of the antithesis, of contemporary France. The essence of what Pitt did for Britain lies in the Chapter 'Retrenchment and Revival 1784–92'; in order to understand the influence which Pitt continued to influence from beyond the grave over Peel, over Gladstone, over Britain of the high nineteenth century, one needs to study and study again the budgetary and fiscal measures of those eight years."

"Pitt was truly a great man of principle, of one single principle that transcended all others and on which no compromise was possible. The welfare of his country, with which he associated the preservation of the Constitution and loyalty to the Crown, was the mainspring of his life, and for it he was ready to sacrifice cherished causes, personal advantage, and even his own reputation for integrity. This dedication was absolute... Pitt alone possessed the qualities of integrity and endurance necessary to inspire confidence and courage. To his successors he left an example of leadership, fortitude and self-denial. To his country he bequeathed the priceless legacy of hope."

"The policy of the London Cabinet largely contributed to the first movement of our Revolution …Taking advantage of political tempests (the cabinet) aimed to effect in an exhausted and dismembered France a change of dynasty and to place the Duke of York on the throne of Louis XVI … Pitt … is an imbecile, whatever may be said of a reputation that has been much too greatly puffed up. A man who, abusing the influence acquired by him on an island placed haphazard in the ocean, is desirous of contending with the French people, could not have conceived of such an absurd plan elsewhere than in a madhouse."

"This afflicting stroke follows close on the loss of Lord Nelson, for whom I had also a cordial love and affection; and it leads me to reflect on the uncommon similarity of their characters:—gentleness of mind; sweetness of disposition, accompanied by the most determined resolution; quickness of conception, and promptitude in decision; ardent zeal for the welfare of their country, rendering it most signal and important services; wisdom in concerting plans, and firmness in executing them, undismayed by any hazards or the severest responsibility. In all these they resembled each other with a degree of exactness not to be conceived by any one who did not know them as intimately and as entirely as I did... These two great men died, as they lived, for their country. Mr. Pitt sacrificed his life in its service as much as Lord Nelson did."

"The name of Pitt is, in an historical sense, very dear to us, belonging as it does to a party which may be said to have taken its origin from those who gathered around him, and who may be said to have been the founders of modern Toryism... England was his first, his only thought, and it is for that reason that he has left behind him a name which all men revere, and a pattern which the rulers of this country in time of peril may follow."

"The firmness, propriety and prudence of every part of your young friends conduct must, as long as it is remembered, place him very high in the estimation of every wise and thinking man in the Kingdom."

"Mr. Pitt used to say that Tom Paine was quite in the right; but then he would add, "What am I to do? If the country is overrun with all these men, full of vice and folly, I cannot exterminate them. It would be very well, to be sure, if every body had sense enough to act as they ought; but, as things are, if I were to encourage Tom Paine's opinions, we should have a bloody revolution; and, after all, matters would return pretty much as they were.""

"The actual occasions for war (the execution of Louis and the control of the Scheldt) came at the conclusion of twelve months which had transformed Pitt from the Prime Minister of economic retrenchment, peace, and piecemeal reform into the diplomatic architect of European counterrevolution. And this transformation was not of one man but of a class; of the patricians as well as of the commercial and manufacturing bourgeoisie who had seen in Pitt their hope for economic rationalisation and cautious political reform."

"Mr. Pitt had foibles, and of course they were not diminished by so long a continuance in office; but for a clear and comprehensive view of the most complicated subject in all its relations; for that fairness of mind which disposes a man to follow out, and when overtaken to recognise the truth; for magnanimity, which made him ready to change his measures when he thought the good of the country required it, though he knew he should be charged with inconsistency on account of the change; for willingness to give a fair hearing to all that could be urged against his own opinions, and to listen to the suggestions of men, whose understandings he knew to be inferior to his own; for personal purity, disinterestedness, integrity, and love of his country, I have never known his equal."

"In society he was remarkably cheerful and pleasant, full of wit and playfulness, neither, like Mr. Fox, fond of arguing a question, nor yet holding forth, like some others. He was always ready to hear others as well as to talk himself."

"Lord North could sustain no competition with the late Mr. Pitt, who on those, as on all other occasions, manifested a perspicuity, eloquence, rapidity, recollection, and talent altogether wonderful, which carried the audience along with him in every arithmetical statement, left no calculation obscure or ambiguous, and impressed the House at its close with tumultuous admiration."

"In his manners, Pitt, if not repulsive, was cold, stiff, and without suavity or amenity. He seemed never to invite approach or to encourage acquaintance, though when addressed, he could be polite, communicative, and occasionally gracious. Smiles were not natural to him, even when seated on the Treasury bench, where, placed at the summit of power, young, surrounded by followers, admirers, and flatterers, he maintained a more sullen gravity than his antagonist exhibited, who beheld around him only the companions of his political exile, poverty, and privations. From the instant that Pitt entered the doorway of the House of Commons, he advanced up the floor with a quick and firm step, his head erect and thrown back, looking neither to the right nor to the left, nor favouring with a nod or a glance any of the individuals seated on either side, among whom many who possessed five thousand pounds a year would have been gratified even by so slight a mark of attention. It was not thus that Lord North or Fox treated Parliament, nor from them would Parliament have so patiently endured it; but Pitt seemed made to guide and to command, even more than to persuade or to convince, the assembly that he addressed."

"[T]here was one man, whom Providence reserved for the tempestuous age which he adorned and controuled, whose unshaken fidelity to his sovereign, whose commanding genius sustained by the most courageous resolution, whose attachment to the British constitution, equalled only by his zeal for the liberties of the civilized world, qualified him to move upon a more elevated sphere, and to be at once the admiration of the good, and the hatred of the wicked. He towered above all his competitors, and stood alone, arrayed in glory, himself an host."

"The honourable William Pitt, son to the late Earl of Chatham, now rose for the first time, and in a speech directly in answer to matter that had fallen out in the course of the debate, displayed great and astonishing powers of eloquence. His voice is rich and striking, full of melody and force; his manner easy and elegant; his language beautiful and luxuriant. He gave, in that first and short essay, a specimen of eloquence, not unworthy the son of the immortal parent."

"The name of Pitt...is embalmed in the heart of admiring nations, with a yet holier passion; for he not only preached, but fought the good fight; and with the reverence which is paid to him as a prophet, we mingle the love which is due to the memory of a hero and a martyr... The gratitude of those who bless his memory forms a bond of connexion and of confidence that will not easily be disunited."

"Pitt was stiff with everyone but women."

"As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up you are never going to make progress."

"It is not fair to Tony or to the Government that the entire focus of political debate at the moment is about me. I know I'm in a very special position, I'm the wife of the Prime Minister, I have an interesting job and a wonderful family, but I also know I am not Superwoman. The reality of my daily life is that I'm juggling a lot of balls in the air. Some of you must experience that."

"My immediate instinct when faced with the questions from The Mail on Sunday ten days ago was to protect my family's privacy and particularly my son in his first term at university, living away from home."

"For many women, becoming a widow does not just mean the heartache of losing a husband, but often losing everything else as well. In too many countries, a woman who is widowed becomes in effect a non-person. Through no fault of her own, she can suffer social discrimination, stigma and even violence, sometimes, as in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, being forced to “cleanse” herself by having sexual intercourse with a relative or stranger."

"Macaulay, Mill and Burke are I believe the three authors to whom as far as I can judge I owe more than to any other teachers I could mention."

"When a body of twenty or two thousand or two hundred thousand men bind themselves together to act in a particular way for some common purpose, they create a body which, by no fiction of law but from the very nature of things, differs from the individuals of whom it is constituted."

"The rule of law, as described in this treatise, remains to this day a distinctive characteristic of the English constitution. In England no man can be made to suffer punishment or to pay damages for any conduct not definitely forbidden by law; every man's legal rights or liabilities are almost invariably determined by the ordinary Courts of the realm, and each man's individual rights are far less the result of our constitution than the basis on which that constitution is founded."

"The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely, that Parliament thus defined has, under the English constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament."

"Foreign observers of English manners, such for example as Voltaire, De Lolme, Tocqueville, or Gneist, have been far more struck than have Englishmen themselves with the fact that England is a country governed, as is scarcely any other part of Europe, under the rule of law."

"Modern Englishmen may at first feel some surprise that the "rule of law" (in the sense in which we are now using the term) should be considered as in any way a peculiarity of English institutions, since, at the present day, it may seem to be not so much the property of any one nation as a trait common to every civilised and orderly state. Yet, even if we confine our observation to the existing condition of Europe, we shall soon be convinced that the "rule of law" even in this narrow sense is peculiar to England, or to those countries which, like the United States of America, have inherited English traditions. In almost every continental community the executive exercises far wider discretionary authority in the matter of arrest, of temporary imprisonment, of expulsion from its territory, and the like, than is either legally claimed or in fact exerted by the government in England; and a study of European politics now and again reminds English readers that wherever there is discretion there is room for arbitrariness, and that in a republic no less than under a monarchy discretionary authority on the part of the government must mean insecurity for legal freedom on the part of its subjects."

"Our constitution, in short, is a judge-made constitution, and it bears on its face all the features, good and bad, of judge-made law."

"The fact that the most arbitrary powers of the English executive must always be exercised under Act of Parliament places the government, even when armed with the widest authority, under the supervision, so to speak, of the Courts. Powers, however extraordinary, which are conferred or sanctioned by statute, are never really unlimited, for they are confined by the words of the Act itself, and, what is more, by the interpretation put upon the statute by the judges. Parliament is supreme legislator, but from the moment Parliament has uttered its will as lawgiver, that will becomes subject to the interpretation put upon it by the judges of the land."

"All that necessarily results from an analysis of our institutions, and a comparison of them with the institutions of foreign countries, is, that the English constitution is still marked, far more deeply than is generally supposed, by peculiar features, and that these peculiar characteristics may be summed up in the combination of Parliamentary Sovereignty with the Rule of Law."

"Acts therefore which would not be justifiable in protection of a person's own property, may often be justified as the necessary means, either of stopping the commission of a crime, or of arresting a felon. Burglars rob A’s house, they are escaping over his garden wall, carrying off A’s jewels with them. A is in no peril of his life, but he pursues the gang, calls upon them to surrender, and having no other means of preventing their escape, knocks down one of them, X, who dies of the blow; A, it would seem, if Foster's authority may be trusted, not only is innocent of guilt, but has also discharged a public duty."

"A story told of that eminent man and very learned judge, Mr. Justice Willes, and related by an ear-witness, is to the following effect:—Mr. Justice Willes was asked: "If I look into my drawing-room, and see a burglar packing up the clock, and he cannot see me, what ought I to do?" Willes replied, as nearly as may be: "My advice to you, which I give as a man, as a lawyer, and as an English judge, is as follows: In the supposed circumstance this is what you have a right to do, and I am by no means sure that it is not your duty to do it. Take a double-barrelled gun, carefully load both barrels, and then, without attracting the burglar's attention, aim steadily at his heart and shoot him dead.""

"[Dicey's The Law of Domicil] not only reduced to order one of the most intricate and technical branches of law...but exerted a potent influence on its development."

"Dicey will hold, in the history of the legal literature of the nineteenth century, a place not unlike that which Blackstone holds in the legal literature of the eighteenth century; for both have written books which became classics whilst they were still alive... Dicey's book [Law of the Constitution] is a classic, because he added to his knowledge of English law a knowledge both of the constitutional law of other states, and a knowledge of English history."

"His Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, originally published in 1885, was at once recognized to be no mere technical discussion but a literary contribution to the analysis and interpretation of the fundamental ideas which underlie the political thought and life of the nation."

"Lectures on the relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century was published in 1905 and was received as a notable contribution to political philosophy—"the esprit des lois of our times"."

"Dicey's intellectual and critical powers were accompanied by a lovable simplicity of character and a lively wit. "It is better to be flippant than dull" he used to tell his pupils, and it was the force of his epigrams that made his early reputation as a speaker in the Oxford Union. His remarkable faculty of exposition, acquired by persistent revision of his compositions, was sometimes marred by a tendency to redundancy of which he could not rid himself."

"[I]t was A.V. Dicey whose writing – above all his classic textbook The Law of the Constitution – had most impact on me. It had long been fashionable to attack Dicey for his doctrinaire opposition to the new administrative state, and there are plenty of learned commentators still inclined to do so. But I found myself immediately at home with what he said – it is not perhaps without significance that though Dicey's was a great legal mind, he was at heart a classical liberal. The "law of the constitution" was, in Dicey's words, the result of two "guiding principles, which had been gradually worked out by the more or less conscious efforts of generations of English statesmen and lawyers". The first of these principles was the sovereignty of Parliament. The second was the rule of law, which I will summarize briefly and inadequately as the principle that no authority is above the law of the land. For Dicey, writing in 1885, and for me reading him some seventy years later, the rule of law still had a very English, or at least Anglo-Saxon, feel to it. It was later, through reading Hayek's masterpieces The Constitution of Liberty and Law, Legislation and Liberty that I really came to think of this principle as having wider application."

"The press – the popular press – is drinking in the Last Chance Saloon."

"The tabloids are like animals, with their own behavioural patterns. There’s no point in complaining about them, any more than complaining that lions might eat you."

"Lawyers are like rhinoceroses: thick-skinned, short-sighted, and always ready to charge."

"And I'd like to say this to [Sir James Goldsmith] ... who has got nothing to be smug about, and I would like to say that 1,500 votes is a derisory total. We have shown tonight that the Referendum Party is dead in the water, and Sir James can get off back to Mexico knowing your attempt to buy the British political system has failed."

"There is no design involved. It would look tawdry down the wrong end of a beach in Torremolinos. This isn't a case of just not wanting it in my backyard. This area is historically significant with listed buildings and it's next to the Tower of London, which is a world heritage site."

"The Minister for Fun."

"Since the great days of Jimmy Greaves, it's the only time anyone's managed to score five times in a Chelsea shirt."

"This is the first time in ages that David Mellor has done the decent thing."

"I amongist other haue Indured a parlyament which contenwid by the space of xvij hole wekes wher we communyd of warre pease Stryffe contencyon debatte murmure grudge Riches pouerte penurye trowth falshode Justyce equyte discayte opprescyon Magnanymyte actyuyte force attempraunce Treason murder Felonye, consyli... and also how a commune welth myght be ediffyed and a[lso] contenewid within our Realme. Howbeyt in conclusyon we haue d[one] as our predecessors haue been wont to doo that ys to say, as well as we myght and lefte wher we begann."

"Tyndall (who assuredlie sheweth himself in myn opynyon rather to be replete with venymous envye rancour and malice then with any good lerning vertue knowlage or discression)."

"Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an Empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one Supreme Head and King having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial Crown of the same, unto whom a body politic compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of Spirituality and Temporalty, be bounden and owe to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience."

"My lord, you had showed yourself of much more patience—I will not say of much more prudency—if ye had contented yourself with their lawful appeal and my lawful injunctions and rather have sought fully to instruct me in the matter than thus to desire to conquer me by shrewd words, to vanquish me by sharp threaps [assertions] of Scripture which, as I know to be true, so I trust to God—as great clerk as ye be—ye allege them out of their place."

"For if credence shuld be gyven to euery suche lewd person as wold affirme himself to haue reuelations from god what redyer wey were there to subuert al common we[l]thes and good orders in the worlde... As for the late lord of Cauntreburys seying vnto you that she had many greate visions, it ought to move you never a deale to gyve credence vnto her or her reuelations."

"Suerly my lord I suppose this had been no greate cause more to reiect the one than thother for ye know by histories of the bible that god may by his reuelation dispense with his own Law, as with the Israelites spoyling the egiptians and with Jacob to hue iiij wifes, and suche other."

"[Y]e shall herwith receive the kinges hieghness letteres addressed vnto you to put you in remembraunce of his hieghness travaelles and your dieuty touchinge ordre to be taken for preachinge to thintente the people maie be taught the truthe, and yet not charged at the begynnynge with ouer manney Nouelties, the publication whereof onles the same be tempered and quallified with moche wisdome doo rather brede contention Deuision and contrarietey in opinion in the vnlerned multitude, then either edifie, or remove from them and oute of their hartes suche abuse as by the corrupt and ynsauery teaching of the bishoppe of Rome, and his disciples haue crept in the same."

"I do not cease to gyue thankes, that it hathe pleased hys goodnes to vse me, as an instrument and to worke somwhat by me, so I truste, I am as ready to serue hym in my calling to my litel power, as ye ar preste, to wryght worse of me then ye owght to thinke. My prayer is, that God gyue me no longer lyfe, then I shall be gladde to vse myn office in edificatione, and not in destructione."

"I thinke that like as the Kinges Maieste cannot better or more hieghly advaunce thonour of god ne more prudently prouide for his owne suretie and the tranquilitie of his Realme domynyons and subgietes thenne in the discrete and charitable punishment of suche as doo by any meane Labour and purpose to sowe sedicion, diuision & contention, in opinion amonges his people contrary to the trouthe of goddes worde and his graces most christien ordenaunces... And therefore myne opinion is that you shal by all meanes diuise howe with charyte and myld handeling of thinges to quenche this slaunderous Bent as moche as you maye ever exhorting men discretely and without Rigour or extreame dealing to knowe and serue god truely and their prince and Souereign Lorde with all humilite and obedyence."

"The yvel (as you write therein truely) will labour to peruert the good, And even soo those that be well disposed wyll both lament the foly of the yvel and doo what they canne to make them better. He that eyther feareth not god ne esteameth the kinges Maiesties Iniunctyons preceptes, ordenaunces, and commandementes, is no mete herbe to growe in his Maiesties most catholique and Vertuous garden."

"The king's majesty desires nothing more than concord...; he knows there are those who would stir up strife, and that in many places in his field tares have sprongen to harm the wheat. The forwardness and carnal lust of some, the inveterate corruption and superstitious tenacity of opinion of others, excite disputation and quarrels most horrible to good Christian men; one side calls the other papists, and the other again calls them heretics, both naughty and not to be borne; and that the less so because they miserably abuse the Holy Word of God and the Scriptures which the same most noble prince of his gentleness and for the salvation and consolation of his people has permitted them to read in the vulgar tongue. They twist God's sacred gift, now into heresy and now into superstition. [The king] favours nor one side nor the other but, as becometh a Christian prince, profess the true Christian faith [therefore the king desires the] true doctrine and rule of the Gospel shall be published clear and established [and] the pious observation of ceremonies shall be distinguished from the impious, their use taught and their abuse abolished."

"I haue medelyd in So many matyers vnder your Highnes that I am not able to answer them all...but harde it ys for me or any other medlyng as I haue done to lyue vnder your grace and your lawse but we must daylye offende and wher I haue offendyd, I most humblye aske mercye and pardon at your gracyous will and plesure."

"I am A Subiect and boorn to obbey lawse, and, knowing that the tryall of all lawse only consystethe in honest and probable wytnes."

"I am come hether to dye, and not to purge my self, as maie happen, some thynke that I will, for if I should so do, I wer a very wretche and miser: I am by the Lawe condempned to die, and thanke my lorde God that hath appoynted me this deathe, for myne offence: For sithence the tyme that I haue had yeres of discrecion, I haue liued a synner, and offended my Lorde God, for the whiche I aske hym hartely forgeuenes. And it is not vnknowne to many of you, that I haue been a great traueler in this worlde, and beyng but of a base degree, was called to high estate, and sithens the tyme I came therunto, I haue offended my prince, for the whiche I aske hym hartely forgeuenes, and beseche you all to praie to God with me, that he will forgeue me. O father forgeue me. O sonne forgeue me, O holy Ghost forgeue me: O thre persons in one God forgeue me. And now I praie you that be here, to beare me record, I die in the Catholicke faithe, not doubtyng in any article of my faith, no nor doubtyng in any Sacrament of the Churche. Many hath sclaundered me, and reported that I haue been a bearer, of suche as hath mainteigned euill opinions, whiche is vntrue, but I confesse that like as God by his holy spirite, doth instruct vs in the truthe, so the deuill is redy to seduce vs, and I haue been seduced: but beare me witnes that I dye in the Catholicke faithe of the holy Churche. And I hartely desire you to praie for the Kynges grace, that he maie long liue with you, in healthe and prosperitie. And after him that his sonne prince Edward, that goodly ympe, maie long reigne ouer you. And once again I desire you to pray for me, that so long as life remaigneth in this fleshe, I wauer nothyng in my faithe."

"The Act in Restraint of Appeals to Rome was a government measure, affected slightly by opposition from the church and not at all by parliament. A proposal to authorize the archbishops by act of parliament to dissolve the king's marriage was soon replaced by a comprehensive attack on papal jurisdiction in England. In Cromwell's hands, the preamble turned into an unhesitating statement of the theory which underlay the whole practice of Henry VIII and his government: the theory of the imperial crown of England sovereign within its own realm over both laity and church."

"The Reformation, then, was not the inevitable development of the text-books. Whether it would have come anyway it is idle to speculate; but it came in the 1530's simply because Henry's desire for his divorce was baulked by an international situation which made co-operation with the papacy impossible, and it came as it did because Thomas Cromwell produced a plan which achieved Henry's ends by destroying the papal power and jurisdiction in England and by creating in England an independent sovereign state. This policy was not present from the start; it had to overcome much caution and conservatism as well as fear of the consequences before its bold simplicity was permitted to develop. The Henrician Reformation reflects the ideas—one may say, the political philosophy—of Thomas Cromwell."

"I think now that in England under the Tudors (1955), attempting to restore him to view and show him in a truer light, I made some rather extravagant claims for him, though I stand by the essence of my opinions there. I still think that Cromwell was the most remarkable English statesman of the sixteenth century and one of the most remarkable in the country's history. I still think that he instigated and in part accomplished a major and enduring transformation in virtually every aspect of the nation's public life. And I still think that he was largely responsible for the fact that the medieval heritage of common law and representative institutions remained at the heart of England's modern government, until very recent times."

"The ix. day of Iuly, Thomas lorde Cromewel, late made erle of Essex...beyng in the counsaill chaber, was sodainly apprehended, and committed to the tower of London, the whiche many lamented, but mo reioysed, and specially suche, as either had been religious men, or fauored religious persones, for thei banqueted, and triumphed together that night, many wisshyng that that daie had been seuen yere before, and some fearyng least he should escape, although he were imprisoned, could not be mery. Other who knewe nothyng but truth by hym, bothe lamented hym, and hartely praied for hym: But this is true that of certain of the Clergie he was detestably hated, & specially of suche as had borne swynge, and by his meanes was put from it, for in dede he was a man, that in all his doynges, semed not to fauor any kynde of Popery, nor could not abide the snoffyng pride of some prelates, whiche vndoubtedly whatsoeuer els was the cause of his death, did shorten his life, and procured the ende that he was brought vnto."

"A good household manager, but not fit to meddle in the affairs of kings."

"It is not unreasonable to argue that if Henry had been willing to carry out Cromwell's advice about using and husbanding his resources, and if he had not destroyed Cromwell in act of supreme folly, then by the time of Henry's death the English monarchy might have been strong enough to withstand the threats to its supremacy which the future was to bring. If Cromwell had succeeded in making Henry all-powerful, then the future history of England could have approached more closely to that of France under the Bourbons, and the English parliament suffered the same fate as the Estates General."

"Far from being the ruthless Machiavellian of legend, Cromwell was a man possessed of a high concept of the 'state' and national sovereignty, and a deep concern for Parliament and the law; an administrative genius; one who may have lacked profound religious sense (though instinctively favourable to some kind of Erasmian Protestantism), but something of an idealist nonetheless. That the 1530s were a decisive decade in English history was due largely to his energy and vision. He was immediately responsible for the vast legislative programme of the later sessions of the Reformation Parliament – a programme not rivalled in volume and moment until the nineteenth or even twentieth centuries. He oversaw the breach with Rome and the establishment of the Royal Supremacy. He effected a new political integration of the kingdom and imposed upon it a new political discipline by making war on local franchises and the entrenched bastard feudalism of the northern and western marches, handling the final incorporation of Wales into English political life and giving Ireland a foretaste of determined English overlordship. He directed the immense operation of the dissolution of the monasteries.... Indeed, he left a deep mark on much of the machinery of central and local government. Finally, he was the first royal servant fully to perceive the power of that young giant, the printing-press."

"[I have had many a talk with Cromwell] of god, of nature & of other polytyke & wordly thyngys [from which he has] geddryd more frute of truth then I have downe of any other man lyvyng syth I cam here to my cuntrey."

"And shall I name one who hath been in our age, and wish him now to live to cure so great a canker? Would God England had a Cromwell: I will say no more."

"The great difficulty of all schemes for leagues of nations and the like has been to find an effective sanction against nations determined to break the peace. I will not now discuss at length the difficulties of joint armed action, but every one who has studied the question knows they are very great. It may be, however, that a league of nations, properly furnished with machinery to enforce the financial, commercial, and economic isolation of any nation determined to force its will upon the world by mere violence, would be a real safeguard for the peace of the world. In any case that is a subject that may well be studied by those sincerely anxious to put an end to the present system of International anarchy."

"Let me beg my readers to do their utmost for the success of the Peace Ballot. There is no single thing which they can do of greater value for Peace. … Every vote is wanted and may contribute to prevent war and save the lives of countless thousands of our fellow citizens."

"The Germans really conceive of their country as always under war conditions in this respect. No one expects a belligerent to tell the truth and, to the German mind, they are always belligerent. The Germans take the view that war is only intensified peace."

"But supposing there is a German guarantee, of what is its value? It is unnecessary to accuse Germany of perfidy. Not only the Nazi Government but all previous German Governments from the time of Frederick the Great downwards have made their position perfectly clear. To them an international assurance is no more than a statement of present intention. It has no absolute validity for the future."

"The truth is, I was never a very good Party man. Probably but for the War of 1914, I should have gone on fairly comfortably as a Conservative official. But those four years burnt into me the insufferable conditions of international relations which made war the acknowledged method — indeed, the only fully authorized method — of settling international disputes. Thenceforth, the effort to abolish war seemed to me, and still seems to me, the only political object worth while."

"I thought you meant that religious belief involved the substitution of the ordinances for the moral law. That no doubt came to be true in a degree with certain of the pharisees, may be true in a degree with some Christians. But it is not true with the Xtianity in which I was brought up. To Xtians of that kind God's law and the moral law are and must be identical. Hence if it could be shewn that Pacifism was in accordance with the moral law I should have to hold that all war was prohibited by Xtianity. If on the other hand, it can be shewn as I think it can that there is no such prohibition by the Xtian law I cannot admit that the moral law forbids me to support my country in a just war."

"The League is dead; long live the United Nations!"

"Patriotism or any other version of the herd instinct seems to me an entirely inadequate basis of virtue. Christianity is from that point of view an explanation of and a support for an essential ingredient in man's nature—far the best, though necessarily imperfect."

"I was brought up from my earliest youth to believe in the enormous importance of peace. I have often heard my father, the late Lord Salisbury, say that, though he did not see how it was possible under the then existing circumstances to avoid wars altogether, yet he had never been able to satisfy himself that they were in principle morally defensible. Indeed, particularly in the latter part of his life, he made more than one speech in which he expressed the hope that, by some international combination, wars could in the future be prevented. He did not hesitate to express his belief that some such organization as we have since then attempted and erected in the League of Nations might furnish the solution of what he conceived to be the terrific evil of war."

"During the earlier years of the League we were fortunate in having many statesmen of outstanding ability who were convinced supporters of international cooperation under the League Covenant. … It is enough to say that under the leadership of those great men the first ten years of the League of Nations was a period of almost unbroken prosperity. The League moved from strength to strength. It established its organization and its Secretariat — a very remarkable achievement which has worked extremely well. Then, too, came the Permanent Court of International Justice, which has also been a very marked success and which, I trust, will establish ultimately the rule of law in all international affairs."

"In 1932 when the Disarmament Conference, after many years of preparation, at last assembled, it really looked as if we were approaching something like stabilized conditions in the world. I am still convinced that with a little more courage and foresight, particularly among those who were directing the policy of the so-called Great Powers, we might have achieved a limitation of international armaments, with all the enormously beneficial consequences which that would have given us. … No doubt the work has not succeeded; but I like to believe that it has not been altogether lost. We have laid a foundation on which, ultimately, we may build something in the nature of reform. And I am perfectly satisfied that the attempt to limit and reduce armaments by international action must be resumed and the sooner the better, if the world is to be saved from a fresh and bloody disaster."

"When one comes to try and analyse why the League succeeded so well in its first ten years of existence, no doubt the chief reason must be found in the immense horror which the War of 1914 had created amongst the human race. Almost all those engaged in the work at Geneva had personal knowledge of the vast slaughter and destruction which the war had produced. Many had been face to face with what looked like a vivid danger of relapse into barbarism in their own countries, and there was a tremendous urge to discover some effective prevention of future wars. It was under the impulse of these feelings that we worked in those days and that we made our appeal, not in vain, for the support of the public opinion of the world."

"In my own country, and perhaps in some others, the workers for the League of Nations are sometimes reproached with attaching too much importance to collective security and the forcible prevention of war. That only shows how short people's memories are in political affairs. As a matter of fact, during the first ten years of the League very little was said about these subjects. We dwelt on the social and humanitarian sides of the League. We urged disarmament and treaty revision. Great reliance — particularly in England — was placed not upon forcible action but upon public opinion. We preached — and, I am glad to say, preached successfully — the enormous importance of publicity in the actions of the League, so that the world might know not only what was being done but why it was being done at Geneva. We attached perhaps even too great importance to the conception that no nation would be so rash or so wicked as to set itself against the public opinion of the world."

"Unfortunately, the Manchurian crisis arose at a time when those nations who might have been expected to have perceived most clearly the necessity of preventing aggression were themselves in a condition of great internal difficulties owing to the financial crisis of those days. … And perhaps it was inevitable in such circumstances that our people should take little interest in any foreign questions. It was partly for these reasons, no doubt, that the conquest of Manchuria and the other northern provinces of China came to be consummated, and all the ambitious statesmen of the world were given an object lesson of how, in spite of the League and in spite of the Covenant, the old military policies could be successfully carried out. And may I venture to emphasize at this point a lesson which must never be forgotten: how much one problem in international affairs affects the whole conduct of those affairs. It was no doubt the failure of the League to check aggression in the Far East which first struck a blow at the whole system which we were trying to establish and which facilitated even greater attacks on international security."

"We see the world as it is now, after these defeats of the League, and we can compare it with what it was six or seven years ago. The comparison is certainly depressing; the contrast is terrible. And we have not yet reached a time when we can estimate the full material losses and human suffering which have been the direct result of the ambitions of one set of powers and the weakness of the others. Nor is there any purpose in attempting to do so. Let us, rather, examine where we now stand and what steps we ought to take in order to strengthen the international system and thrust back again the forces of reaction. In the first place, let us admit that the first ten years of the League were in a sense unnatural. The horror of war to which I have already alluded was necessarily far more vivid than it can be expected long to remain. That tremendous argument for peace, the horror of war, was a diminishing asset. Most of us, at that time, were, I think, quite well aware that unless we could get the international system into solidly effective working order in the first ten years, we were likely to have great difficulties in the succeeding period, and so it has proved."

"Don't think that I underrate the very great debt we owe to the old diplomacy. Before the new system came into existence, diplomacy was the only protection we had against war; and its achievements were of the utmost importance and value to the human race. But perhaps it is natural that, with rare exceptions, the whole strength of this very powerful organization has been against the new ideas and new principles at Geneva. The old diplomat liked to move with deliberation, in secret, following well-established traditions and working through what he loved to describe as "the usual channels". To him, the open debate carried on, not by professional diplomats, but by politicians and statesmen having little regard for the use of the technical phraseology of diplomacy and intent merely on reaching results which would make diplomacy unnecessary, was offensive to all his instincts."

"Professional opinion is almost inevitably against changes. It has been the operation of these and similar influences which has brought about, as I fear, a return to the old conception of what is called power diplomacy. To these conceptions, it is not too much to say, the idea of the complete opposition of war and peace was really foreign."

"During all the period before 1914, Europe and, in a degree, the whole world lived under the perpetual shadow of war, as we are doing, I am afraid, at the present time. No doubt after it had been going on for a certain time, people became callous. They thought war had been so often avoided that it would continue to be avoided. But nevertheless, all international policy was carried on on the basis that sooner or later war might and probably would have to be faced. This has again become true, and it casts its shadow over every form of human activity. The civil life of every nation is deformed and weakened and obstructed by this threat of war. We are wasting gigantic sums, sums far greater than we have ever wasted before, on preparations for war, because war has again become a very present possibility and, at the same time, its horrors and dangers are enormously greater than they were before 1914."

"The world is spending some three or four thousand million pounds sterling every year on preparations for what we all know will be, if it comes to pass, a tremendous danger to the whole of our civilization, whoever wins and whoever loses. And again we see rising up as the active principle of policy the idea that might is right; that the only thing that counts in international affairs is force; that the virtues of truth and mercy and tolerance are really not virtues at all, but symptoms of the softness and feebleness of human nature; and that the old conception of blood and iron is the only thing that is really true and can really be trusted. Accompanied by and causing this kind of revival of reaction, we see the revival of that extreme form of nationalism which believes not only that your own nation is superior to other nations but that all other nations are degenerate and inferior, and that the only function of the government of each country is to provide for the safety and welfare of that country, without regard to what may happen to other countries, adopting the ancient, pernicious, and devilish text: "Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost." At present these doctrines have not been accepted by the great majority of the peoples of the world. And even in those countries where they have most acceptance, they are put forward with a certain hesitation and coupled with the advocacy of peace — but, alas, peace based on the triumph of nationalistic ideas."

"Do not let us underrate the danger. It threatens everything we care for. For if it does succeed, it will not only bring us back to 1914 — in itself bad enough — but to something far worse even than that. For instance, it is now apparently part of the normal doctrine of those who advocate this system that no distinction can be made between combatants and non-combatants, and that a perfectly legitimate and indeed necessary method of warfare will be the wholesale destruction of unfortified cities and their inhabitants. No doubt there will be countervailing efforts to prevent such things happening; but there is, at any rate, one section of military thought which believes that the only way to stop the bombardment of the cities belonging to one belligerent will be the bombardment of the cities belonging to the other."

"The vast majority of the peoples of the world are against war and against aggression. If they make their wishes known and effective, war can be stopped. It all depends on whether they are willing to make the effort necessary for the purpose. For, that it will require an effort, no one who considers the history of the world on these subjects can doubt."

"Collective effort can produce collective security and that if such effort is not made, it is because the will and the courage to make it are not there. It is therefore still more important than it ever was to realize that the real choice before us in this matter is: are we going to permit uncontrolled nationalism to dominate civilized Europe, or are we going to say that the European countries (I don't deal with the whole world, but it applies to that, too) are really part of one community with a common interest in international peace?"

"No doubt there is a good deal that is attractive about the nationalist idea. It has a great history and it has a great deal of appeal to sentiment in itself admirable. But if we examine what it leads to, I do not doubt that we shall all agree that it must be rejected as a guiding principle of the nations of the world. For it necessarily leads to an exaggeration of the authority and dignity of the state to an extent which practically destroys individual action and individual responsibility. Nationalism leads to totalitarianism, and totalitarianism leads to idolatry. It becomes not a principle of politics but a new religion and, let me add, a false religion. It depends partly on a pseudoscientific doctrine of race which leads inevitably to the antithesis of all that we value in Christian morality. On the other hand, if we accept the view that all nations are interdependent, as individuals in any society are, we get precisely the opposite result. Such a principle leads to friendliness and good neighbourhood and, indeed, it is not too much to say that it leads to everything that we have hitherto understood as progress and civilization."

"The acceptance of the principle of international cooperation is of immense importance for all states. Even the states which are most tempted to believe that they can stand by themselves have very much to gain by such cooperation. And for the smaller states — the weaker states — it is vital to all their hopes of liberty and justice. It is necessary, when we say all this, to remind ourselves that the difference between uncontrolled nationalism and international cooperation does not necessarily depend on the form of government prevailing in the different states. It depends on the spirit in which those governments operate. There have been autocracies which have shown themselves liberal and just, even to other countries. There have been democracies which have been inspired, apparently, by feelings of bitter hatred for all foreigners."

"In some states of society it may even be that a form of dictatorship is necessary. No doubt in the hands of an able man it may possibly be more efficient than a democratic form of administration. But in the end, I am confident that a free government is best for free people. The old phrase, "Government of the people, by the people, for the people"*, represents a true ideal. It is best for the people as a whole. It is even more clearly the best for the development of the individual man and woman. And since in the end, the character and the prosperity of the nation depend on the character of the individuals that compose it, the form of government which best promotes individual development is the best for the people as a whole."

"We have gained very much from foreign sources and even from foreign immigration. The modern conception of keeping out all alien immigrants may be an economic necessity, but I am satisfied it is a psychological evil. The democratic principle is just as important in international as in national affairs."

"That these ideas will ultimately triumph, I have no doubt. Nor is it open to question that by the combined efforts of the peace-loving peoples they can be made to triumph now, before Europe has been again plunged into a fresh bloodbath. May Heaven grant that the statesmen of the world may realize this before it is too late and, by the exertion of the needed courage and prudence, restore again to the position of authority which it had only a few years ago, that great institution for the maintenance of peace on which the future of civilization so largely depends. I mean, of course, the League of Nations."

"Growing foreign perils were perceived and promptly and fully reported, first to London and then to ministers. Some permanent officials, such as Crowe in his time and later Vansittart, struggled hard to convince governments of the need for a strong foreign policy, and to puncture the prevailing euphoria with a bodkin of realism. They failed. They failed because there was another, competing influence on politicians, a more congenial and therefore in the end a more effective influence: a constellation of moralising internationalist cliques, each with its ideas-peddlers, its contact-men in high places, and its tame press. These busy romantics – from Philip Kerr (Lord Lothian) and Lord Robert Cecil on the Right, through liberals like Smuts and Gilbert Murray in the middle to Kingsley Martin and Clifford Allen on the Left – not only believed, admirably enough, that morality rather than power ought to govern relations between states but acted as though it did... The internationalists successfully imposed on governments their pretension to speak for the inarticulate and unsounded body of the British nation; that is, to represent public opinion at large."

"… the Peace Treaties must be scrapped … I stand for no more war and no more secret diplomacy."

"You may produce a case here and there of abuse of the dole: you may produce an occasional man who marches with the unemployed and has a bad record; but every Member of this House who has been in a contested election and has come into personal contact with the unemployed knows that the great mass of unemployed men are those same men who saved us during the War. They are the same men who stood side by side in the trenches. They are the heroes of 1914 and 1918, though they may be pointed out as the Bolshevists of to-day."

"[N]othing short of a world state will be really effective in preventing war. As long as you rely for security on a number of national armaments you will have the difficulty as to who shall bell the cat in case of need, while you will have general staffs in all countries planning future wars. I want us to come out boldly for a real long-range policy which will envisage the abolition of the conception of the individual sovereign state... A united navy to police the seas of the world could be attained and would incidentally bring enormous pressure to bear on Japan. The next thing would be an international air force and an international air service... The basis of such a move would have to be a frank recognition that all states must surrender a large degree of sovereignty and that the Peace Treaties must be revised. On this basis one must then proceed to build up a world structure politically and economically... This may sound very visionary but I am convinced that unless we see the world we want it is vain to try to build a permanent habitation for Peace and that temporary structures will catch fire very soon if we wait any longer."

"I think that the whole of the movement towards dictatorships in Europe has reached its highest point and that there is a decline in the movement towards dictatorships owing to the failure of the dictators. I think that Hitler and his movement is the last move in the suggestion that somehow or other you can secure the world by getting some wonderful individual who is going to set everything right. [Interruption.] We have always taken that view on these Benches, and I am pleased to see by the applause on the Benches opposite that there is no inclination on their part to take Sir Oswald Mosley too seriously. I think we can generally say to-day that this dictatorship is gradually falling down. [Interruption.] I can quite understand the attitude of hon. Members opposite. We on this side are quite happy."

"We have absolutely abandoned any idea of nationalist loyalty. We are deliberately putting a world order before our loyalty to our own country."

"We are told in the White Paper that there is danger against which we have to guard ourselves. We do not think you can do it by national defence. We think you can only do it by moving forward to a new world – a world of law, the abolition of national armaments with a world force and a world economic system. I shall be told that that is quite impossible."

"The nationalist and imperialist delusions that run through all this document are far more wild than any idealist dreams of the future that we hold. But we say that if there is this menace, it is not going to be met by any policy of alliances. It is not going to be met by attack. We loath and detest the military spirit, the tyrannical spirit which has shown itself all over the world. You will never beat this by attack; you will only beat it by putting something far bigger in its place."

"Mr. Chamberlain's Budget was the natural expression of the character of the present Government. There was hardly any increase allowed for the services which went to build up the life of the people, education and health. Everything was devoted to piling up the instruments of death. The Chancellor expressed great regret that he should have to spend so much on armaments, but said that it was absolutely necessary and was due only to the actions of other nations. One would think to listen to him that the Government had no responsibility for the state of world affairs."

"The Government has now resolved to enter upon an arms race, and the people will have to pay for their mistake in believing that it could be trusted to carry out a policy of peace. … This is a War Budget. We can look in the future for no advance in Social Legislation. All available resources are to be devoted to armaments."

"Socialism is not the invention of an individual. It is essentially the outcome of economic and social conditions. The evils that Capitalism brings differ in intensity in different countries, but, the root cause of the trouble once discerned, the remedy is seen to be the same by thoughtful men and women. The cause is the private ownership of the means of life; the remedy is public ownership."

"Socialists do not propose to substitute the domination of society by one privileged class for that of another. They seek to abolish class distinctions altogether. The abolition of classes is fundamental to the Socialist conception of society."

"All the major industries will be owned and controlled by the community, but there may well exist for a long time many smaller enterprises which are left to be carried on individually... the interests of the community as a whole must come before that of any sectional group... the managers and technicians must be given reasonable freedom if they are to work efficiently, a freedom within the general economic plan... the workers must be citizens and not wage slaves."

"When we are returned to power we want to put in the statute book an act which will make our people citizens of the world before they are citizens of this country."

"I agree with the prime minister that the condition of the world is serious, and that everyone who speaks on these subjects must speak with a full sense of responsibility, but that does not mean, in my view, that there should be a lack of plain speaking, but that we ought to see the facts for what they really are. I must say that I was profoundly disappointed with the speech of the prime minister, because it seemed to me that he had misconceived the whole issue that lives before us. He suggested that there was being fought in Spain, in the opinion of some people, a struggle between two sides, two rival systems. I do not think that is the issue that is facing us to-day. The world to-day is faced with a contest between two sides, and those two sides are whether the rule of law in international affairs shall prevail, or the rule of lawless force. That is the issue that faces us, and we must look at this Spanish struggle in its true perspective."

"We all feel relief that war has not come this time. Every one of us has been passing through days of anxiety; we cannot, however, feel that peace has been established, but that we have nothing but an armistice in a state of war. We have been unable to go in for care-free rejoicing. We have felt that we are in the midst of a tragedy. We have felt humiliation. This has not been a victory for reason and humanity. It has been a victory for brute force. At every stage of the proceedings there have been time limits laid down by the owner and ruler of armed force. The terms have not been terms negotiated; they have been terms laid down as ultimata. We have seen to-day a gallant, civilised and democratic people betrayed and handed over to a ruthless despotism. We have seen something more. We have seen the cause of democracy, which is, in our view, the cause of civilisation and humanity, receive a terrible defeat."

"The events of these last few days constitute one of the greatest diplomatic defeats that this country and France have ever sustained. There can be no doubt that it is a tremendous victory for Herr Hitler. Without firing a shot, by the mere display of military force, he has achieved a dominating position in Europe which Germany failed to win after four years of war. He has overturned the balance of power in Europe. He has destroyed the last fortress of democracy in Eastern Europe which stood in the way of his ambition."

"Not Churchill. Sixty-five, old for a Churchill."

"In regard to...action in the South Atlantic, we all desire to join in the tribute paid to the gallantry of our sailors. It is one of the almost inevitable conditions of sea warfare that so much of the fighting is done between adversaries of very different strengths, and the way in which our ships, despite their smaller gun-power, tackled and stuck to this very powerful enemy vessel and forced her to take refuge, is worthy of the highest traditions of the British Navy."

"There is a denial of the value of the individual. Christianity affirms the value of each individual soul. Nazism denies it. The individual is sacrificed to the idol of the German Leader, German State or the German race. The ordinary citizen is allowed to hear and think only as the rulers decree."

"I have to inform the House that the present situation is so critical that the Government are compelled to seek special powers from the House by a Bill to be passed through all its stages in both Houses of Parliament to-day. The situation is grave... The Government are convinced that now is the time when we must mobilise to the full the whole resources of this country. We must throw all our weight into the struggle. Every private interest must give way to the urgent needs of the community. We cannot know what the next few weeks or even days may bring forth, but whatever may come we shall meet it as the British people in the past have met dangers and overcome them. But it is necessary that the Government should be given complete control over persons and property, not just some persons of some particular class of the community, but of all persons, rich and poor, employer and workman, man or woman, and all property."

"The British people now realise the danger with which they are faced, and know that in the event of a German victory everything they have built up will be destroyed. The Germans kill not only men, but ideas. Our people are resolved as never before in their history."

"Real national unity sprang from the things which we had in common; the greater that common interest, the stronger the nation in peace as well as in war. It is because in this country we all enjoyed freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the right to choose and change our Governments that we were united. The continent of Europe had fallen before Hitler because of its disunity. By playing on the rivalries and jealousies of the nations he had divided them and devoured them in detail. There was not enough realization of the common interest of all in our civilization to overcome sectional ambitions and fears. Had Europe been united in spirit the Nazi monster would have been strangled at birth."

"The aim of the Nazis was to enslave all the peoples, who were to be the mere instruments of the Germans, the Herrenfolk, the master class. To that we opposed the democratic ideal, whereby we saw the world as a community of nations, differing in their qualities but united in a comity of nations, like the citizens of a town, but recognizing each other's rights and uniting for common purposes."

"Deeply as many people deplored the policy which at a critical moment in European history gave Hitler a free hand in the East to develop his ambitious schemes of domination, strongly opposed as we were to many features of the Soviet system, we had no hesitation in proclaiming that as enemies of our enemies we should do all we could to help the Russian people in their fight... It was not unlikely that Hitler hoped to be able to launch from Moscow a great peace offensive. He would like to proclaim himself the saviour of Europe from Bolshevism... He would deceive no one in the Government. The great mass of the people in this country and in the countries of the British Commonwealth and Empire would not be deceived. We would not make peace with the Nazi gang because such a peace would be no peace. It would be a betrayal of everything for which this country stood."

"It is one of the great achievements of our rule in India that, even if they do not entirely carry them out, educated Indians do accept British principles of justice and liberty. We are condemned by Indians not by the measures of Indian ethical conceptions but by our own, which we have taught them to accept. It is precisely this acceptance by politically conscious Indians of the principles of democracy and liberty which puts us in the position of being able to appeal to them to take part with us in the common struggle; but the success of this appeal and India's response does put upon us the obligation of seeing that we, as far as we may, make them sharers in the things for which we and they are fighting."

"We had had the help during the past 20 months...of a number of Dominion statesmen. Our touch with those who guided the destinies of the Commonwealth was very close and constant. That was very right and necessary, because we were all engaged in the same great venture, we were all defending a common heritage—the cause of freedom and democracy. The links which united us with the free peoples of the Commonwealth proved their strength, and as we stood together in war so we should stand together in peace to create a new and better world."

"Unity was essential to victory. The Government contained men of varied views and varied backgrounds but united by a common will to victory, a common acceptance of a way of life. That was what we were fighting for. Our civilization had received terrible wounds. In the British Commonwealth, among the free nations, we cherished the ideals of peace. We believed we could build a new world, purged of evil, and more splendid and good. In that great faith and hope we must bend all our energies in unity together; and...[I have] absolute confidence that, dark as were the clouds to-day, we could already descry the dawn."

"You may have the best machinery in the world, you may have adequate supplies of munitions, you may have the men, you may have the generals; but wars are fought out eventually always as contests of will, and there are needed in the responsible positions men who are prepared to give decisions, who are not afraid to take risks, men of inflexible will-power. In all these respects, I say, from very close working with him for the last two years, that we have in the Prime Minister a leader in war such as this country has rarely had in its long history."

"We can take a just pride in the great contribution to the common cause by all those who owe allegiance to the British Crown... In this great contest we are all engaged in a single enterprise. Soldiers, sailors, and airmen from the United Kingdom, from the British Commonwealth and the Empire, from the United States, and from many nations are found fighting side by side in many ocean and theatres of war. They know that they are engaged in a common service and are inspired by a common faith. In the Atlantic Charter the United Nations have declared the faith that is in them. Against the false gods of cruelty, hatred, and domination they have proclaimed their gospel of freedom, justice, and social security."

"The path which the great Dominions were treading...was a path leading not to independence but to interdependence. One of the greatest mistakes made by our enemies—and they made it in the last war, too—was to under-estimate the strength of those invisible bonds uniting the free peoples of the British Commonwealth of Nations. The German was never happy unless he was in a mass. He was happiest of all when they were all performing the goose-step at the same time, whereas the British people, conscious of their unity though the seas might separate them, could march to their goal without rigidly keeping step."

"I take it to be a fundamental assumption that whatever post-war international organisation is established, it will be our aim to maintain the British Commonwealth as an international entity, recognised as such by foreign countries... If we are to carry our full weight in the post-war world with the US and USSR, it can only be as a united British Commonwealth."

"Here in this country, although our political divisions were deep, in time of need we were able to transcend them in the interests of the whole community. Throughout the British Commonwealth and Empire there were immense diversities of race, colour, creed, and degrees of civilization, yet the links that united all together, though often intangible, proved strong as steel in the day of trial. This was because, despite many shortcomings and failures to implement fully the ideals which we held, the British Commonwealth and Empire had stood for freedom and justice, and because we had learnt through long centuries the lesson of how to live together without attempting to exact regimented uniformity."

"[T]he people of Britain and the Dominions were not much given to self-glorification. We were indeed inclined to a certain self-depreciation which was not always understood outside our own family of nations; but this was an occasion when they might take a proper pride in themselves. The world knew that in the critical time after Hitler's victories in 1940 it was the British Commonwealth and Empire that stood alone in defence of freedom for a whole year. It was British steadfastness that held the line while the forces of freedom were gathering."

"I returned last week...from visiting the Italian front. I was up with the Eighth Army, that Army which will always seem to me to epitomize the unity of our Commonwealth and Empire. I saw there in Italy Canadians, South Africans, and New Zealanders. I recalled talking with General Alexander the great deeds of the Australians. As I saw our lads from all our countries so fine and gallant, I was thrilled with pride."

"In the ranks of Labour there would be no faltering until victory was won and German and Japanese aggression had been utterly defeated. But they had reached a stage when they could look beyond war to peace. In all our parties there was a firm resolve to build up a world system of security that would prevent our fellow men and women again being subjected to the horror of war. The lesson of the war of 1914–18 was...only half learnt. The idea of the League of Nations was right, but it was not put into practice. This time we must see to it that an international order is established in the world with the power and the will, and not merely the desire, to prevent war breaking out again."

"[I]f peace is to be preserved we must see to it that the causes of war are removed. Freedom and democracy must be based not only on security but also on social justice. Hitlerism flourished on the breakdown of an outworn economic system. The world depression of 1930 was the opportunity of the gangsters. We must have planning for expansion and not restriction. Victory in war could only be achieved by putting the interest of the community before private profit and this was also the key to reconstruction after the war. Socialism had always been something far greater than an economic theory, far greater than the policy of a political party. It was a way of life. They sought to attain an organized society in which every human being would have the opportunity of living the good life—a society in which free men and women would cooperate together for the common good. The workers of the countries which had been under the yoke of tyranny would look to the Labour parties of the British Commonwealth for a lead and would not look in vain."

"[N]ext to the winning of the war the most vital matter was the building of peace on firm foundations... The young generation of Germans had been deliberately perverted and trained in savagery. With German thoroughness the very malleable youth of Germany had been moulded into the shape of their leaders. It would be a long time before they could be civilized. It was madness to expect that suddenly S.S. men and Hitler Youth would turn into good, peaceful citizens and democrats. The German and Japanese nations had for years been directed to false aims and ideals. A great moral and mental revolution would be required before they would be fit to be trusted. Both these nations must be disarmed and deprived of the power to start new wars, and there must be an organization to ensure peace and with power to enforce it."

"The League of Nations fell, not because its principles were wrong, but because they were not practised. A new world organization must be created. Its nucleus was in the United Nations, and its foundation stone the close cooperation of the British Commonwealth of Nations, the United States, and the U.S.S.R. ... They wanted an organization embracing small as well as great nations, but on the three, on account of their strength, the greatest responsibility for preserving the peace of the world must fall. A world organization to preserve peace must have power at its disposal. So long as there was a danger of wolves the sheep-dog must have strong teeth. It was time that the nations of Europe should settle down as good citizens in a world of States. In the British Commonwealth of Nations it was shown how freedom was compatible with unity. If peace was to be preserved there must be some cession of sovereignty, but membership of a large organization did not conflict with the reasonable claims of nations to live their own lives."

"When I listened to the Prime Minister's speech last night, in which he gave such a travesty of the policy of the Labour Party, I realized at once what was his object. He wanted the electors to understand how great was the difference between Winston Churchill, the great leader in war of a united nation, and Mr. Churchill, the party leader of the Conservatives. He feared lest those who had accepted his leadership in war might be tempted out of gratitude to follow him further. I thank him for having disillusioned them so thoroughly. The voice we heard last night was that of Mr. Churchill, but the mind was that of Lord Beaverbrook."

"The Prime Minister spent a lot of time painting to you a lurid picture of what would happen under a Labour Government in pursuit of what he called a Continental conception. He has forgotten that Socialist theory was developed by Robert Owen in Britain long before Karl Marx. He has forgotten that Australia, New Zealand, whose peoples have played so great a part in the war, and the Scandinavian countries have had Socialist Governments for years, to the great benefit of their peoples, with none of those dreadful consequences...When he talks of the danger of a secret police...he forgets that these things were actually experienced in this country only under the Tory Government of Lord Liverpool in the years of repression when the British people who had saved Europe from Napoleon were suffering deep distress. He has forgotten many things, including, when he talks of the danger of Labour mismanaging finance, his own disastrous record at the Exchequer over the gold standard."

"I shall not waste time on this theoretical stuff, which seems to me to be a secondhand version of the academic views of an Austrian professor—Friedrich August von Hayek—who is very popular just now with the Conservative Party. Any system can be reduced to absurdity by this kind of theoretical reasoning, just as German professors showed theoretically that British democracy must be beaten by German dictatorship. It was not."

"The simple fact is that nothing would be more harmful to the post-war economic and social welfare of our country than that the Tory Party should again have charge of the nation's affairs. The Tory record of lamentable failure and muddle between the two world wars is a sharp warning which the people will do well to heed unless they prefer to delude themselves with false hopes now and indulge in vain regrets later. We did not fight and win the war for private profit or for any selfish national end, but to preserve the right of the people to live in freedom and to increase their opportunities to achieve by their own industry and service the conditions and standards of a secure and happy life. The Tory Party want to hand us back into the keeping of private profit-seeking enterprise which was responsible for the mass unemployment, the derelict areas, and the waste and misery of the years between the two wars. In the light of bitter experience that would be folly."

"We of the Labour Party reject policies and measures which failed the nation then and will fail the nation now. We want to lay the foundations of a new and better Britain worthy of our great people. That is why we propose in the interests of the whole nation that the community should become the master of its economic progress and prosperity, instead of leaving control in private hands to be used primarily for the private advantage of a few. In short, we are standing for the common weal. But we need political power to enable us to give practical effect in Parliament to our great forward-looking policies. The nation has now the chance to give Labour the necessary power to do the job, and I appeal to the electors in the constituency which you are contesting to make certain of electing you to the new House of Commons."

"You will be judged by what you succeed at gentlemen, not by what you attempt."

"To-day the United States stands out as the mightiest Power on earth, and yet America is a threat to no one. All know that she will never use her power for selfish aims or territorial aggrandisement in the future any more than she has done in the past. We look upon her forces and our own forces and those of other nations as instruments that must never be employed save in the interests of world security and for the repression of the aggressor."

"I think that some people over here imagine that the Socialists are out to destroy freedom, freedom of the individual, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the freedom of the Press. They are wrong; the Labour Party is in the tradition of freedom-loving movements which have always existed in our country, but freedom has to be striven for in every generation, and those who threaten it are not always the same. Sometimes the battle of freedom has had to be fought against kings, sometimes against religious tyranny, sometimes against the power of the owners of the land, sometimes against the overwhelming strength of the moneyed interests. We in the Labour Party declare that we are in line with those who fought for Magna Carta and habeas corpus, with the Pilgrim Fathers, and with the signatories of the Declaration of Independence."

"The Old School Tie can still be seen on the Government benches."

"You have no right whatever to speak on behalf of the Government. Foreign affairs are in the capable hands of Ernest Bevin. His task is quite sufficiently difficult without the irresponsible statements of the kind you are making . . . I can assure you there is widespread resentment in the Party at your activities and a period of silence on your part would be welcome."

"During the war we had to stop producing the everyday things which we need in peacetime. We had to concentrate on war production and the bare necessities of existence. The natural result is that to-day we are short of the things which we need... You may ask why cannot we get what we want from abroad? The answer is that we can only get it if we can pay for it. Before the war many of the things which we got from abroad—food and raw material—were paid for by the interest on foreign investments, and by services rendered by us to people in other countries. During the war we had to sell our foreign investments to pay for the arms, food, and other things we needed. Apart from any temporary relief we may get by loans from our friends across the Atlantic, we can only buy from abroad now if we can pay by exporting goods or rendering services."

"What is this principle? It is not embodied in some narrow doctrinaire formula, as some of our opponents would suggest. Still less is it a particular economic or political formula laid down once for all. It is essentially a moral principle on which we believe the life of nations and of individuals should be ordered. That principle is the brotherhood of man."

"We are seeking to build up in this country a system of society in which there shall be freedom from want. We are seeking to join with others in extending that freedom from want all over the world, but we also seek to give to all peoples freedom from fear. The freedom from fear of war is not yet lifted from the men and women of the world. We are doing our utmost to make the United Nations Organization the instrument for banishing the fear of war from the world. But there are many countries to-day where there are other fears that oppress. Personal freedom is still far from complete in many countries. Freedom of conscience is still denied to many. Freedom of speech and freedom of the Press are still unknown in most areas of the world. A system of society that denies all of these other freedoms is not socialism, but only a form of collectivism."

"As a nation we have two tasks; the one is to provide goods and services for our home needs, the other is to pay for the food and raw materials which we must get from abroad. Before the war we were rich; we owned money and railways and so forth abroad. The income from these helped to pay for our imports; but we sold these in order to help to win the war. We have therefore borrowed large sums from Canada and the United States to tide us over while we build up again, but when this money runs out we must pay for what we want from our own resources. To do this we must devote a far larger part than ever before of the wealth we produce to pay for imports."

"Looking back today over the years, we may well be proud of the work which our fellow citizens have done in India. There have, of course, been mistakes, there have been failures, but we can assert that our rule in India will stand comparison with that of any other nation which has been charged with the ruling of a people so different from themselves."

"May I recall here a thing that is not always remembered, that just as India owes her unity and freedom from external aggression to the British, so the Indian National Congress itself was founded and inspired by men of our own race, and further, that any judgment passed on our rule in India by Indians is passed on the basis, not of what obtained in the past in India, but on the principles which we have ourselves instilled into them."

"Ever since the population of this little island grew large, trade has been its livelihood. We imported food and raw materials and paid for them by exports of coal and manufactures, by earnings from shipping and other services, and by interest on foreign investments. The first world war injured our position seriously, the second had far worse effects. When we stood alone in the second world war we threw all that we had into the battle... We sold our foreign assets. We reduced our production of civilian goods to a minimum. We lost nearly all our export trade and much of our shipping... We have, therefore, to face now before we have recovered from the effects of the war, and before our long-term plans have taken effect, the necessity of relying entirely on our own resources. This is a situation as serious as any that has faced us in our long history."

"A hundred years ago the year 1848 saw Liberals and Socialists in revolt all over Europe against absolute Governments which suppressed all opposition. It is ironical that to-day the absolutists who suppress opposition much more vigorously than the kings and emperors of the past masquerade under the name of upholders of democracy. It is a tragedy that a section of a movement which began in an endeavour to free the souls and bodies of men should have been perverted into an instrument for their enslavement."

"The history of Soviet Russia provides us with a warning here—a warning that without political freedom collectivism can quickly go astray and lead to new forms of oppression and injustice. For political freedom is not merely a noble thing in itself, essential for the full development of human personality—it is also a means of achieving economics rights and social justice, and of preserving these things when they have been won. Where there is no political freedom, privilege and injustice creep back. In Communist Russia 'privilege for the few' is a growing phenomenon, and the gap between the highest and lowest incomes is constantly widening. Soviet Communism pursues a policy of imperialism in a new form—ideological, economic, and strategic—which threatens the welfare and way of life of the other nations of Europe."

"At the one end of the scale are the Communist countries: at the other end the United States of America stands for individual liberty in the political sphere and for the maintenance of human rights. But its economy is based on capitalism, with all the problems which it presents, and with the characteristic extreme inequality of wealth in its citizens... Great Britain, like the other countries of western Europe, is placed geographically and from the point of view of economic and political theory between these two great continental States... Our task is to work out a system of a new and challenging kind, which combines individual freedom with a planned economy, democracy with social justice."

"A divinely inspired saint I know that I am expressing the views of the British people in offering to his fellow countrymen our deep sympathy in the loss of their greatest citizen. Mahatma Gandhi, as he was known in India, was one of the outstanding figures in the world today, but he seemed to belong to a different period of history. Living a life of extreme asceticism, he was revered as a divinely inspired saint by millions of his fellow countrymen. His influence extended beyond the range of his co-religionists. For a quarter of a century, this one man has been the major factor in every consideration of the Indian problem. He had become the expression of the aspirations of the Indian people for independence, but he was not just a nationalist. His most distinctive doctrine was that of non-violence. He believed in a method of passive resistance to those forces which he considered wrong. The sincerity and devotion with which he pursued his objectives are beyond all doubt. The hand of the murderer has struck him down and a voice which pleaded for peace and brotherhood has been silenced, but I am certain that his spirit will continue to animate his fellow countrymen and will plead for peace and concord."

"The nation's economic welfare depends largely upon our ability to make and sell the exports necessary to buy the imports we need to feed our people and keep our industry going. Our costs of production are of vital importance and they depend to a considerable extent on the amount which industry has to pay in profits, salaries and wages. These in turn in the form of individual incomes affect the total volume of money available in relation to the quantity of goods... It is essential, therefore, that there should be no further general increase in the level of personal incomes without at least a corresponding increase in the volume of production. Unless we are prepared to check any such tendency we shall find ourselves unable to fulfil our export task owing to the rise in costs, which will also be reflected in rising prices on the home market."

"In the circumstances it is much to be regretted that the men have not as yet responded generally to the call to return to work. A hold up of the food supplies of London will inevitably cause hardship and grave inconvenience to millions of ​householders; but this is by no means the end of the damage. The handling of the country's overseas trade normally stretches to the limit the capacity of our available shipping. A hold up of any length delays the turn-round of ships and cannot be made up subsequently. The stoppage cuts millions of dollars and other needed foreign currency off our earnings—and cuts them off finally. Already the prospect of attaining this month's export target is affected, the gap in the balance of our payments is widened and the pace of national recovery slowed down. I cannot believe that the general body of strikers have hitherto realised the true consequences of their action. They should return to work and allow any grievances they may feel to be dealt with by the proper machinery."

"We shall not accept the Communist doctrine. That doctrine springs in the east. Oriental in its conception, it does not belong to the main stream of democratic thought. We in this country have our own democratic Socialism in which we believe, and we have a higher standard than they have in the east with regard to human rights and, I think, their way of life altogether. It is time those people recognised that we intend to carry on with our way."

"When you find anyone doing this look at him carefully. You will generally find he is a Communist or a fellow-traveller. These people do not want to see Europe restored to health. They want Europe to be weak and disturbed, because they think that the more wretched the people are the greater chance for the Communists. They have a vested interest in chaos."

"[W]e have asked the workers...to give the biggest possible output they can so that we may have a margin for export trade over the world which, when sold, will purchase us food and raw materials to keep our industry going. Now what does this term "keep industry going" mean? It is the difference between employment and unemployment... We depend on transport, shipping, and the movement of goods to keep up this output. Therefore, this strike is not a strike against capitalists or employers. It is a strike against your mates; a strike against the housewife; a strike against the ordinary common people who have difficulties enough now to manage on their shilling's worth of meat and the other rationed commodities."

"[Y]ou are punishing thousands of innocent people and injuring your country. Who advised you to do this? Not people of great influence, but just a small nucleus who have been instructed for political reasons to take advantage of every little disturbance that takes place to cause the disruption of British economy, British trade, to undermine the Government and to destroy Britain's position... Your clear duty to yourselves, to your fellow citizens, and to your country is to return to work."

"To-day the most comprehensive system of social security ever introduced into any country would start in Britain. The four Acts—National Insurance, Industrial Injuries, National Assistance, and National Health Service—represented the main body of the army of social security... We cannot create a scheme which gives the nation a whole more than they put into it, and it is always the general level of production that settles our standard of material well-being. Only higher output can give us more of the things we all need. This will decide the real value of the money payments."

"In every country in the world the Communist Party was out to hinder and to wreck... countries behind the Iron Curtain longed to come into the Marshall aid plan, which the Communist Party had decided against... They did not care what happened to the workers. They are only concerned with spreading what they call their own ideology."

"The Atlantic Treaty is not aggressive. It is purely defensive. Those who attack it as offensive do so from a bad conscience. They take just the same line as the Nazis did when every attempt by the nations to get together was denounced as the encirclement of Germany. We seek by the pact to gain for the nations a sense of security which they so ardently desire. We seek by the organization of security to make the world safe against aggression and by pooling of strength to reduce the burden of armaments."

"A great campaign was launched to try to prevent the success of the Marshall plan in western Europe. Why? I am forced to the conclusion that it was because economic recovery in western Europe did not suit the foreign policy of the Soviet Government. Communism flourishes where the standard of life is low. The Communists did not care a jot for the sufferings of the people. If they had had their way—and their campaign against the Marshall plan has been an utter failure—the remarkable progress towards recovery which has taken place in western Europe would not have taken place. Aid from across the Atlantic would have been rejected. Your standard of life would have been reduced in order that there might be fertile ground for Communist propaganda."

"The responsibility for dividing the world rests squarely on the shoulders of the Kremlin. We do not give up hope of reuniting the world, but it can only be done if the Communists give up their ideological imperialism, their attempt to bring the whole world into line, to confine every single person within the straitjacket of Marx-Leninism. We in the Labour movement do not believe in this dead dull uniformity. On the contrary, we believe that variety is of the essence of a free society."

"There are some of our own people who still think that the Communists are the left wing of the Socialist movement. They are not. The Socialist movement was a movement for freedom in its widest sense. From the point of view of freedom, Communists are on the extreme right—more reactionary than some of the old tyrannies which we knew in the past. What is the thing for which we fight, for which the men with whom we feel the stir of sympathy throughout the ages have fought? Freedom. But that fight changes from age to age and the freedom that some men fought for may turn out to be tyranny. Communists, concentrating solely on the economic aspects of freedom...have produced the ghastly travesty of Socialism in the lands behind the iron curtain."

"[Attlee] reminded the delegates that it was vital to reduce costs by greater efficiency, which meant that both employers and employed had to seek in every way to attain it. He did not believe in lowering wages as a means of reducing costs, but equally it was necessary to realize that increases of wages that were not matched by increases of production would gravely impair their chances of getting rapidly over their difficulties. Increased demands for money payments, when there was no increase of goods to meet them led straight away to inflation. There was a danger that when a justifiable advance in wages for an under-paid section of the workers had been granted it resulted in demands from those who had enjoyed higher wages to maintain the same differential. This was bad economics and bad social morality. He had been disturbed at the evidence that some people were abusing the social services in such matters as sickness benefit. They could not have them sabotaged by misuse."

"Our future as an industrial and trading nation depends on the success of our export drive. Increased production and increased exports are vital to the health of the shipping industry... Our fundamental need is still increased production to enable us to increase our volume of exports and so pay for our imports... That is the need of the country to-day."

"In the coming months the need is for the people of this country to do two things. First, to increase the national production; and, secondly, to exercise restraint in demands for increased incomes and self-control in expenditure... I am confident that in peace just as we did in war, Britain will conquer them by determination, hard work, and by the cooperation of all."

"We are having to make some heavy reductions in expenditure... They amount to about £250m. This is a very large sum... There has been some excessive and unnecessary resort to doctors for prescriptions. This must be checked. A charge, not exceeding one shilling, for each prescription will now be imposed. Arrangements will be made to relieve old age pensioners of this charge."

"As you all know, ever since the end of the war Britain has been working against time. We must find a way to stand on our own feet, and that very soon. Since the end of the war, too, our reserves have been small. This means that any alteration in world trade conditions, any failure to produce and sell enough goods must land us in serious trouble... I would like every one of you, whether employer or employed, to start right away to consider how in your particular job you can increase and cheapen production, how you can check absenteeism and get the kind of public opinion in factory, mine, railway, or other workplace which will bring the person who is slacking up to the mark."

"...the Welfare State can only endure if it is built on a sound economic foundation. If you are in a job and have to-day through national insurance a greater sense of security than ever before, remember its continuance depends on what you do. Don't leave it to the other man. I have told you that the position is critical. We have a great opportunity to set things right. Let us seize it."

"He understood that in the countries beyond the iron curtain the artist must watch his step very carefully. It was not enough to be a good painter, any more than it was enough to be a good scientist or writer. The practitioner in the arts and sciences must first and foremost be a good Marxist-Leninist. Were we in the same position when we viewed this year's Summer Exhibition we should look primarily at the pictures to see whether or not they were in harmony with the tenets of dialectical materialism. It was rather a terrible prospect... We might rejoice that in this country such views were held by only an insignificant fraction. In his own party the influence of William Morris far exceeded that of Karl Marx."

"We on this side are not prepared to accept the principle that the most vital economic forces of this country should be handed over to an authority that is utterly undemocratic and is responsible to nobody."

"Aggression has started again in the Far East. The attack by the armed forces of North Korea on South Korea has been denounced as an act of aggression by the United Nations. No excuses, no propaganda by Communists, no introduction of other factors can get over this fact. Here is a case of aggression. If the aggressor gets away with it, aggressors all over the world will be encouraged. The same results that led to the Second World War will follow; and another world war may result."

"The evil forces which are now attacking South Korea are part of a world-wide conspiracy against the way of life of the free democracies. Communists...are...engaged in an attempt to mould the whole world to their pattern of tyranny. They seek to sweep democracy and liberty from the world. They are ready to destroy our lives if we don't agree with them. They talk of freedom while they murder it. They talk of peace while they support aggression. They are ruthless and unscrupulous hypocrites who pretend to virtues which their philosophy rejects. The trouble is that quite a lot of well-meaning people are taken in by the Communists and their sham peace propaganda. What is happening in Korea should open their eyes."

"I would ask you all to be on your guard against the enemy within. There are those who would stop at nothing to injure our economy and our defence. The price of liberty is still eternal vigilance. I know what a fine part the trade unionists of this country have played in our recovery effort. When they are asked to take unofficial action, which may hurt this country, let them just consider carefully whether the motives of those who ask them to strike are really concerned with the interests of the workers."

"To ensure peace we needed stronger armed forces as a deterrent to aggression."

"You see our new towns, our smiling countryside. I am proud of our achievements. There is an enormous amount more to do. Remember that we are a great crusading body, armed with a fervent spirit for the reign of righteousness on earth. Let us go forward into this fight in the spirit of William Blake: "I will not cease from mental strife/Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand/Till we have built Jerusalem/In England's green and pleasant land"."

"Socialism was the only means of freeing the world from war and poverty. Socialism stood as a third alternative to a barbaric Communism and capitalism in a state of decay. Communism was a falsification of the principles of Socialism."

"I think that public opinion today likes a certain amount of pageantry. It is a great mistake to make government too dull. That, I think, was the fault of the German Republic after the First World War. They were very drab and dull; the trouble was that they let the devil get all the best tunes. Therefore, we on this side of the Committee believe that it is right to have a certain amount of pageantry, because it pleases people, and it also counteracts a tendency to other forms of excitement."

"[A] movement like Mau Mau, out to murder Africans, Indians, and British, has got to be put down whether there is Conservative, Labour, or any other Government in charge."

"Malaya had a special contribution to make to world peace. One of the difficult problems of the world was to secure peace, freedom, and democratic government in countries inhabited by more than one community. It could not be done by one community seeking to dominate the others, but only by fair dealing and mutual tolerance. He sometimes thought that those who adopted extreme nationalist ideas did so because they had no constructive ideas and because an appeal to race prejudice saved them from an intolerable burden of thought. In his view the variations in the make-up of a community increased its value, and he wished good luck to all the peoples of Malaya in building up a great multi-racial community."

"[T]he Conservative Party had been getting rid of the property owned by democracy and handing it over to groups of private profiteers."

"I joined the socialist movement because I did not like the kind of society we had and wanted something better."

"You will not find much about what the Prime Minister does in the text-books. What he does is partly made up of convention and custom, but the nature of the office depends a great deal on the person who holds it... Make it [the Cabinet] as small as possible. Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking. Some of my early Cabinets were very small, but I arrived at the conclusion that 16 is the right number."

"In choosing people for specific jobs previous experience should not be a guide. I never put a man in the job which he thought he knew. Often the 'experts' make the worst possible Ministers in their own fields. In this country we prefer rule by amateurs."

"In Cabinet the important thing is to stop people from talking. Some people are loquacious, some are eloquent. I always used to point out that rhetoric is wasted on a Cabinet of hard-boiled politicians."

"We never took a vote in the Cabinet that I can remember and the most important of all the Prime Minister's functions is to give a firm lead in Cabinet so that decisions can be taken quickly. The Prime Minister musn't always listen to those who talk most."

"King George VI was always remarkably well informed, and I made a point of reading the latest telegrams before my weekly audience with him. A conscientious, constitutional monarch is a strong element of stability and continuity in our Constitution."

"There is no such thing as the Shadow Cabinet. It is purely a Press term. The Prime Minister is by no means bound to include the members of the Shadow Cabinet in his Cabinet, or even in the Government. I myself left several out."

"...the vital thing for the world to-day was to move away from the conception of the individual national State to something like a confederation of States in which some sovereign power was ceded to a wider Power. I do not think it need be much. At present what we have to give up is the right to make war."

"I can remember no case where differences arose between Conservatives, Labour and Liberals along party lines. Certainly not in the War Cabinet. Certainly not in the big things... When one came to work out solutions they were often socialist ones, because one had to have organisation, and planning, and disregard private interests. But there was no opposition from Conservative Ministers. They accepted the practical solution whatever it was."

"When I look at this as a proposal [i.e. British entry into the Common Market], it is really an extraordinary change. We used to put the Commonwealth first. It is quite obvious now that the Commonwealth comes second. We are going to be closer friends with the Germans, the Italians and the French than we are with the Australians or the Canadians. People are talking about what will happen thirty years hence: but, you know, twenty years ago I should never have imagined that we would be putting, as close friends, the Germans in front of the Canadians, the Australians, the New Zealanders, the Indians or anyone else. That does make for an entire revolution. It is also an entire revolution in the historic position of this country. I am not putting it forward that necessarily old things are right: I should be showing my age too clearly if I did that. It may be they are right; but make no mistake: this is an enormous change."

"...our geographical position put us in the centre of markets. That was one of the great strengths of our position. We did not have to look merely into Europe; we could look outside. We had our relationships with the Colonies overseas, later the Dominions; with the United States; with all continents, just because we were not tied up with the Continent of Europe. Now we are to be tied. It might be right, it may be wrong; but do not make any mistake: it is entirely different from anything we have had before. We are to become part of a larger whole, an appendage to Europe. It may be right now, but, historically, that has not been our position. We may have been at the centre of markets, but we have not been in one market and out of the others. We have had to fight against hostile tariffs; we have had to keep our end up. We have never put ourselves into a position in which we were inside a ring-fence with a number of Continental Powers. Make no mistake: it is an entire change."

"When we come to the political point, I confess I feel gravely disturbed. We are allying ourselves with six nations of Europe; it may be more, but six at present. Four of those we rescued only twenty years or so ago from domination by the other two. Now we go cap in hand to the people whom we thought we beat in war. I am all for having agreements with everybody. I am all for getting on in the world with countries very differently organised to ourselves, capitalist countries, even Communist countries; but I am rather doubtful about these present proposals...It does not seem to me to be a very good tie-up for us; and if we are to go in irrevocably and tie ourselves up with other States, I think it is an extremely doubtful proposition for Britain. I think the political dangers are very great. Once you are in there, it is quite different from being in an organisation like NATO, which is a defence organisation directed against specific perils. It is a general link-up with Europe."

"My noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth rather suggested that it was a really good Socialist policy to join up with these countries. I do not think that comes into it very much. They are not Socialist countries, and the object, so far as I can see, is to set up an organisation with a tariff against the rest of the world within which there shall be the freest possible competition between, capitalist interests. That might be a kind of common ideal. I daresay that is why it is supported by the Liberal Party. It is not a very good picture for the future...I believe in a planned economy. So far as I can see, we are to a large extent losing our power to plan as we want and submitting not to a Council of Ministers but a collection of international civil servants, able and honest, no doubt, but not necessarily having the best future of this country at heart...I think we are parting, to some extent at all events, with our powers to plan our own country in the way we desire. I quite agree that that plan should fit in, as far as it can, with a world plan. That is a very different thing from submitting our plans to be planned by a body of international civil servants, no doubt excellent men. I may be merely insular, but I have no prejudice in a Britain planned for the British by the British. Therefore, as at present advised, I am quite unconvinced either that it is necessary or that it is even desirable that we should go into the Common Market."

"The Question of sovereignty is often raised. I am one of those who believe that in a modern world one has to give up a great deal of sovereignty. I am prepared to give up sovereignty to the world, but not to a selected number of European countries. That is not giving up something for world security; it is giving something up to sectional interests."

"Unfortunately, in this country the propaganda for entering the Common Market has been largely based on defeatism. We are told that unless we do it we are going to have a terrible time. That is no way to go into a negotiation. You ought to go into a negotiation on the basis that they have need of you, not just you of them."

"We are told that we have to accept the Treaty of Rome. I have read the Treaty of Rome pretty carefully, and it expresses an outlook entirely different from our own. It may be that I am insular, but I value our Parliamentary outlook, an outlook which has extended throughout the Commonwealth. That is not the same position that holds on the Continent of Europe. No one of these principal countries in the Common Market has been very successful in running Parliamentary institutions: Germany, hardly any experience; Italy, very little; France, a swing between a dictatorship and more or less anarchic Parliament, and not very successfully. As I read the Treaty of Rome, the whole position means that we shall enter a federation which is composed in an entirely different way. I do not say it is the wrong way. But it is not our way. In this set-up it is the official who really puts up all the proposals; the whole of the planning is done by officials. It seems to me that the Ministers come in at a later stage—and if there is anything like a Federal Parliament, at a later stage still. I do not think that that is the way this country has developed, or wishes to develop. I am all for working in with our Continental friends. I was one of those who worked to build up NATO; I have worked for European integration. But that is a very different thing from bringing us into a close association which, I may say, is not one for defence, or even just for foreign policy. The fact is that if the designs behind the Common Market are carried out, we are bound to be affected in every phase of our national life. There would be no national planning, except under the guidance of Continental planning—we shall not be able to deal with our own problems; we shall not be able to build up the country in the way we want to do, so far as I can see. I think we shall be subject to overall control and planning by others. That is my objection."

"But as a matter of fact the idea of an integrated Europe is historically looking backward, and not forward. The noble Viscount was looking at the Holy Roman Empire. We never belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, and we never belonged to the reactionary organisation after 1815. We have always looked outward, out to the New World; and to-day we look out to the New World, and to Asia and Africa. I think that integration with Europe is a step backward. By all means let us get the greatest possible agreement between the various continents, but I am afraid that if we join the Common Market we shall be joining not an outward-looking organisation, but an inward-looking organisation. I think that Germany, for instance, which has probably the most powerful influence in the organisation, will not escape from looking at what she thought she was going to gain, and what she has lost. I do not think we have a new look there. I think that by marrying into Europe we are marrying a whole family of ancient prejudices and ancient troubles, and I would much rather see an Atlantic organisation. I would much rather work for the world organisation."

"It's a very limited alliance, purely European, and it really, I think, breaks the unity of the Commonwealth. In my mind, the Commonwealth is immensely important, because it is multi-racial: Asiatic, African, Australian, and American. I think it's a retrograde step to go back to a purely European union."

"Attlee: I'm one of those people who are incapable of religious feeling. Harris: Do you mean you have no feeling about Christianity, or that you have no feeling about God, Christ, and life after death? Attlee: Believe in the ethics of Christianity. Can't believe in the mumbo jumbo. Harris: Would you say you are an agnostic? Attlee: I don't know. Harris: Is there an after-life, do you think? Attlee: Possibly."

"There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter."

"A Tory minister can sleep in ten different women's beds in a week. A Labour minister gets it in the neck if he looks at his neighbour's wife over the garden fence."

"Can't publish. Don't rhyme, don't scan."

"I move previous face!"

"Not up to the job."

"The Common Market. The so-called Common Market of six nations. Know them all well. Very recently this country spent a great deal of blood and treasure rescuing four of 'em from attacks by the other two."

"Toward the end of our discussion I asked Attlee what was the extent of Gandhi's influence upon the British decision to quit India. Hearing this question, Attlee's lips became twisted in a sarcastic smile as he slowly chewed out the word, m-i-n-i-m-a-l!"

"My direct question to Attlee was that since Gandhi's Quit India movement had tapered off quite some time ago and in 1947 no such new compelling situation had arisen that would necessitate a hasty British departure, why did they had to leave?" "In his reply Attlee cited several reasons, the principal among them being the erosion of loyalty to the British crown among the Indian army and Navy personnel as a result of the military activities of Netaji."

"He was a far abler man than Winston Churchill's description of him as "a sheep in sheep's clothing" would imply, but persistently depressing. He spoke, as John Jay Chapman said of President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard, with "all the passion of a woodchuck chewing a carrot." His thought impressed me as a long withdrawing, melancholy sigh."

"Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim."

"The pro-Western policies of Clement Attlee’s Labour government (1945–51) were supported by the vast majority of the Labour Party and trade union movement. Communist and Soviet sympathisers within both were isolated, and the Communist Party was kept at a distance. This helped prevent the development of a strong radical Left, and was linked to the alliance between labour and capital that was to be important in the post-war mixed economy in Britain; although the emphasis on state control and regulation was damaging to entrepreneurial ethos. The Attlee government also decided by January 1947 to develop a British nuclear bomb. This policy was regarded as necessary for Britain’s independent security and independence. Throughout, the British government sought to play more than a secondary role to the USA. As a result, at considerable cost, Britain became the third nuclear power: the bomb was ready by 1952."

"Labour's programme of free public services financed out of taxation depended crucially upon a prolongation of the wartime spirit of social solidarity... What got us through the war, the Prime Minister [Attlee] insisted, was "unselfishness and an appeal to the higher instincts of mankind". These higher instincts could not, unfortunately, survive the pressures of consumerism and individualism created by the affluent society of the 1950s... Nevertheless, successive Conservative and Labour governments continued to...leave the central citadel of the Attlee regime untouched... The decaying monuments to that regime can now be seen around us in a collapsing NHS, a rotting Underground system and, in the words of one government spokesman, "bog-standard comprehensives". The state of our public services is a consequence not of failing to build on the Attlee legacy, but of a refusal to repudiate it... The Attlee Government led Britain firmly and resolutely, and from the best of motives, in the wrong direction. It continues to exert its influence even from beyond the grave, and the twin illusions which it engendered—that we can enjoy "free" public services while remaining isolated from the Continent—are still costing us dear."

"His socialism was certainly more Toynbee Hall than Marx. Yet he presided over what is now agreed was the most revolutionary of all Labour's governments and he did it without benefit of the usual tricks of the political trade... The key to the enigma of his personality lies, I believe, in the fact that he was a decent man who wanted to build a decent society."

"An empty taxi drew up outside 10 Downing Street and Clement Attlee got out of it."

"A modest man with much to be modest about."

"The political life of Clem Attlee...is characterised by a marvellous series of paradoxes. One of the greatest is that, though he couldn't be doing with the mumbo jumbo of Christian dogma, there has rarely been a prime minister for whom the Christian ethic so dominated his life. During his stewardship, this "unbeliever" became one of the most effective proponents of Christian ethics in this country's history. None of his political friends or acquaintances could have been in any doubt that Attlee's life was moulded by what Christianity taught. These values were not limited to the evangelical tradition of daily prayers and Bible readings that characterised Attlee's early home years. Attlee absorbed the values of duty, loyalty and responsibility and built his own personal and political life upon them."

"Attlee found his vocation after abandoning a legal career that never really started. He began serving the poor in the East End and this commitment explains not only why Attlee became Labour leader in 1935, but is also one of a number of characteristics that allowed him to keep it for 20 years. He was the only middle-class challenger for power who had so openly and sacrificially committed his life to the poor. It was a commitment that moved him until the end."

"The best Prime Minister since the war."

"He presided over a Government which welcomed and organized the abolition of the empire, promoted the transition from capitalism to mixed economy and established the principle of the state's responsibility for individual welfare... [H]e always managed to appear a reasonable revolutionary, a man who advocated policies which were relevant as well as radical. He was not a man to fear. He was a conscientious regimental officer who maintained morale and preserved good order and discipline; a politician to trust and a leader to respect... Attlee was a great Prime Minister, one of the few twentieth century politicians whose reputation has increased with the years."

"I think his way of conducting business was perfectly admirable. He was really a very ordinary, but very efficient and very intelligent man and he carried these qualities to their highest possible degree. This is the way I look at him. I'm always puzzled when people talk about him as though he was mysterious, and his rise was strange. Alan Herbert wrote a poem — not a very good poem — called "Man of Mystery"; Harold Macmillan said "in many ways a mysterious character", and Michael Foot said "as time went on, he got more and more incomprehensible". To me, simply coming in as an ordinary official, it seemed that he had every capability for the job of Prime Minister. He was immensely assiduous. He always read all the papers. He had no obvious ambitions. He had not the slightest touch of vanity or conceit about himself. He started at the beginning of his day's work and went on till he got to the end and finished it, and he'd say, "Is there anything more?" and I'd say "No," and he'd say, "Goodnight." And that, I think, is a very good way of conducting business."

"I think he was what once someone called the last of the upper-middle-class social workers. Nowadays you don't find that, because on the whole people don't want it. Anybody turning up from the public schools and trying to run a boys' club is resented, for various reasons; the professionals have taken over. To my eyes, this was what gave him his strength. Others may question that, but compared with Hugh Gaitskell, whom I of course admired enormously, he had been through it all, he had these years in what you could only call the front line of poverty."

"A. J. P. Taylor, long a fierce critic of Attlee, especially of the cold war policy pursued by Bevin under him, recently said to me "Attlee grows on you. He was the greatest of Labour's leaders and Prime Ministers". If this is the considered view of our greatest living historian, our most incorrigible of academic rebels, which of us can reasonably disagree?"

"[H]is attitude to his colleagues was strangely like Ramsay MacDonald in that there was a remoteness about him so that it was quite impossible to approach near enough to get inside his mind and to know what he was really thinking, at any rate what he would be thinking in a few days."

"Clement Attlee – top deity in the modern Labour Party's pantheon."

"At the end of July the Big Three met for a final time at Potsdam, on the edge of Berlin, but this was a very different summit from Yalta. Roosevelt was dead and Churchill was voted out of office during the conference, being replaced by the new Labour leader, Clement Attlee, whose contribution was limited. Byrnes, now Truman’s secretary of state, fixed up a deal—despite British objections— by which the Soviets got their way on the western border of Poland (following the Oder and Western Neisse). But, in return, the Western powers refused to set a total figure for what the Soviets would receive in reparations from Germany. Instead each ally would take what it wanted in equipment, food and raw materials from its zone of occupation and the Soviets would also receive some transfers from the western zones. This deal on reparations did more than the decisions at Yalta to divide Soviet-controlled eastern Germany from the west."

"[Margaret Thatcher] was not really running a team. Every time you have a Prime Minister who wants to take all the decisions, it mainly leads to bad results. Attlee didn't. That's why he was so damn good."

"Of Clement Attlee, however, I was an admirer. He was a serious man and a patriot. Quite contrary to the general tendency of politicians in the 1990s, he was all substance and no show. His was a genuinely radical and reforming government."

"Politically, Clement Attlee’s government was caught in a quandary. For a while it kept on pretending that Britain could be the balancing force on the European continent, helping to contain Communism, while gradually allowing for more freedoms in the Empire and building a welfare state at home. In reality it had to choose, and—understandably enough—opted for the latter. By 1950 the British withdrawal from east of Suez was in full swing; India and Pakistan had become independent in 1947, southeast Asia was soon to follow, and Britain’s position in the Middle East and the Mediterranean was much reduced. One should be careful, though, with making Britain’s international weakness in the 1950s total: it still had one of the largest armies and navies in the world, it had the prestige of having stood up to Hitler when nobody else would or could, and it had—successfully it seemed—hitched its wagon to that of the world's main power, the United States. The British may have felt that they were treated dismally by their big ally and resented the slide in their country's international prestige. But, whether they voted Labour or Conservative, they were also aware that they were getting something back: free medical care for all, universal pensions, and family allowances mattered in what was still one of the most class-ridden societies on earth."

"The key to his character lies, I think, in the fact that he is a true solitary. He requires less than most men the support of others. He will listen, he will consider other points of view, but once he has decided on the course to be followed he is completely sustained by his own inner strength."

"Unless during the first five years so great a degree of change has been accomplished as to deprive Capitalism of its power, it is unlikely that a Socialist Party will be able to maintain its position of control without adopting some exceptional means, such as the prolongation of the life of Parliament for a further term without an election."

"The [Labour] Government's first step will be to call Parliament together at the earliest moment and place before it an Emergency Powers Bill to be passed through in all its stages on the first day. This Bill will be wide enough in its terms to allow all that will be immediately necessary to be done by ministerial orders. These orders must be incapable of challenge in the Courts or in any way except in the House of Commons."

"In 1919 we pledged our honour as a country that we would disarm as soon as possible, and other countries did the same. In the face of that Germany accepted the Treaty of Versailles. We had done nothing. We had offered a Disarmament Conference which might well make the gods laugh if they desired the destruction of the human race. We had got to realize the extraordinary gravity of the European situation—the pass to which the National Government had brought the world. The worst Foreign Secretary for 200 years had led this country into folly after folly in the international field. They ought to warn the Government that in no circumstances would they break any of the pacts they had made not to go to war. There was only one effective way in which they could make that threat effective...and that was to call a general strike. It was for the people of this country, in answer to that call, to put themselves behind the trade unions and to compel the trade unions to draw up plans immediately for that great resistance."

"I do not believe in private armies but if the Fascists started a private army it might be for the Socialist and Communist Parties to do the same. When the Labour Party come into power they must act rapidly, and it will be necessary to deal with the House of Lords and the influence of the City of London. There is no doubt that we shall have to overcome opposition from Buckingham Palace and other places as well...There must not be time to allow the forces outside to gather and to exercise their influence upon the Legislature before the key-points of capitalism have been transferred to the control of the State, and I look upon these two key-points myself as being the land and finance. If other people become revolutionary, then the Socialist Government, like any other Government, must take steps to stamp out the revolution. The Socialist Government must not be mealy-mouthed about saying what they mean. They must make it perfectly clear that it is their intention to carry out the mandate they have been given by the people."

"The problem of dealing with the armed forces of the Crown is the most difficult one we will have to face when we do get into power. The Labour Party will have to face the fact that it is a class Party...It has to be prepared to take steps more forceful than even the steps taken at the time of the Ulster Rebellion."

"But it is a fallacy, if one is examining the methods by which security can be attained, to start upon the assumption, as so many hon. Members do, that we get security by an increase of air armaments or an increase of any other form of armaments."

"I cannot imagine the Labour Party coming into power without a first-rate financial crisis. That is why we ask for full emergency measures."

"It must be the duty of the next Labour Government in power to make an immediate challenge to the capitalist system and take the banks and the land into the custody of the people. The time had come to drop all hesitancy and to be bold. If they returned a Socialist Government next time, it was going to "do things," whatever it cost."

"We will have nothing to do with Imperialist or capitalist wars. If the time comes, as we hope it will, when the workers of this country own England as they do not own England to-day; if their policy is a policy of international socialism, then it may be that we may have to defend the system and the country against the marauders of some capitalist Power...the majority of the workers would be prepared to defend the system, but so long as they were being asked to defend something with which they profoundly disagreed, something which they believed to lie at the root of the dangers of the world to-day, then it was their duty to say that they would have nothing to do with the armed forces or with war. It was no exaggeration to say that to-day we were far more in danger of a holocaust than we were in 1913...in 1931 Lombard Street determined that it was time to finish the life of the Labour Government. It was finished not by the traditional method of a hostile vote in the Commons, but by means which [I] dared to mention in Nottingham—and caused a considerable uproar in the Press—the Buckingham Palace influence."

"You have only got to look at the pages of British imperial history to hide your head in shame that you are British."

"It is fundamental to Socialism that we should liquidate the British Empire as soon as we can."

"The National Government's only remedy for a difficult national problem was to arm and arm and arm, regardless of the lessons of history and the proved fact that armament racing could only end in war. ... If we are plunged in war I devoutly hope that the workers of this country will use it for the purpose of revolution. I hope that the present government can be made to understand that that will happen. It will be a very healthy thought for them to have in the back of their mind."

"Every possible effort should be made to stop recruiting for the Armed Forces. This may, and probably would, lead to some form of conscription being proposed or introduced. Thus would be provided a most favourable political platform upon which to fight the National Government."

"I do not believe it would be a bad thing for the British working-class if Germany defeated us. It would be a disaster for the profit-makers and capitalists, but not necessarily for the working-class."

"All sorts of excuses were being given why we should uphold rearmament, including the old-fashioned "For God, King and Country" patriotism, assisted by all the tomfoolery of jubilees and coronations."

"The reactionaries of our Movement are keen to prevent Socialists from coming into it. The last thing anyone should do is to pander to the reactionaries by staying out. James Maxton and Harry Pollitt should be the Leaders of the Labour Movement today"

"Money cannot make armaments. Armaments can only be made by the skill of the British working class, and it is the British working class who would be called upon to use them. To-day you have the most glorious opportunity that the workers have ever had if you will only use the necessity of capitalism in order to get power yourselves. The capitalists are in your hands. Refuse to make munitions, refuse to make armaments, and they are helpless. They would have to hand the control of the country over to you."

"The workers must now make it clear beyond all doubt that they will not support the Government or its armaments in its mad policy which it is now pursuing."

"I want to see the end of the British Empire in the world."

"Emphatically no, and I never have been."

"...we must avoid a competitive raising of wages and conditions in a scarce labour market, which raises prices. ... If we allow prices to rise because of internal costs rising, we shall lose and not gain our overseas markets, or at least not be able to gain new ones in the competition. Therefore, incentives must be strictly limited to increased production so that more earnings mean more production. We cannot in any circumstances afford to pay more for the same or less production. We must await the further raising of the levels of earnings until we can provide the goods upon which those earnings can be spent. In the same way, let me point out, that large profits drawn from industry today are just as inimical because they, too, raise the price levels and, furthermore, they offer an immediate temptation for the demand for greater salaries."

"We must bring home to the people the seriousness of the country's present plight and the future problems that we face. We must convince them of their power to overcome all difficulties by common effort. We must draw out from people that courage and determination which have always been the hallmarks of the British character."

"Production, and production alone, can find us relief in our immediate situation. It is no part of the British character to resign ourselves to such difficulties or to fail to take the measures, however hard, to overcome them. It has been truly said that by our faith we can move mountains. It is by our faith in ourselves, in our country, in the free democratic traditions for which the people of this country have for centuries fought and battled, and for which they must fight again as willingly on the economic front as upon the oceans, on the land and in the air, it is by our faith in the deep spiritual values that we acknowledge in our Christian faith, that we shall be enabled and inspired to move the present mountains of our difficulties, and so emerge into that new and fertile plain of prosperity which we shall travel in happiness only as the result of our own efforts and our own vision."

"...we do not contemplate taking any action to alter the rate of sterling in relation to other currencies, as we do not believe that this will be rendered necessary or advisable."

"[In the case of sterling devaluation was] neither necessary nor will it take place."

"Though we have achieved considerable success in our policy of increasing production and maintaining full employment, this has been accompanied by constant pressure for higher wages resulting in higher prices. We have not yet found out how we can maintain full employment in combination with stable or decreasing costs and prices."

"His Majesty's Government have not the slightest intention of devaluing the pound."

"The Government decided...to reduce the dollar exchange value of the pound sterling. In the last few days we have settled what the new rate should be and now I have to tell you of that decision; it is that in place of the present rate, fixed in 1946, of $4 3c. for the pound the rate will in future be $2 80c. to the pound."

"Our position is such that we could not 'integrate' our economy into that of Europe in any manner that would prejudice the full discharge of these other responsibilities. At the same time, Britain regarded herself as bound up in western Europe, not only in economic, strategic and political interests, but in our culture and indeed in our participation in the heritage of Christian civilization."

"He was a man the greatness of whose intellectual and practical abilities was matched by his nobility of character and high idealism. ... I believe he did immense service to this country."

"As one who has been a nationalist leader and worker for India's independence, though now my activity is no longer in the political but in the spiritual field, I wish to express my appreciation of all you have done to bring about this offer. I welcome it as an opportunity given to India to determine for herself, and organise in all liberty of choice, her freedom and unity, and take an effective place among the world's free nations. I hope that it will be accepted, and right use made of it, putting aside all discords and divisions.... I offer my public adhesion, in case it can be of any help in your work."

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

"There, but for the grace of God, goes God."

"Stafford Cripps was a man of force and fire. His intellectual and moral passions were so strong that they not only inspired but not seldom dominated his actions. They were strengthened and also governed by the workings of a powerful, lucid intelligence, and by a deep and lively Christian faith. He strode through life with a remarkable indifference to material satisfactions or worldly advantages. I suppose there are few hon. Members in any part of the House who have not differed violently from him at this time or that, and yet there is none who did not regard him with respect and with admiration, not only for his abilities, but for his character."

"Cripps seems quite unable to see the argument that he is damaging the party electorally. It is all ‘misreporting’, or picking sentences out of their context. He has become very vain and seems to think that only he and his cronies know what Socialism is or how it should be preached. His gaffes cover an immense range – Buckingham Palace – League of Nations – ‘compelling’ Unions to declare a General Strike – prolonging Parliament beyond five years...‘seize land, finance and industry’ (without compensation?) – Emergency Powers Bill in one day, giving ‘all necessary powers’...I make a violent – perhaps too violent – speech asking that this stream of oratorical ineptitudes should now cease...It is the number of these gaffes which is so appalling. Our candidates are being stabbed in the back and pushed onto the defensive. Tory HQ regard him as their greatest electoral asset...Attlee says I am like a pedagogue addressing a pupil. I wish the pupil were a bit brighter."

"We mourn today the passing of a fine Christian knight, a dauntless spirit, a devoted public servant, a noble character whose life, whose integrity, and whose work are an example and an inspiration to us all, whose shining faith never faltered in the face of difficulties, however mountainous."

"Cripps, a man without roots, a demagogue and a liar, would pursue his sick fancies although the Empire were to crack at every corner. Moreover, this theoretician devoid of humanity lacks contact with the mass that's grouped behind the Labour Party, and he'll never succeed in understanding the problems that occupy the minds of the lower classes."

"If there ever was a case of clearer evidence than this of persons acting together, this case is that case"

"They will steal the very teeth out of your mouth as you walk through the streets – I know it from experience."

"Prisoner, God has given you good abilities, instead of which you go about the country stealing ducks."

"He is the happy wanderer, who goes, Singing upon the way, with eyes awake To every scene, with ears alert to take The sweetness of all sounds; who loves and knows The secrets of the highway, and the rose Holds fairer for the wounds that briars make."

"We shall lodge at the sign of the Grave, you say; Well, the road is a long one we trudge, my friend, So why should we grieve at the break of the day? Let us sing, let us drink, let us love, let us play,-- We can keep our sights for the journey's end."

"It may be we shall know in the hereafter Why we, begetting hopes, give birth to fears, And why the world's too beautiful for laughter, Too gross for tears."

"Attitudes to death go hand in hand with attitudes to sex. And it is in the sphere of sex that some of the greatest of medical confusions have arisen. I refer in particular to the "sex change" – again, an operation which has exhilarated the public, with its implication that sexuality is an elaborate accident, which can be tailored to the individual need. A person's sexuality is no longer regarded as part of his essence. It has become an attribute, which he might change as he changes his clothes. The possibility of thinking in such a way shows a deep change in perception. The obligation to accept one's sex has dwindled, in the same way as the obligation to accept one's death. Consequently people call upon doctors to help them, demanding painful, expensive and dangerous operations, whose moral effects cannot really be envisaged in advance, and whose premise is a kind of delusion which, however it might arouse our compassion, ought not to inspire our connivance. No doubt the time is not far distant when sex-change operations will be obtainable on the National Health, granted on the advice of "experts" able to discern the "real" gender identity of the soul sheathed within each human envelope."

"It goes without saying that apartheid is offensive. It was adopted, however, as the lesser of two evils. The Afrikaners believe that black majority rule has, in almost every case, led to the collapse of the constitutional government which they brought to South Africa, and upon which their freedoms and privileges – and perhaps even their lives – depend. And it did not seem so very bad to deny to blacks a vote which they would, when in power, promptly deny to themselves."

"A developed legal system, with elaborate common law rights, and supported by a system of natural justice, was the most precious legacy of our empire. If it were still permissible to defend colonization, I should justify it in terms of this bequest, and at the same time contrast the colonization of Africa with the Soviet "colonization" of eastern Europe, which has advanced not by the generation but by the destruction of law."

"Race is at best an influence on behaviour, not the moral source of it. It is the individual alone who acts, and he alone who should bear the benefits and the burdens of moral judgment. In all questions of right and duty, it is both wicked and nonsensical to refer to a person's race – whether the purpose be to accuse him, or to exonerate him. To do so is to place the crucial attribute of responsibility where it does not belong – with the abstract totality, rather than with the concrete individual. The racist ignores every genuine right and obligation in pursuit of a merely abstract reckoning: he seeks to reward or punish the individual in respect of qualities which are not of his own choosing and for which he can in truth be neither praised nor blamed. It is surely obvious that racism is an evil. Even if it were not obvious from its intrinsic nature, it is obvious from its effects. Millions have died precisely because, in the eyes of the racist, they were already dead, being of "inferior" race, without rights, condemned by their very existence."

"Of course, there are those — Sandel, Walzer and Dworkin, for example — who propose "communitarian" ways of thinking, as a further move in the direction which a sophisticated liberalism requires. But none of them is prepared to accept the real price of community: which is sanctity, intolerance, exclusion, and a sense that life's meaning depends upon obedience, and also on vigilance against the enemy."

"An international socialism is the stated ideal of most socialists; an international liberalism is the unstated tendency of the liberal. To neither system is it thinkable that men live, not by universal aspirations but by local attachments; not by a “solidarity” that stretches across the globe from end to end, but by obligations that are understood in terms which separate men from most of their fellows—in terms such as national history, religion, language, and the customs that provide the basis of legitimacy."

"Schopenhauer argues that the empirical world exists only as a representation: ‘every object, whatever its origin, is, as object, already conditioned by the subject, and thus is essentially only the subject’s representation.’ A representation is a subjective state that has been ordered according to space, time and causality – the primary forms of sensibility and understanding. So long as we turn our thoughts towards the natural world, and search for the thing-in-itself behind the representation is futile. Every argument and every experience leads only to the same end: the system of representations, standing like a veil between the subject and the thing-in-itself. No scientific investigation can penetrate the veil; and yet it is only a veil, Schopenhauer affirms, a tissue of illusions which we can, if we choose, penetrate by other means. The way to penetrate the veil was stumbled upon by Kant."

"Schopenhauer was not the only one of Hegel’s opponents to rest his faith in the unsayable. Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), in his attack on the prevailing Hegelian rationalism, sought to undermine the claim that ‘the real is the rational and the rational the real’, and so to reaffirm the value of that which, while real, lies beyond the reach of reason. But, lacking Schopenhauer’s gift of argument, and being indeed more literary than philosophical in his inclination, he did not set up any elaborate system of ideas whereby to postpone the recognition of his ultimate refuge. His principal interest was the vindication of the Christian faith, and he wrote directly or indirectly towards this end, inventing in the process the name, if not the philosophy of ‘existentialism’, for which achievement he is now chiefly known. His philosophy is a clear example of a reaction against idealism which is not also a form either of empiricism or skepticism. In the course of this reaction, it is once again the subject that is reaffirmed, as the ground of all philosophical thought."

"Yes, I am in favor of censorship, but it has to be conducted by people like me. And that's the difficulty (laughs). I'm in favor of encouraging every possible form of self-restraint and parental control. And I certainly don't think that pornography should be protected under the American Constitution."

"The modern world gives proof at every point that it is far easier to destroy institutions than to create them. Nevertheless, few people seem to understand this truth."

"For we are social beings, who can exist and behave as autonomous agents only because we are supported in our ventures by that feeling of primal safety that the bond of society brings. We can envisage no project and no satisfaction on which the eyes of others do not shine. We are joined to those others, and even when they are strangers to us, they are also part of us. It is the indispensable need for membership that brings the national idea to our minds; and there is no rational argument that will expel it, once it is there. Without it, we are homeless; and even if our attitude to home is one of sour disaffection, home is no less necessary to our sense of who we are."

"Those critics of the nation who have seen in it the root of xenophobia and racism, have often disparaged the imperial powers of Europe for their indecent contempt toward the "natives" of their territories. A picture has developed—by no means wholly wrong—of European despots, smugly convinced of their ancestral right of sovereignty, cruelly trampling on people whom they regarded as their genetic inferiors. But these very same critics are frequently enthusiastic supporters of the "national liberation struggles," whereby colonial peoples attempt to affirm themselves as nations, and to achieve independence in precisely that guise. Of course, the new nations are not the same kind of thing as the old ones, as I have argued. But they answer to the same need: the need for a bond of membership that will conform to the geographical and administrative realities, that will permit the dead and the unborn to stand beside us, and that will define our territory as home. Now you can't have it both ways. If nationhood is a boon to the peoples of New Guinea and Peru, it must also be a boon to those who formerly oppressed them."

"A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is 'merely relative,' is asking you not to believe him. So don't."

"Kant's position is extremely subtle — so subtle, indeed, that no commentator seems to agree with any other as to what it is."

"In argument about moral problems, relativism is the first refuge of the scoundrel."

"a postmodern rural consultancy"

"Many Britons...feel strongly about something which was once called "the alien wedge". And surely it cannot be doubted, even by those who profess allegiance to the "multicultural society", that our society, unlike America, is not of that kind, and therefore that immigration cannot be an object of merely passive contemplation on the part of the present citizenship. There is perhaps no greater sign of the strength of liberalism (a strength which issues, not from popular consensus, but from the political power of the liberal elite) than that it has made it impossible for any but the circumlocutory to argue that the English, the Scots and the Welsh have a prior claim to the benefits of the civilization that their ancestors created, which entitles them to reserve its benefits for themselves."

"[W]hile it is a long-standing principle of British law that the fomentation of hatred (and hence of racial hatred) is a serious criminal offence, it is not clear that illiberal sentiments have to be forms of hatred, nor that they should be treated in the high-handed way that is calculated to make them become so. On the contrary, they are sentiments which seem to arise inevitably from social consciousness: they involve natural prejudice, common culture, and a desire for the company of one's kind. That is hardly sufficient ground to condemn them as "racist" – an accusation which has no definition in law, and against which there is now no defence. To be accused of racism is to be guilty of it: this is the great achievement of liberal thinking about nationality. One of the most important conservative causes in our time must surely be the attempt to undo the apparatus of censorship and intimidation, which has effectively silenced the appeal to national identity."

"From its beginnings the Conservative Party has been characterized by a relatively firm and enterprising fiscal policy, being responsible, not only for constant restrictions on free trade, but also for the introduction of regular income tax, and for legislation which governed the sale and conditions of labour. In the light of history, its post-war conversion to Keynesian economic theory might be seen as a natural intellectual development, a further move away from the view...that economic affairs are self-regulating...towards the more plausible view that the posture of the state is all-important, and that, without the state's surveillance, destitution and unemployment could result at any time. And it is perhaps no accident that, when the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher abandoned this conception of the state's economic role, and took up the banner of liberal economics, it was, in time, deserted by the electorate, so that the old alliance of interests which it had for a century represented suddenly fell apart. The odd thing, however, is that the policy which caused the Conservative Party's collapse – free market economics, under the aegis of global corporations – is the policy most fervently adopted by the New Labour Party of Tony Blair, and will no doubt be the downfall of that Party too."

"There is no doubt in my mind that, from the third-person point of view, monarchy is the most reasonable form of government. By embodying the state in a fragile human person, it captures the arbitrariness and the givenness of political allegiance, and so transforms allegiance into affection."

"In 1970s Britain, conservative philosophy was the preoccupation of a few half-mad recluses."

"[Burke] emphasized that the new forms of politics, which hope to organize society around the rational pursuit of liberty, equality, fraternity, or their modernist equivalents, are actually forms of militant irrationality."

"The strange superstition has arisen in the Western world that we can start all over again, remaking human nature, human society, and the possibilities of happiness; as though the knowledge and experience of our ancestors were now entirely irrelevant."

"When truth cannot make itself known in words, it will make itself known in deeds."

"Hayek’s theory of evolutionary rationality shows how traditions and customs (those surrounding sexual relations, for example) might be reasonable solutions to complex social problems, even when, and especially when, no clear rational grounds can be provided to the individual for obeying them. These customs have been selected by the ‘‘invisible hand’’ of social reproduction, and societies that reject them will soon enter the condition of ‘‘maladaptation,’’ which is the normal prelude to extinction."

"Hayek fails to account either for the passion among intellectuals for equality, or for the resulting success of socialists and their egalitarian successors in driving the liberal idea from the stage of politics. This passion for equality is not a new thing, and indeed pre-dates socialism by many centuries, finding its most influential expression in the writings of Rousseau. There is no consensus as to how equality might be achieved, what it would consist in if achieved, or why it is so desirable in the first place. But no argument against the cogency or viability of the idea has the faintest chance of being listened to or discussed by those who have fallen under its spell."

"Hayek sees that the zero-sum vision is fired by an implacable negative energy. It is not the concrete vision of some real alternative that animates the socialist critic of the capitalist order. It is hostility toward the actual, and in particular toward those who enjoy advantages within it. Hence the belief in equality remains vague and undefined, except negatively. For it is essentially a weapon against the existing order – a way of undermining its claims to legitimacy, by discovering a victim for every form of success. The striving for equality is, in other words, based in ressentiment in Nietzsche’s sense, the state of mind that Max Scheler identified as the principal motive behind the socialist orthodoxy of his day. It is one of the major problems of modern politics, which no classical liberal could possibly solve, how to govern a society in which resentment has acquired the kind of privileged social, intellectual, and political position that we witness today."

"All of us need an identity which unites us with our neighbours, our countrymen, those people who are subject to the same rules and the same laws as us, those people with whom we might one day have to fight side by side to protect our inheritance, those people with whom we will suffer when attacked, those people whose destinies are in some way tied up with our own."

"I don't think you can be a conservative in the end without being some kind of nationalist. You are always going to have in the back of your mind a conception of the community whose structure you are trying to retain."

"Conservatives have, on the whole, accepted nationality as a sphere of local duties and loyalties, defining an inheritance and a community that has a right to pass on its values from generation to generation. The nation may indeed be the best that we now have, by way of a society linking the dead to the unborn, in the manner extolled by Burke. And for this very reason it arouses the hostility of liberals, who are constantly searching for a place outside loyalty and obedience, from which all human claims can be judged. Hence, in the conflicts of our times, while conservatives leap to the defense of the nation and its interests, wishing to maintain its integrity and to enforce its law, liberals advocate transnational initiatives, international courts, and doctrines of universal rights, all of which, they believe, should stand in judgment over the nation and hold it to account."

"Liberty is not the same thing as equality, and that those who call themselves liberals are far more interested in equalizing than in liberating their fellows."

"A free society is a community of free beings, bound by the laws of sympathy and by the obligations of family love. It is not a society of people released from all moral constraint–for that is precisely the opposite of a society. Without moral constraint there can be no cooperation, no family commitment, no long-term prospects, no hope of economic, let alone social, order."

"The core of common culture is religion. Tribes survive and flourish because they have gods, who fuse many wills into a single will, and demand and reward the sacrifices on which social life depends."

"The first effect of modernism was to make high culture difficult: to surround beauty with a wall of erudition."

"Without the background of a remembered faith modernism loses its conviction: it becomes routinised. For a long time now it has been assumed that there can be no authentic creation in the sphere of high art which is not is some way a 'challenge' to the ordinary public. Art must give offence, stepping out of the future fully armed against the bourgeois taste for kitsch and cliché. But the result of this is that offence becomes a cliché."

"Faith exalts the human heart, by removing it from the market-place, making it sacred and unexchangeable. Under the jurisdiction of religion our deeper feelings are sacralized, so as to become raw material for the ethical life: the life lived in judgement."

"The ethical life... is maintained in being by a common culture, which also upholds the togetherness of society... Unlike the modern youth culture, a common culture sanctifies the adult state, to which it offers rites of passage."

"Conservatism is itself a modernism, and in this lies the secret of its success."

"The conservative response to modernity is to embrace it, but to embrace it critically, in full consciousness that human achievements are rare and precarious, that we have no God-given right to destroy our inheritance, but must always patiently submit to the voice of order, and set an example of orderly living."

"The future of mankind, for the socialist, is simple: pull down the existing order and allow the future to emerge."

"Democracies owe their existence to national loyalties — the loyalties that are supposedly shared by government and opposition, by all political parties, and by the electorate as a whole. Wherever the experience of nationality is weak or non-existent, democracy has failed to take root. For without national loyalty, opposition is a threat to government, and political disagreements create no common ground."

"National loyalty is founded in the love of place, of the customs and traditions that have been inscribed in the landscape and of the desire to protect these good things through a common law and a common loyalty."

"Europe owes its greatness to the fact that the primary loyalties of the European people have been detached from religion and re-attached to the land. Those who believe that the division of Europe into nations has been the primary cause of European wars should remember the devastating wars of religion that national loyalties finally brought to an end. And they should study our art and literature for its inner meaning. In almost every case, they will discover, it is an art and literature not of war but of peace, an invocation of home and the routines of home, of gentleness, everydayness and enduring settlement."

"National loyalty involves a love of home and a preparedness to defend it; nationalism is a belligerent ideology, which uses national symbols in order to conscript the people to war."

"Never in the history of the world have there been so many migrants. And almost all of them are migrating from regions where nationality is weak or non-existent to the established nation states of the West. They are not migrating because they have discovered some previously dormant feeling of love or loyalty towards the nations in whose territory they seek a home. On the contrary, few of them identify their loyalties in national terms and almost none of them in terms of the nation where they settle. They are migrating in search of citizenship which is the principal gift of national jurisdictions, and the origin of the peace, law, stability and prosperity that still prevail in the West."

"Nationality is not the only kind of social membership, nor is it an exclusive tie. However, it is the only form of membership that has so far shown itself able to sustain a democratic process and a liberal rule of law."

"The idea that the citizen owes loyalty to a country, a territory, a jurisdiction and all those who reside within it — the root assumption of democratic politics, and one that depends upon the nation as its moral foundation - that idea has no place in the minds and hearts of many who now call themselves citizens of European states."

"A civilization is a social entity that manifests religious, political , legal, and customary uniformity over an extended period, and which confers on its members the benefits of socially accumulated knowledge."

"The culture of a civilization is the art and literature through which it rises to consciousness of itself and defines its vision of the world."

"This "knowing what to do"… is a matter of having the right purpose, the purpose appropriate to the situation in hand... The one who "knows what to do" is the one on whom you can rely to make the best shot at success, whenever success is possible."

"[T]o teach virtue we must educate the emotions, and this means learning "what to feel" in the various circumstances that prompt them."

"In all the areas of life where people have sought and found consolation through forbidding their desires—sex in particular, and taste in general—the habit of judgment is now to be stamped out."

"Throughout my adult life governments around the Western world have been propagating the gospel of multiculturalism, which tells us that immigrants, from whatever part of the world and whatever way of life, are a welcome part of our “multicultural” society. Differences of language, religion, custom, and attachment don’t matter, they have reassured us, since all can form part of the colorful tapestry of the modern state. Anybody who publicly disagreed with that claim invited the attentions of the thought police, always ready with the charge of racism, and never so scrupulous as to think it a sin to destroy the career of someone, provided he was white, indigenous, and male. To be quite honest, living through this period of organized mendacity has been one of the least agreeable ordeals that we conservatives have had to undergo. Keeping your head down is bad enough; but filling your head with official lies means sacrificing thought as well as freedom."

"Conservatives believe that our identities and values are formed through our relations with other people, and not through our relation with the state. The state is not an end but a means. Civil society is the end, and the state is the means to protect it. The social world emerges through free association, rooted in friendship and community life. And the customs and institutions that we cherish have grown from below, by the ‘invisible hand’ of co-operation. They have rarely been imposed from above by the work of politics, the role of which, for a conservative, is to reconcile our many aims, and not to dictate or control them."

"Conservatism is a philosophy of inheritance and stewardship; it does not squander resources but strives to enhance them and pass them on."

"The real reason people are conservatives is that they are attached to the things that they love, and want to preserve them from abuse and decay. They are attached to their family, their friends, their religion, and their immediate environment. They have made a lifelong distinction between the things that nourish and the things that threaten their security and peace of mind."

"We are not born free, nor do we come into this world with a self-identity and autonomy of our own. We achieve those things, through the conflict and cooperation that weave us into the social fabric."

"Our notions of place, neighbourhood and home have stood us in good stead in all our national emergencies. But this identity is under threat from an ethos of repudiation. This ethos is nothing new. When Britain faced the prospect of annihilation from Hitler's armies, George Orwell wrote a famous essay, The Lion and the Unicorn, urging his readers to unite in defence of their country. The ability of the British to defend themselves, he argued, had been undermined from within, by both right and left. The bewildered remnant of the old ruling class, and the intellectuals who recoiled from patriotic feeling and could not utter the word "England" without a sneer, were combining to betray their country to the Nazis. The instinct of the British people in the face of the threat was to resist it, since that is what duty and love both require... Orwell's essay was a passionate attempt to show that the ordinary people were right. They could be trusted precisely because they were motivated by neither the self-interest of the upper class nor the self-righteousness of the intellectuals on the left, but by the only thing that mattered: an undemonstrative love of their country."

"Orwell's essay speaks to us today. It tells us that patriotism is the sine qua non of survival, and that it arises spontaneously in the ordinary human heart. It does not depend upon any grand narrative of triumph of the kind put about by the fascists and the communists, but grows from the habits of association that we British have been fortunate enough to inherit. We do not use grand and tainted honorifics like "la patrie" or "das Vaterland". We refer simply to this spot of earth, which belongs to us because we belong to it, have lived in it, loved it, defended it and established peace and prosperity within its borders."

"[Asked "Do you still favour English independence?"] No, I don’t think I’ve ever really favoured English independence. My view is that if the Scots want to be independent then we should aim for the same thing. Scottish independence, I don't think the Welsh want independence, the Northern Irish certainly don't. The Scottish desire for independence is, to some extent, a fabrication. They want to identify themselves as Scots but still to be part of a,[sic] to enjoy the subsidy they get from being part of the kingdom. I can see there are Scottish nationalists who envision something more than that, but if that becomes a real political force then yeah, we should try for independence too. As it is, as you know, the Scots have two votes: they can vote for their own parliament and vote to put their people into our parliament, who come to our parliament with no interest in Scotland but an interest in bullying us."

"I've never been an optimist but that's fine because pessimists have the possibility of being agreeably surprised, and that's a reason for being pessimistic, but I've always defended a certain kind of pessimism because what is known as optimism is really a collection of illusions and I think one must recognise what all religious people know, which is that human beings are imperfect and fallen and there's no way in which they can alone surmount the problems which they themselves create."

"In discussing tradition, we are not discussing arbitrary rules and conventions. We are discussing answers that have been discovered to enduring questions. (p. 21)"

"Take any aspect of the Western inheritance of which our ancestors were proud, and you will find university courses devoted to deconstructing it. Take any positive feature of our political and cultural inheritance, and you will find concerted efforts in both the media and the academy to place it in quotation marks, and make it look like an imposture or a deceit. (p. 40)"

"Conservatism starts from a sentiment that all mature people can readily share: the sentiment that good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created. This is especially true of the good things that come to us as collective assets: peace, freedom, law, civility, public spirit, the security of property and family life, in all of which we depend on the cooperation of others while having no means singlehandedly to obtain it. In respect of such things, the work of destruction is quick, easy, and exhilarating; the work of creation slow, laborious, and dull. That is one of the lessons of the twentieth century. It is also one reason why conservatives suffer such a disadvantage when it comes to public opinion. Their position is true but boring, that of their opponents exciting but false."

"We do not merely study the past: we inherit it, and inheritance brings with it not only the rights of ownership, but the duties of trusteeship. Things fought for and died for should not be idly squandered. For they are the property of others, who are not yet born."

"Why is it after a century of socialist disasters, and an intellectual legacy that has been time and again exploded, the left-wing position remains, as it were, the default position to which thinking people gravitate when called upon for a comprehensive philosophy? Why are "right-wingers" marginalised in the educational system, denounced in the media and regarded by our political class as untouchable, fit only to clean up after the orgies of luxurious nonsense indulged in by their moral superiors?"

"The inescapable conclusion is that subjectivity, relativity and irrationalism are advocated [by Richard Rorty] not in order to let in all opinions, but precisely so as to exclude the opinions of people who believe in old authorities and objective truths. This is the short cut to [Antonio] Gramsci's new cultural hegemony: not to vindicate the new culture against the old, but to show that there are no grounds for either, so that nothing remains save political commitment.Thus, almost all those who espouse the relativistic 'methods' introduced into the humanities by Foucault, Derrida and Rorty are vehement adherents to a code of political correctness that condemns deviation in absolute and intransigent terms. The relativistic theory exists in order to support an absolutist doctrine. We should not be surprised therefore at the extreme disarray that entered the camp of deconstruction, when it was discovered that one of the leading ecclesiastics, Paul de Man, once had Nazi sympathies. It is manifestly absurd to suggest that a similar disarray would have attended the discovery that Paul de Man had once been a communist -- even if he taken part in some of the great communist crimes. In such a case he would haved enjoyed the same compassionate endorsement as was afforded to [György] Lukács, [Maurice] Merleau-Ponty and Sartre."

"Can a programme for less authority, less of the state, less supervision, be reconciled with the conservative idea? Roger Scruton is certain that it cannot. In his sombre, clerkly little book, he claims that freedom "cannot occupy a central place in conservative thinking ... for the conservative, the value of individual liberty is not absolute, but stands subject to another and higher value, the authority of established government." His concern is to hunt down and expose the liberalism which hides itself in conservative colours, and – though he does not explicitly say so – the present British government stands outside his definition of conservatism. Mr Scruton's is a rare, unfashionable voice in British political writing today: the voice of real authoritarianism. He could be a 20th-century inquisitor from Kingsley Amis’s fantasy The Alteration, to whom traditional power is its own end and the very questioning of power a sin. Even the Catholic Church is enfeebled by tolerance, in his opinion. Afflicted by the fad for reform, it has "partially forgotten the tradition of custom, ceremony and judicious manoeuvre ... calling to every man with the voice of immutable authority.""

"He has quoted with approval from Joseph de Maistre, the French arch-reactionary, but hesitates to follow him to the conclusion that the public hangman is the key figure of the social order. And this illuminates an emptiness at the core of this amazing book. It is, as he says at the outset, a work of pure dogmatic. De Maistre thought that God wanted the sort of autocracy he described. Mr Scruton offers no sanction for his fearsome, static hierarchy. Religion may be encouraged, if it tightens the social bond, but is ultimately dispensable. Neither does he provide an anthropology suggesting that authoritarianism is the natural condition of the human race. His destructive criticism of liberal society has a black brilliance: his vision of the Leviathan which should replace it simply floats in the air. He asserts it is "natural"; he does not tell us why."

"The roll-call of significant thinkers with both an abiding interest in music and sufficient musical literacy to write about it with the competence of insiders is short indeed: one thinks of Rousseau, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, perhaps Adorno. It is a cause for celebration when another such figure appears in our midst. Wagner is a particularly suitable subject for Scruton, who writes about the composer's dual nature as a musician and a thinker with uncommon insight and sympathy. His view of the nature of Wagner's achievement in Tristan und Isolde is highly original and mostly persuasive, and it illuminates even when it stimulates opposition. Death-Devoted Heart should be added to the short list of indispensable writings on this opera."

"Professor Scruton's Right consists of the authors of the Salisbury Review under his editorship and is the nearest intellectually reputable thing that England has had to the authoritarian Conservatism which de Maistre, in a Christian, and Maurras in a post-Christian, mode had propagated in France... Professor Scruton is a serious thinker who has produced a versatile and impressive oeuvre which, in addition to dealing with law and politics, deals with aesthetics, literature, philosophy and sexuality (in a sometimes off-beam way), gives unambiguous allegiance to art and culture as modern substitutes for religion, and leaves the impression of believing in "Conservatism" either as an aborted mixture of Christianity and secular truth, or as simply secular truth in itself. For a number of years when young he was a pupil and collaborator of Dr John Casey from whom he acquired intellectual range and seriousness, a faint excess of high-principled intensity, and a coat-trailing, or Irish, contentiousness about race and colour which he had since abandoned. Also, when young, he was a Fellow of Peterhouse, from which he acquired some of the attitudes of "the Peterhouse Right"."

"There was a time when I knew him very well when he was a fellow at Peterhouse. I liked him very much. When he became editor of the Salisbury Review and for a little while afterwards I thought there was something faintly wooden about his politics, but now I regard him as a very, very good thing. It's not only that he writes about politics, it's that he writes about everything else. He's written a very good book about architecture and aesthetics, a huge great book about sex, a political book about conservatism, and very good books about Kant and Spinoza. He is a remarkably versatile and intelligent person. I used to have some reservations. I do not have any now."

"Scruton's conservative philosophy draws upon Burke, Hegel, Oakeshott and Hayek, rejecting universalism and preferring instead a politics based on human instinct. In a Burkean compact between the living, the dead and the unborn, trust is placed in our collective inheritance, particularly in the form of societal organizations, practices and traditions, the law and the constitution. A sense of place and territorial loyalty is therefore central to identity. For Scruton, that place and identity is England, which is "shared not as a reality so much as an ideal which constantly impacts on reality"."

"Scruton's Beauty is dense with ideas and rich with experience. Like a Renaissance still life, it lays out before us the bountiful fruits of long and successful hunting. Scruton's yield will do little for the jaded appetites of those professional hunters and gamekeepers who have sated themselves casually with their own catch in the field or on the road. But for others who love beauty and would like better to understand what it is they love and why, this book offers on every page and understanding without pedantry, clarity without dogma, insight without mystique."

"It is partly his own fault that outside philosophical circles Roger Scruton's ideas labour under something like a government health warning. Xanthippic Dialogues, however, is a concentrated, integrated, and wholly delightful epitome of his thought, which should appeal to both the philosopher and the general educated reader, and dispel whatever misapprehensions and deliberate misrepresentations have kept its author's profound and humane understanding from receiving the public recognition it deserves."

"Roger Scruton's Aesthetics of music begins as a brilliant, intimidatingly thorough, rather dry exercise in analytical philosophy. It ends as a cultural tract for the times, a mystical rhapsody on the religious basis of art, and a scorching indictment of the twin evils of modernism and pop which have robbed music of its high purpose. To yoke together these two mutually hostile, if not downright incompatible, forms of discourse is a boldness that only Scruton would attempt. But he is bound to do so, given that for him the deepest roots of our being are implicated in even the simplest acts of musical understanding."

"As a critic, Scruton is perceptive and persuasive... Roger Scruton seems characteristically British, however—an heir not only of the elite, eighteenth-century Dilettanti but of popularizing nineteenth-century propagandists such as Ruskin and Morris. Indeed, there is a moralistic fervor to his evangelism, and occasionally Scruton strikes one as a new Pugin, arguing the opposite side: favoring classicism rather than denigrating it. Unlike those ardent idealists of the last century, however, Scruton peppers his opinions with articulate British wit, irony, and sarcasm."

"Architecture has long lacked a satisfactory treatment by philosophers dealing with the arts. Here, finally, a philosopher gives buildings full attention. The result is an impressive and persuasive account of the nature, objectives, and judgement of architecture that has, because it treats this as a matter of practical understanding, direct and practical application, not least to modern architecture... The Aesthetics of Architecture is a remarkable contribution that should interest designers, teachers, critics, and historians."

"Roger Scruton's book [Aesthetics of Music] is the first account of music's nature and purpose — or at least the first to come my way — which attempts to explain what music is and what it is for. One reason for this is the far-ranging, wide-eyed, open-eared quality of his mind; another, more humbly practical, reason is that this may well be the only book about the philosophy and aesthetics of music that is copiously equipped with examples in handsomely printed music type... Roger Scruton's book speaks proudly on behalf of wholeness, haleness, and holiness; a beacon to our bleakness, its 'value' should endure."

"Scruton begins his book with an expert account of the origins of the Tristan story and Wagner's treatment of it. Scruton has absolute command of this material, and he eloquently organizes it around a few central points. As a concise account of the evolution of the Tristan myth, the first two chapters of Scruton's book are unsurpassed... Scruton's deep love of Tristan seems to render him blind toward the inconsistencies of the Wagnerian enterprise and the ruptures in the fabric of the Gesamtkunstwerk. Unfortunately, this blindness undermines Scruton's arguments in the final chapters of the book. In these pages, Scruton uses Tristan to pronounce jeremiads against contemporary culture, attacking (among other things) popular music and pornography. Scruton has important things to say here, and we would take him more seriously if he did not grip so tightly onto the meaning of Wagner's work. Scruton's eloquent and persuasive prose alerts us to ways in which Wagner's music cuts across the grain of contemporary notions about love and sexuality. But the ability of Wagner's work to "speak against" or to "speak across" depends at least in part to ways in which it resists decoding and presents irreconcilable paradoxes. Scruton seems unable or unwilling to acknowledge these qualities, and his work suffers as a result."

"Despite my reservations about certain aspects of Sexual Desire, it is a book which deserves and repays serious and careful consideration; it is at once a highly sensitive and refined exploration of a central but philosophically neglected part of our Lebenswelt, and a bold attempt to relate the Lebenswelt in general and the area of human sexuality in particular to its physical basis. Throughout the book Scruton manifests a deep commitment to philosophy as a humane discipline, a commitment seen all too rarely in contemporary philosophy. The upshot is to give one confidence that philosophy can still, on occasion, respond to the hopes that were once placed on it, of being at once rigorous and responsive to the resonance of the human world."

"How, then, if music seems so self-contained and cut off from the everyday world in a way that literature painting can never be, can we engage with it so fully? And how can it be important to us? In his outstandingly good book, The Aesthetics of Music, Roger Scruton demonstrates, with all the erudition, eloquence and profound insight has become a hallmark of his writing, how an answer to the first question provides an answer to the second."

"Scruton is at his best not when he is trying to import a 'scientifically'-orientated metaphysic into a phenomenological description, or when he seems to be doing so, but when he articulates so elegantly the humanity that lies in music. "Our music is the music of upright, earth-bound, active, love-hungry beings" (p.172). This book is full of such humane insight and is for that reason, and for many other reasons, compulsive reading. Roger Scruton is passionate and knowledgeable about music. He is also something which it is now unfashionable to be—a passionate and inspiring philosopher writing about what really matters."

"In many ways the topics covered by the book are new territory for Scruton. As a longstanding admirer of his writing and, though with rather more qualifications, of his thinking, I have read a good deal of his published output over the last few years, and find new themes in this book I do not recall before. The prospect of Scruton, the defender of hunting and elegist of rural England, defending the Enlightenment came as something of a surprise, though admittedly it is a somewhat Hegelianized and communized Enlightenment. His treatment of Islamic thought and ideas, while hardly uncontentious, is clearly fed by deep thought and much reading, and, as always, he writes like a dream."

"Roger Scruton has given us a fetching book on the nature and value of architecture, one which is almost as enlightening as it is infuriating (and that's saying a lot). There is a solid structure of argument at the heart of the book, but present too are all the occasions for pleasure usual with Scruton, such as a biting polemic and a nice style."

"Scruton is one of the best philosophers currently writing on aesthetics and few can match his deep and catholic understanding of the arts."

"Philosophers seldom devote a book to a single art; hardly ever to architecture. Dr. Scruton's book is thus most welcome. It combines wide knowledge of architecture and architectural theories, copious examples and interesting views on aesthetics... Neither architects nor philosophers can ignore this book. Though I find parts of it questionable or arbitrarily stipulative, its richness, suggestiveness and scope make it absorbing reading."

"This is an important book and one of the best to appear in a long while."

"Scruton does not disappoint. To be sure, niggling doubts about his purely musical analysis surface now and then. While he obviously believes his own insistence that Tristan is thoroughly tonal, it also allows him the convenience of sidestepping a number of complex musico-dramatic issues. He also resorts on occasion, for example on page 98, to the kind of descriptive jargon in which dear old Imogen Holst indulged in her hagiographical writing on Ben Britten. But there are here many quite wonderful turns of phrase that say much, beautifully, in little space. Thus, for example: "Wagner was an intemperate thinker, whose theories were thrown out from his prodigious sensibility like spray from a ship in full sail". I wish I'd written that. Scruton's almost frightening erudition is paired with an ability to explain in lucid, comprehensible prose what are in fact complex philological and philosophical issues. Whether he is elucidating the Upanishads, Schopenhauer, Kant or mediaeval epics, he never browbeats the reader, but draws him in to arguments that seem to possess a remarkable inevitability. Scruton offers a succinct tour of Wagner's sources for Tristan that is the most lucid that the present writer has yet encountered"

"One of the most important contributions to its subject matter since Ruskin."

"This book is a remarkable addition to the philosophical corpus in analytic musical aesthetics. Scruton may be unmatched in his numerous use of musical examples in a philosophical text. Unfortunately, it is almost too dense and too complicated to be of much use to anyone wanting to learn about musical aesthetics. A reader would be at a loss to understand much of what Scruton advances without not only a full understanding of the history of musical aesthetics in the philosophical realm, but also a good working knowledge of music theory and music history. Also, without a familiarity of the theories of Lerdahl and Jackendoff as well as a full comprehension of Schenkerian Analysis the reader may be at a loss about many of Scruton's explanations. Thus it is not a good tool for those interested in learning musical aesthetics, but it could be invaluable to those who want to deepen their understanding of the analytic end of the field."

"I would like to create a speedier and more efficient system. Careers and reputations are at stake, and it would be good to be able to inject a sense of calm and transparency into procedures."

"Everyone was muttering about Bill Clinton's philanderings before he came to visit, but once he walked into the room none of the women - or men - could get enough of him. He rather ignored me: my hair wasn't big enough."

"I'm now a committed silver surfer."

"I'm fed up with this Scottish waving of nationalism when it suits them. Alright, they're devolved, but I think they did this just to show the rest of us oh, that we are independent, we make our own decisions, and it's been very embarrassing for the rest of us. And it started me thinking along these lines, if Scotland wants to be independent, OK, be my guest, go ahead, do what you want and [Applause] please take back with you all the Scottish politicians - there's so many of them - you know - starting with Blair and Brown and Campbell, take them all back, and off you go, and go off on your own, because actually, we're all subsidising them I think, by way of benefits and all sorts of reasons, and if they want to show how independent they are, OK, thank you and goodbye."

"Moche Crye and no Wull."

"Muche crye and litil woll."

"Some men haue said that it were good for the kyng, that the commons of Englande were made pore, as be the commons of Fraunce. For than thai wolde not rebelle, as now thai done oftentymes; wich the commons of Fraunce do not, nor mey doo; for thai haue no wepen, nor armour, nor good to bie it with all. To theis maner of men mey be said with the phylosopher, ad pauca respicientes de facili ennnciant. This is to say, thai that see but few thynges, woll sone say thair advyses. For soth theis folke consideren litill the good of the reaume of Englond, wherof the myght stondith most vppon archers, wich be no ryche men. And yf thai were made more pouere than thai be, thai shulde not haue wherwith to bie hem bowes, arroes, jakkes, or any other armour of defence, wherby thai myght be able to resiste owre enymes, when thai liste to come vppon vs; wich thai mey do in euery side, considerynge that we be a Ilelonde; and, as it is said before, we mey not sone haue soucour of any other reaume. Wherfore we shull be a pray to all owre enymyes, but yf we be myghty of owreself, wich myght stondith most vppon owre pouere archers; and therfore thai nedun not only haue suche ablements as now is spoken of, but also thai nedun to be much excersised in shotynge, wich mey not be done withowt ryght grete expenses, as euery man experte therin knowith ryght well. Wherfore the makyng pouere of the commons, wich is the makyng pouere of owre archers, shalbe the distruccion of the grettest myght of owre reaume."

"It is cowardisse and lakke off hartes and corage, wich no Ffrenchman hath like vnto a Englysh man. It hath ben offten tymes sene in Englande, that iij. or iiij. theves ffor pouerte haue sett apon vj or vij trewe men, and robbed hem all. But it hath not bene sene in Ffraunce, þat vj. or vij. theves haue be hardy to robbe iij. or iiij. trewe men. Wherfore it is right selde þat Ffrenchmen be hanged ffor robbery, ffor thai haue no hartes to do so terable an acte. Ther bith therfore mo men hanged in Englande in a yere ffor robbery and manslaughter, then þer be hanged in Ffraunce ffor such maner of crime in vij yeres."

"Comparisons are odious."

"One would much rather that twenty guilty persons should escape the punishment of death, than that one innocent person should be condemned and suffer capitally."

"A word must become a friend or you will not understand it. Perhaps you do well to be cool and detached when you are seeking information, but I remind you of the wife who complained, 'When I ask John if he loves me, he thinks I am asking for information'."

"Fraud and deceit abound in these days more than in former times."

"Every libel, which is called famosus libellus, is made either against a private man, or against a public person. If it be against a private man, it deserves a severe punishment."

"Law is the safest helmet."

"The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose."

"They (corporations) cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed nor excommunicate, for they have no souls."

"When poor England stood alone, and had not the access of another kingdom, and yet had more and as potent enemies as now it hath, and yet the King of England prevailed."

"Magna Charta is such a fellow, that he will have no sovereign."

"Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six, Four spend in prayer, the rest on Nature fix."

"The gladsome light of jurisprudence."

"He is not cheated who knows he is being cheated."

"Only this incident inseparable every custom must have, viz., that it be consonant to reason; for how long soever it hath continued, if it be against reason, it is of no force in law."

"Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason... The law, which is perfection of reason."

"A man's house is his castle — et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium."

"The Common lawes of the Realme should by no means be delayed for the law is the surest sanctuary, that a man should take, and the strongest fortresse to protect the weakest of all, lex et tutissima cassis."

"Melius est omnia mala pati quam malo concentire."

"Thought the bribe be small, yet the fault is great."

"The King himself should be under no man, but under God and the Law."

"A witch is a person who hath conference with the Devil to consult with him or to do some act."

"[T]o give every man his due, had it not been for Sir Edward Coke's Reports, which though they may have errors, and some peremptory and extrajudicial resolutions more than are warranted; yet they contain infinite good decisions, and rulings over cases: the law, by this time, had been almost like a ship without ballast."

"The Reminiscent may appear to recommend too much attention to Littleton and Coke: but he never yet has met with a person, thoroughly conversant in the law of real property, who did not think with him,—that he is the best lawyer, and will succeed best in his profession, who best understands Coke upon Littleton. Against one error, he begs leave particularly to caution the student:—not to suspect, for a moment, that, because he himself does not see the utility of what he reads in this work, or the application of the part of it which he is reading, to any practical purpose, it is therefore useless. There is not in the whole of the golden book, a single line, which the student will not, in his professional career, find, on more than one occasion, eminently useful."

"The name of Sir Edward Coke, who lived from 1551 to 1634, is important in the development of English historical study, the evolution of the common law, and the parliamentary conflict with the early Stuarts. Coke used the historical methods of the time in order to magnify the claims of the common law; in order to codify our legal traditions in opposition to royal authority; and, particularly in the 1620's, in order to provide the House of Commons with material for a conflict with the crown on questions of historical interpretation. He helped to secure that the traditional system of English law should win the victory in the 17th century not only over the king but also over rival systems of law which could claim to be perhaps more efficient, perhaps even more up-to-date"

"We must remind ourselves that the weaknesses Coke might have had as a general historian did not prevent his being one of the greatest of English lawyers. If he gave a new turn to the law by what purported to be an appeal to the past, this was itself the mark of a creative mind that was able to achieve practical results by virtue of an added technical ability. He more than anybody else translated medieval limitations upon the monarchy into 17th-century terms; and if he transposed feudal safeguards into common-law restrictions, still his anachronistic sins became a service to the cause of liberty. All that he did helped to confirm the view that in England the king is under the law, and conspired to bring that view of English government to a more complete and vivid realization."

"In the study of law, the common law, be sure, deserves your first and last attention; and he has conquered all the difficulties of this law, who is master of the Institutes. You must conquer the Institutes. The road of science is much easier now than it was when I set out; I began with Coke-Littleton, and broke through."

"We have now waded through the first chapter of Coke upon Littleton; but we must not yet quit Sir Edward; quaint as he is, we must go through another chapter or two, otherwise we shall not be able to split hairs with Mr. Fearne, when we come to contingent remainders; for unless we lay our groundwork in the pages of Sir Edward Coke, whatever superstructure we may raise will be "like a house built upon the sand;" for Coke "is not a name only," but (as to these matters) the law itself."

"Until well into the nineteenth century, one could become a lawyer in the United States simply by studying Coke's First Institute."

"Let not the American student of law supposes that the same necessity does not here exist, as in England, to make this 'golden book,' his principal guide in the real law. All precedent in this country contradicts such an idea. The present generation of distinguished lawyers, as well as that which has just passed away, have given ample proofs of their familiarity with the writings of lord Coke; and our numerous volumes of reports daily illustrate that, with trivial exceptions, what is the law of real property at Westminster Hall, is equally so in the various tribunals throughout our extensive country."

"What Shakespeare has been to literature, what Bacon has been to philosophy, what the translators of the Authorized Version of the Bible have been to religion, Coke has been to the public and private law of England."

"You will recollect that, before the revolution, Coke Littleton was the universal elementary book of Law Students; and a sounder whig never wrote, nor of profounder learning in the orthodox doctrines of the British constitution, or in what were called English liberties."

"The age of Elizabeth and James was a better and brighter era in the history of the English law, and it received uncommon splendour from the philosophy of Bacon, and the erudition of Coke. Lord Bacon's Equity Ordinances, his Maxims and Law Tracts, are fitted to employ and exercise the deepest meditation, and, together with the Commentaries of lord Coke, ought to be studied and mastered by every lawyer who means to be well acquainted with the reasons and grounds of the law, and to adorn the noble science he professes."

"Lord Coke's Institutes have had a most extensive and permanent influence on the common law of England. The first part is a commentary upon Littleton's Tenures; and notwithstanding the magnitude of the work, it has reached seventeen editions. Many of the doctrines which his writings explain and illustrate, have become obsolete, or have been swept away by the current of events. The influence of two centuries must inevitably work a great revolution in the laws and usages, as well as in the manners and taste of a nation. Perhaps every thing useful in the Institutes of Coke may be found more methodically arranged, and more interestingly taught, in the modern compilations and digests; yet his authority on all subjects connected with the ancient law, is too great and too venerable to be neglected."

"His commentary upon magna charta, and particularly on the celebrated 29th chapter, is deeply interesting to the lawyers of the present age, as well from the value and dignity of the text, as the spirit of justice and of civil liberty which pervades and animates the work. In this respect, Lord Coke eclipses his contemporary and great rival. Lord Bacon, who was as inferior to Coke in a just sense and manly vindication of the freedom and privileges of the subject, as he was superior in general science and philosophy. Lord Coke, in a very advanced age, took a principal share in proposing and framing the celebrated Petition of Right, containing a parliamentary sanction of those constitutional limitations upon the royal prerogative, which were deemed essential to the liberties of the nation."

"Even in the days of Elizabeth and James I Sir Edward Coke, the incarnate common law, shovels out his enormous learning in vast disorderly heaps."

"The Work itself is one which cannot be too highly prized, or too earnestly recommended to the diligent study of all who wish to be well grounded in legal principles. For myself, I agree with Mr. Butler in the opinion that HE IS THE BEST LAWYER, WHO BEST UNDERSTANDS COKE UPON LITTLETON—and I think no little of the superficiality which has sometimes been thought to characterize the present bar in contrast with those who have immediately preceded it, is to be attributed to their not having early become familiar with the Institutes... It may be that the original wants method; but the life and spirit of it are lost when it is hacked to pieces to be refitted together upon a new and different skeleton. Lord Coke was deeply imbued with the love of his profession, and one of the advantages derived from the study of his works is, that somewhat of the same spirit is insensibly transferred to his readers."

"Coke's Institutes have had a greater influence on the law of England than any work written between the days of Bracton and those of Blackstone."

"The greatest lawyer, Sir Edward Coke."

"The learning and industry of that great man Sir Edward Coke, whose name ought never to be mentioned in a Court of law without the highest respect."

"Jeo concede que est le opinion Seigniour Coke, mes salva reverentia al ey grand sage et pere del ley. (I grant that it is the opinion of Lord Coke, but salva reverentia to so great a sage and father of the law)."

"That great lawyer was much heated in the controversy between the Courts at Westminster and the Ecclesiastical Courts. In every part of his conduct his passions influenced his judgment. Vir acer et vehemens. His law was continually warped by the different situations in which he found himself."

"Don't quote the distinction, for the honour of my lord Coke."

"Yet we are obliged, to regard a man with so little about him that is ornamental or entertaining, or attractive, as a very considerable personage in the history of his country. Belonging to an age of gigantic intellect and gigantic attainments, he was admired by his contemporaries, and time has in no degree impaired his fame. He is most familiar to us as an author. Smart legal practitioners, who are only desirous of making money by their profession, neglect his works, and sneer at them as pedantic and antiquated; but they continue to be studied by all who wish to know the history and to acquire a scientific and liberal knowledge of our judicial and political institutions. His Opus Magnum is this Commentary upon Littleton, which in itself may be said to contain the whole common law of England as it then existed. Notwithstanding its want of method and its quaintness, the author writes from such a full mind, with such mastery over his subject, and with such unbroken spirit, that every law student who has made, or is ever likely to make, any proficiency, must peruse him with delight."

"With that she dasht her on the lippes, So dyed double red: Hard was the heart that gave the blow, Soft were those lips that bled."

"We thinke no greater blisse then such To be as be we would, When blessed none but such as be The same as be they should."

"Much like a subtle spider which doth sit In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide; If aught do touch the utmost thread of it, She feels it instantly on every side."

"Wedlock, indeed, hath oft compared been To public feasts, where meet a public rout,— Where they that are without would fain go in, And they that are within would fain go out."

"Why did my parents send me to the schools That I with knowledge might enrich my mind? Since the desire to know first made men fools, And did corrupt the root of all mankind."

"What can we know, or what can we discern, When error chokes the windows of the mind, The diverse forms of things, how can we learn, That have been ever from our birthday blind?"

"We seek to know the moving of each sphere, And the strange cause of th' ebbs and floods of Nile; But of that clock within our breasts we bear, The subtle motions we forget the while."

"We that acquaint ourselves with every zone, And pass both tropics and behold the poles, When we come home, are to ourselves unknown, And unacquainted still with our own souls."

"As spiders touched seek their webs' inmost part, As bees in storms unto their hives return, As blood in danger gathers to the heart, As men seek towns when foes the country burn."

"I know my soul hath power to know all things, Yet is she blind and ignorant of all; I know I am one of nature's little kings, Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall."

"I know my life's a pain and but a span, I know my sense is mocked with everything; And to conclude, I know myself a man, Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing."

"The Farmer will never be happy again; He carries his heart in his boots; For either the rain is destroying his grain Or the drought is destroying his roots."

"For I must write to The Times tonight, and save the world from sin."

"Don't let's go to the dogs tonight, For mother will be there."

"As my poor father used to say In 1863, Once people start on all this Art Goodbye, moralitee! And what my father used to say Is good enough for me."

"Let's stop somebody from doing something! Everybody does too much."

"The laws were very comical; to bet was voted lax, But your betting was the only thing that nobody could tax."

"Bus driver, bus driver, the sirens have gone, The bombs may come down, but the buses go on; Bus driver, I know you won't think me a snobIf I whisper: "Bus driver, I don't want your job"."

"How proud upon your quarterdeck you stand, Conductor, Captain of the mighty bus! Like some Columbus you survey the Strand,A calm newcomer in a sea of fuss."

"Nobody's wrong but England – and England's always wrong, Too late – or else too early – too soft – or else too strong. And when for once the wide world begins to praise her name Her own sons crowd and hurry to shout her back to shame."

"The race is run - the winner wears the laurels, But you and I not empty go away; For we have seen the least unkind of quarrels; The young men glowing in the friendly way. Let us be glad - but not because of winning, Let us go home, to family today. God make our Games a glorious beginning, And hand in hand, together guide us on our way."

"There's alcohol in plant and tree. It must be Nature's plan That there should be in fair degree Some alcohol in Man."

"The portions of a woman which appeal to man's depravity Are constructed with considerable care."

"Citizens who take it upon themselves to do unusual actions which attract the attention of the police should be careful to bring these actions into one of the recognized categories of crimes and offences, for it is intolerable that the police should be put to the pains of inventing reasons for finding them undesirable."

"It is like the thirteenth stroke of a crazy clock, which not only is itself discredited but casts a shade of doubt over all previous assertions."

"It cannot be too clearly understood that this is not a free country, and it will be an evil day for the legal profession when it is."

"People must not do things for fun. We are not here for fun. There is no reference to fun in any Act of Parliament."

"A highbrow is the kind of person who looks at a sausage and thinks of Picasso."

"A man who has made up his mind on a given subject twenty-five years ago and continues to hold his political opinions after he has been proved to be wrong is a man of principle; while he who from time to time adapts his opinions to the changing circumstances of life is an opportunist."

"The critical period in matrimony is breakfast-time."

"The Englishman never enjoys himself except for a noble purpose. He does not play cricket because it is a good game, but because it creates good citizens. He does not love motor-races for their own sake, but for the advantages they bring to the engineering firms of his country. And it is common knowledge that the devoted persons who conduct and regularly attend horse-races do not do so because they like it, but for the benefit of the breed of the English horse."

"Was the cow crossed?" "No, your worship, it was an open cow."

"Justice should be cheap but judges expensive."

"The whole Constitution has been erected upon the assumption that the King not only is capable of doing wrong but is more likely to do wrong than other men if he is given the chance."

"Mr. Herbert's is one of the most interesting and moving English war books."

"This story of a valiant heart tested to destruction took rank when it was first published a few months after the Armistice, as one of the most moving of the novels produced by the war. It was at that time a little swept aside by the revulsion of the public mind from anything to do with the awful period just ended. But on rereading it nine years later it seems to hold its place, and indeed a permanent place, in war literature. It was one of those cries of pain wrung from the fighting troops by the prolonged and measureless torment through which they passed; and like the poems of Siegfried Sassoon should be read in each generation, so that men and women may rest under no illusion about what war means."

"It [The Secret Battle] is one of the most moving books I have ever read."

"The best book yet published about life in the trenches."

"This is the most riotous satire on legal procedure that has ever been written."

"Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason."

"We can judge the intent of the parties only by their words."

"None but himself can be his parallel."

"A delusion, a mockery, and a snare."

"The mere repetition of the Cantilena of lawyers cannot make it law, unless it can be traced to some competent authority; and if it be irreconcilable, to some clear legal principle."

"One subject, and one subject only, beyond the limits of his private grief had still power to move him deeply—too deeply for his happiness and peace—and that was the terrible, ever-haunting subject of Slavery and the Slave Trade. By this time Mrs. Stowe's master work had taken by storm the attention of all the world. Knowing the effect it would have on their father, his children at first tried to keep it from him, but this, in the case of one not absolutely secluded from society, was of course impossible. He read it, and with what result is easy to conceive. It moved him not only with pity and horror, but filled him also with bitterness and wrath."

"Especially I should say, if you would allow me to do so, that your name stands already high among all classes in this country as a model of uprightness and independence in the judicial office."

"The criminal law stands to the passion of revenge in much the same relation as marriage to the sexual appetite."

"I am not the advocate of Slavery, Caste, and Hatred, nor do I deny that a sense may be given to the words, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, in which they may be regarded as good. I wish to assert with respect to them two propositions. First, that in the present day even those who use those words most rationally — that is to say, as the names of elements of social life which, like others, have their advantages and disadvantages according to time, place, and circumstance — have a great disposition to exaggerate their advantages and to deny the existence, or at any rate to underrate the importance, of their disadvantages. Next, that whatever signification be attached to them, these words are ill-adapted to be the creed of a religion, that the things which they denote are not ends in themselves, and that when used collectively the words do not typify, however vaguely, any state of society which a reasonable man ought to regard with enthusiasm or self-devotion."

"Parliamentary government is simply a mild and disguised form of compulsion. We agree to try strength by counting heads instead of breaking heads, but the principle is exactly the same... The minority gives way not because it is convinced that it is wrong, but because it is convinced that it is a minority."

"To me this question whether liberty is a good or a bad thing appears as irrational as the question whether fire is a good or a bad thing. It is both good and bad according to time, place, and circumstance, and a complete answer to the question, In what cases is liberty good and in what cases is it bad? would involve not merely a universal history of mankind, but a complete solution of the problems which such a history would offer."

"Originality consists in thinking for yourself, not in thinking differently from other people."

"Persuasion, indeed, is a kind of force. It consists in showing a person the consequences of his actions. It is, in a word, force applied through the mind."

"To try to regulate the internal affairs of a family, the relations of love or friendship, or many other things of the same sort, by law or by the coercion of public opinion, is like trying to pull an eyelash out of a man’s eye with a pair of tongs. They may put out the eye, but they will never get hold of the eyelash"

"Men have an all but incurable propensity to try to prejudge all the great questions which interest them by stamping their prejudices upon their language. Law, in many cases, means not only a command, but a beneficent command. Liberty means not the bare absence of restraint, but the absence of injurious restraint. Justice means not mere impartiality in applying general rules to particular cases, but impartiality in applying beneficent general rules to particular cases. Some people half consciously use the word "true" as meaning useful as well as true. Of course language can never be made absolutely neutral and colourless; but unless its ambiguities are understood, accuracy of thought is impossible, and the injury done is proportionate to the logical force and general vigour of character of those who are misled."

"To try to make men equal by altering social arrangements is like trying to make the cards of equal value by shuffling the pack."

"The result of cutting [political power] up into little bits is simply that the man who can sweep the greatest number into one heap will govern the rest... In a pure democracy the ruling men will be the wirepullers and their friends; but they will no more be on an equality with the voters than soldiers of Ministers of State are on an equality with the subjects of monarchy."

"To say that the law of force is abandoned because force is regular, unopposed, and beneficially exercised, is to say that day and night are now such well-established institutions that the sun and moon are mere superfluities."

"Stephen's book [Liberty, Equality, Fraternity] is the finest exposition of conservative thought in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It is a robust polemic, sometimes extravagant in its epigrams, but tinged throughout by that belief in the religious basis of human society which has been the strength of conservatism from Burke to to-day. It is a frank and die-hard statement of the ideas dominant among the educated and governing classes of English society."

"I did not know that the same ground had already been covered by Mr. Justice Stephen in his book Liberty, Equality, Fraternity published in 1873. It was not until much later that I was with great difficulty able to obtain from the Holborn Public Library a copy of the book held together with an elastic band. I hope that, as a result of Professor Hart's criticism of it, more interest will now be aroused in a valuable work. Although I missed altogether one cogent argument advanced by Stephen, I find great similarity between his view and mine on the principles which should affect the use of the criminal law for the enforcement of morals. Commenting on the work of Mr. Justice Stephen and myself, Professor Hart noted that "the similarity in the general tone and sometimes in the detail of their argument is very great". The fact that we reached our conclusions independently gives additional force to Professor Hart's comment (which, however it may have been intended, I regard as complimentary) that they reveal "the outlook characteristic of the English judiciary"."

"His criticism of Mill is to be found in the sombre and impressive book Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, which he wrote as a direct reply to Mill's essay On Liberty. It is evident from the tone of the book that Stephen thought he had found crushing arguments against Mill and had demonstrated that the law might justifiably enforce morality as such or, as he said, that the law should be "a persecution of the grosser forms of vice." Nearly a century later, on the publication of the Wolfenden Committee's report, Lord Devlin, now a member of the House of Lords and a most distinguished writer on the criminal law, in his essay on The Enforcement of Morals took as his target the Report's contention "that there must be a realm of morality and immorality which is not the law's business" and argued in opposition to it that "the suppression of vice is as such the law's business as the suppression of subversive activities." Though a century divides these two legal writers, the similarity in the general tone and sometimes in the detail of their arguments is very great."

"Sir James Stephen was eminently unromantic. His qualities were those of solidity and force; he preponderated with a character of formidable grandeur, with a massive and rugged intellectual sanity, a colossal commonsense."

"In all he wrote there are words of wisdom and strength. Often, in years to come, when sentiment is tyrannous and when people are afraid to speak plain, because unpleasant, things, will this sturdy spokesman of stern truths, the last of the Benthamites, be missed."

"Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling From glen to glen, and down the mountain side, The summer's gone, and all the roses falling, It's you, it's you must go, and I must bide."

"And once again the scene was chang’d, New earth there seem’d to be, I saw the Holy City Beside the tideless sea; The light of God was on its streets, The gates were open wide, And all who would might enter, And no one was denied. No need of moon or stars by night, Or sun to shine by day, It was the new Jerusalem, That would not pass away."

"Roses are shining in Picardy In the hush of the silver dew; Roses are flowering in Picardy But there's never a rose like you. And the roses will die with the summer time And our roads may be far apart, But there's one rose that dies not in Picardy; 'Tis the rose that I keep in my heart."

"Oh, we'm come up from Somerset, Where the cider apples grow, We'm come to see your Majesty, An' how the world do go. And when you're wanting anyone, If you'll kindly let us know, We'll all come up from Somerset, Because we loves you so!"

"I stand in a land of roses, But I dream of a land of snow, Where you and I were happy, In the years of long ago."

"I have knelt in the mighty temples, But the dumb gods make no sign; They cannot speak to my spirit, As thy soul speaks to mine."

"Socialism is the legitimate and inevitable corollary of Mr. Bright's doctrine. If want is the crime of the Government, then the duty of the Government must be to provide against want. This is Socialism pure and simple. It begins with national workshops, and ends with what Mr. Carlyle calls a "whiff of grapeshot." Mr. Bright may pretend to direct his attacks against the aristocracy alone, but it is the possessors of capital, the employers of labour, the great middle class of this country who have real cause to dread his revolutionary language."

"If there be any party which is more pledged than another to resist a policy of restrictive legislation, having for its object social coercion, that party is the Liberal party. (Cheers.) But liberty does not consist in making others do what you think right, (Hear, hear.) The difference between a free Government and a Government which is not free is principally this—that a Government which is not free interferes with everything it can, and a free Government interferes with nothing except what it must. A despotic Government tries to make everybody do what it wishes; a Liberal Government tries, as far as the safety of society will permit, to allow everybody to do as he wishes. It has been the tradition of the Liberal party consistently to maintain the doctrine of individual liberty. It is because they have done so that England is the place where people can do more what they please than in any other country in the world."

"It is this practice of allowing one set of people to dictate to another set of people what they shall do, what they shall think, what they shall drink, when they shall go to bed, what they shall buy, and where they shall buy it, what wages they shall get and how they shall spend them, against which the Liberal party have always protested."

"As regards the principle of the Bill, I, for one, am entirely in accord with it... Why, it is the great principle of the "three acres and a cow" which we fought out at the Election of 1885. ... The principle of the Bill, as I take it, is to be this—that the Local Authority is to have power by compulsion to acquire land for the advantage of the community in letting it out, or otherwise disposing of it to individuals. ... This was the great charge of Socialism which was brought against my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham; but, happily, we are all Socialists now."

"We are supreme and irresistible in our force. We can do what we like. We can crush these Dutchmen in the Transvaal, and you will have to crush the Dutchmen all over South Africa. You may send out a corps d'armée and you can do that; of that there is no doubt. But that, I hope, is not the question. For us it is not what we can do, but what is right we should do and what we ought to do. That is the only supremacy which I claim for the English nation."

"Harcourt had many advantages as a speaker: a commanding presence, a classical style, a caustic humour, considerable erudition, and a wide knowledge of affairs. I heard him make many powerful speeches, but he was not naturally eloquent. I doubt if he ever moved an audience either to deep feeling or to tears—which might serve as a definition of oratory; and he failed to convince his hearers of sincerity or conviction—an impression which was encouraged by some of the circumstances of his political career. In satire, raillery, and scorn, not always highly refined, he was proficient. I remember calling upon him once in his rooms at Cambridge, where he was Professor of International Law, in 1879. He handed me a copy of a speech in this vein which he had just delivered at Southport in Lancashire—a place I was later to represent in Parliament—with the remark: "That speech will make me Home Secretary in the next Administration"—and so it did. Though he was very effective in improvised retort,—more so I think than when prepared—he became in later years so much a slave to his MS., that he lost all appearance of spontaneity."

"His literary knowledge gave a fine flavour to his speeches, and he made by far the best adaptation of a quotation that I heard in the House of Commons."

"As militant pamphleteer Harcourt was of the first order—as good as Junius or Swift or Bolingbroke, in weight, scorn, directness, trenchant stroke. When any ecclesiastical pretensions irritated the Erastianism that was the deepest and most undying of his political tenets, his pen made prelates and their crosiers shake."

"Harcourt was the last of that long train of reasoners, debaters, orators, law-makers, great from Somers and Sir Robert Walpole onwards. New elements of feeling were edging their way into the public mind. The old plain, hard, secular, commonsense, after the Reform Bill of 1832 had revolutionised the foundations of parliamentary aristocracy, has become deepened and enriched, but changed. Harcourt was the last stout-hearted representative of the parliamentary polity of a long and not inglorious era."

"Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God's best gifts. It involves many things, but, above all, the power of going out of one's self and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another."

"[T]he least of the muscular Christians has hold of the old chivalrous and Christian belief, that a man's body is given him to be trained and brought into subjection, and then used for the protection of the weak, the advancement of all righteous causes, and the subduing of the earth which God has given to the children of men. He does not hold that mere strength or activity are in themselves worthy of any respect or worship, or that one man is a bit better than another because he can knock him down or carry a bigger sack of potatoes than he."

"Heaven, they say, protects children, sailors, and drunken men; and whatever answers to Heaven in the academical system protects freshmen."

"[W]hat will not a delicately nurtured British lady go through when her mind is bent either on pleasure or duty?"

"Women, to be very attractive to all sorts of different people, must have great readiness of sympathy. Many have it naturally, and many work hard in acquiring a good imitation of it. In the first case it is against the nature of such persons to be monopolized for more than a very short time; in the second all their trouble would be thrown away if they allowed themselves to be monopolized. Once in their lives, indeed, they will be, and ought to be, and that monopoly lasts, or should last for ever; but instead of destroying in them that which was their great charm, it only deepens and widens it, and the sympathy which was before fitful, and, perhaps, wayward, flows on in a calm and healthy stream, blessing and cheering all who come within reach of its exhilarating and life-giving waters."

"For the credit of muscular Christianity, one must say that it was not her weight, but the tumult in his own inner man, which made her bearer totter. Nevertheless, if one is wholly unused to the exercise, the carrying a healthy young English girl weighing a good eight stone, is as much as most men can conveniently manage."

"Young men are pretty much like a drove of sheep; any one who takes a decided line on certain matters, is sure to lead all the rest."

"There's always a voice saying the right thing to you somewhere, if you'll only listen for it."

"It was because you were out of sorts with the world, smarting with the wrongs you saw on every side, struggling after something better and higher and sympathizing with the poor and weak, that I loved you. We should never have been here, dear, if you had been a young gentleman satisfied with himself and the world, and likely to get on well in society."

"The consciousness of the darkness in one and around one brings the longing for light. And then the light dawns; through mist and fog, perhaps, but enough to pick one's way by." He stopped a moment and then added, "and shines ever brighter unto the perfect day."

"Yes, that new world, through the golden gates of which they had passed together, which is the old, old world after all, and nothing else. The same old and new world it was to our fathers and mothers as it is to us, and shall be to our children — a world clear and bright, and ever becoming clearer and brighter to the humble, and true, and pure of heart, to every man and woman who shall live in it as the children of the Maker and Lord of it, their Father. To them, and to them alone, is that world, old and new, given, and all that is in it, fully and freely to enjoy. All others but these are occupying where they have no title; "they are sowing much, but bringing in little; they eat, but have not enough; they drink, but are not filled with drink; they clothe themselves, but there is none warm; and he of them who earneth wages earneth wages to put them into a bag with holes." But these have the world and all things for a rightful and rich inheritance; for they hold them as dear children of Him in whose hands it and they are lying, and no power in earth or hell shall pluck them out of their Father's hand."

"[I]n this life-long fight, to be waged by everyone of us as single-handed against a host of foes, the last requisite for a good fight, the last proof and test of our courage and manfulness, must be loyalty to truth — the most rare and difficult of all human qualities. For such loyalty, as it grows in perfection, asks ever more and more of us, and sets before us a standard of manliness always rising higher and higher."

"Christ's whole life on earth was the assertion and example of true manliness — the setting forth in living act and word what man is meant to be, and how he should carry himself in this world of God — one long campaign in which the "temptation" stands out as the first great battle and victory."

"From behind the shadow of the still small voice — more awful than tempest or earthquake — more sure and persistent than day and night — is always sounding full of hope and strength to the weariest of us all, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.""

"Thomas Hughes, the author of “Tom Brown at Rugby,” has written a little book called “The Manliness of Christ” It would be an excellent thing if our young men became sufficiently interested in this book to read it."

"The scene was more beautiful far to the eye Than if day in its pride had arrayed it."

"And o'er them the lighthouse looked lovely as hope,— That star of life's tremulous ocean."

"Oh, Sussex, Sussex by the sea! Good old Sussex by the Sea! You may tell them all that we stand or fall For Sussex by the sea!"

"And grant that a man read all the books of music that ever were wrote, I shall not allow that music is or can be understood out of them, no more than the taste of meats out of cookish receipt books."

"Music is the medicine of a troubled mind."

"Nominal damages are in effect, only a peg to hang costs on."

"There is no presumption in this country that every person knows the law: it would be contrary to common sense and reason if it were so."

"Common sense still lingers in Westminster Hall."

"In the eye of the law no doubt, man and wife are for many purposes one: but that is a strong figurative expression, and cannot be so dealt with as that all the consequences must follow which would result from its being literally true."

""As the crow flies"—a popular and picturesque expression to denote a straight line."

"After a hard frost a man might wake in the morning and find he was breaking a covenant."

"If a man go into the London Docks sober without means of getting drunk, and comes out of one of the cellars very drunk wherein are a million gallons of wine, I think that would be reasonable evidence that he had stolen some of the wine in that cellar, though you could not prove that any wine was stolen, or any wine was missed."

"An enactment for the favour and liberty of the subject ought to have a liberal construction."

"Fictions of law must be consistent with justice."

"You silly old fool, you don't even know the alphabet of your own silly old business."

"My lords, we are vertebrate animals, we are mammalia! My learned friend's manner would be intolerable in Almighty God to a black beetle."

"There is no instance where men are so easily imposed upon, as at the time of their dying under the pretence of charity."

"God forbid that Judges upon their oath should make resolutions to enlarge jurisdiction."

"I should have all manner of tenderness for the right of the College; they are nurseries of Religion and Learning, and therefore all donations for increase and augmentation of their revenue are to be liberally expounded."

"It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience."

"He the robe of justice wore, Sully'd not, as heretofore, When the magistrate was sought With yearly gifts. Of what avail Are guilty hoards? for life is frail; And we are judg'd where favour is not bought."

"THe engaged Party have laid the Axe to the very root of Monarchy and Parliaments; they have caſt all the Myſteries and ſecrets of Government, both by Kings and Parliaments, before the vulgar, (like Pearl before Swine) and have taught both the Souldiery and People to look ſo far into them as to ravel back all Governments, to the firſt principles of nature: He that ſhakes Fundamentals, means to take down the Fabrick. Nor have they been careful to ſave the materials for Poſterity. What theſe negative Statiſts will ſet up in the room of theſe ruined buildings, doth not appear, only I will ſay, They have made the People thereby so curious and so arrogant, that they will never find humility enough to submit to a civil rule;; their aim therefore from the beginning was to rule them by the power of the Sword, a military Ariſtocracy or Oligarchy, as now they do. Amongſt the ancient Romans, Tentare arcana Imperii, to prophane the Myſteries of State, was Treaſon; becauſe there can be no form of Government without its proper Myſteries, which are no longer Myſteries than while they are concealed. Ignorance, and Admiration ariſing from Ignorance are the Parents of civil devotion and obedience, though not of Theological."

"Four-point-two kilometres is a long way for a frozen body to sink."

"My father taught me to understand that not much was impossible, if you had a mind to go after it. What seems beyond you is only unreachable if that’s what you believe."

"Nothing excited me more than opening up the atlas and seeing places and seas, imagining what they looked like and what kind of life the people had."

"My love for the water would always be tempered by respect for dangers that must never be underestimated."

"My own feeling was that witnessing the explosion of an atomic bomb, and having to examine all the dead animals, had a profound effect on my father."

"Always when we walked, it was clear to me how much he loved nature, wild flowers, animals in their natural habitat and the simple pleasures of a beautiful sunset. My love for the environment did not develop out of a vacuum."

"Going against the tide has never been difficult for me. It wasn’t even a conscious decision but the natural consequence of following my own instinct."

"It took me over three years to get the beret and the most enriching part of the experience was getting to know men for whom you would have given your life on the battlefield. It is a big thing to say there are people who are not your family for whom you would give up your life. But that is how close we became."

"Ultimately I wanted to be a pioneer swimmer, a distant descendant of Scott, Amundsen and Hillary, except that I would be an explorer of the water."

"I resolved to follow my dream. I wanted to push every boundary. I wanted to swim further than anyone else. I wanted to cross seas and round capes that no one had dreamed of swimming before. And I wanted to swim in waters that were so cold no one thought it was possible to survive in them. And though it promised to make me poor and would take away the security provided by a career in law, that didn’t worry me."

"I could not believe what I was seeing: everywhere there were whale bones. Thousands of them stacked on top of each other. They rose from the seabed almost to the surface of the water. There were big bones. I could make out many of them: rib bones, jaw bones, vertebrae. In some places they were piled so high that, when I took a stroke, my hands touched them. I thought of all the beautiful whales I’d seen around the coast of South Africa and Norway that add so much to the area. How many whales were hunted and brought to this island before having their carcasses burned for oil and their bones dumped in this way? It disgusted me to such an extent that I considered stopping the swim to move it elsewhere, but I decided I had to press on."

"I have been haunted by that swim through the whale graveyard and haven’t been able to get the image of the bones out of my head. Man hunted whales almost to the point of extinction, not seeming to care that we would lose one of the wonders of the sea world forever. It is the coldness of the water in Antarctica that preserves the bones and makes it look like they were left there yesterday but I like to think they are there as a reminder of man’s potential for folly."

"...when you swim from England to France you’ve got to leave your doubt on the beach at Dover."

"When people say to me, you must have a very strong mind to swim across the North Pole, or off Antarctica or on Mount Everest, I tell them that endurance swimming builds good mental strength."

"I don’t know of any sport where the goalposts can shift the way they do with endurance swimming."

"Thoughts alone won’t make extraordinary things happen. But nothing ever happens if you don’t visualise it first."

"A massive turquoise glacier feeds into Magdalenefjord, with chunks of ice as big as buildings breaking off and landing in the water to float away as icebergs. As I swam past them, with my head in the water, I heard a tantalising sound: a snap-crackle-pop, just like Rice Krispies in milk. It was the sound of tiny air bubbles being released from the ice – air that had been trapped there as much as 3,000 years ago. To swim through this sound, I thought, is to swim in history."

"They have [...] a split personality. One moment they’re your best mate, and next they are trying to drag you down to the bottom of the sea to drown you. [...] It’s just astonishing."

"The essence of any great achievement is to believe in your purpose."

"I knew now that I had to stand up and start speaking about protecting our environment. From that moment on, every swim should have the aim of inspiring people to protect and preserve the world’s oceans and all that live in them."

"The most powerful form of self-belief comes from believing in something greater than you. Because when you’ve got purpose, everything becomes possible."

"I’m not a rule-breaker by nature. But there are times when you need to untangle yourself from red tape. Because the truth is, if you wait for permission, some things will simply never happen."

"When you have hope in the future, you have power in the present. And when you lose that hope, your dream goes with it."

"Never plan for victory and defeat in your mind at the same time."

"This wasn’t some kind of stunt. This was a symbolic swim, and I needed to be courageous. [...] Swimming in a wetsuit or drysuit just wouldn’t send the right signal."

"When you are walking up a mountain to attempt something that nobody’s ever tried before, and you pass people bringing corpses down, it becomes very clear that if you get it wrong, the consequences could be fatal."

"[...] it’s much easier to achieve big dreams than it is small ones. Big dreams require big passion. And when you’ve got passion it’s easier to inspire others to come along and help you."

"I’ve been swimming for 25 years, and I don’t think there is one swim that I have done where someone didn’t say beforehand, ‘I don’t think it’s possible’ or ‘You’ll never make it’. If someone tells you that you can’t achieve your dream, don’t waste good time arguing. Walk away and do it."

"Don’t look for other people to validate your dreams. If it feels right, just go for it."

"No matter how tough my day has been, when I dive into the sea, the world seems perfect."

"There’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity, which should never be crossed."

"I always tell young swimmers: 'Practice things until you can't get them wrong. Not until you get them right.' There's a big difference."

"Law taught me how to argue passionately and rationally. That’s key to being a successful environmental campaigner. If you are too emotional you run the risk of turning off policy makers. And if you can’t present your arguments rationally, no one will listen to you."

"When I can’t decide which path to take, I have a meeting with the 75-year-old me. That person usually knows what to do."

"If you have a passion, follow it. It's the best barometer of what you will be good at. And choose a career that you enjoy – the extra money of a job you detest isn’t worth it."

"I tolerate cold water. Anyone who says they love swimming in freezing water is either lying or has never done it."

"I think it foolhardy to predict the absolute limits of human endurance."

"Too little confidence, and you're unable to act; too much confidence, and you're unable to hear."

"I look for swims where I can carry a powerful message. No message, no swim. I don’t get wet now unless it’s for a reason."

"I’ve swum through some very cold and rough seas. I think that’s made me more determined than the average person."

"As a pioneer swimmer, you've got to be willing to fail and try again. The point isn’t to learn to fail, the point is to learn to bounce back."

"There's a tyranny in perfection. Just do things to the very best of your ability. Then move on."

"My mind has to be ready. My body also has to be ready. But even more important, my heart has to be ready. What I mean by that is for the swims I do, I must have a burning reason."

"Being the first to undertake a swim is exponentially harder than going second. You don’t know what will happen. The fear can be crippling. It’s much easier to go second. You know it’s possible. But the world is divided into pioneers and followers. You are one or the other. I prefer to be a pioneer."

"The trick is to make fear your friend. Fear forces you to prepare more rigorously and see potential problems more quickly."

"To do anything worthwhile, you will face periods of grinding doubt and fear."

"You must not dither - swim like you're running through a minefield."

"You don't know pain until you've had a stalactite in your cock."

"If we pass on an unsustainable environment to our children we have failed them."

"There’s nothing more chilling than swimming across open sea, where recently there used to be a solid glacier."

"A thought came across my mind: if things go pear-shaped on this swim, how long will it take for my frozen body to sink the four and a half kilometers to the bottom of the ocean?"

"There is nothing more powerful than the made-up mind."

"We made fracking a civil rights issue. Because that is what it is. We all have a right to a healthy environment and to clean water. And so do our children."

"Unless our children have been into nature, it is unlikely they will care about it when they grow up."

"Everywhere water is under threat. It is our most precious resource. And there is no alternative to it."

"The right to have our environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations is our most important human right."

"Sometimes the moments that challenge us the most, define us."

"The English Channel is the perfect stretch of water to truly test the human mind."

"These are areas of unparalleled natural beauty to be handed to our children undisturbed. We are merely custodians. You would not build a toll plaza and an administration block in the Grand Canyon or next to the Victoria Falls or within any other World Heritage Site.”"

"A healthy ocean is an ocean with sharks. Take away an apex predator and it’s like removing the lions from the Serengeti. It won’t be long before the gazelle, zebras and wildebeest have multiplied and eaten all the grass. And when the land is laid bare the grazers will starve to death. Predators are crucial for a healthy ecosystem – be it on land or in the water."

"An estimated 100 million sharks are fished out of the world's oceans every year. Take a minute to mull over that figure. That's over a quarter of a million animals each day … If this number of humans were killed in a year, it would be called genocide. There is a name for what is happening in our oceans today: it is ecocide."

"When we set aside MPAs we protect the marine habitat. When we do that, fish stocks recover. Which supports food security. When we create MPAs, we protect the coral, which protects the shoreline and provides shelter for fish. Marine Protected Areas are places people want to visit for ecotourism, so it's good for the economy. It has, if you'll pardon the pun, a ripple effect. Marine Protected Areas are good for the world economy, for the health of the oceans, for every person living on this planet."

"For us to find lasting peace between people, we must first make peace with nature."

"I always feel nostalgic when I disembark (off a ship). It's not that I don't like land. I just love being at sea."

"To succeed as a pioneer you need two things: ignorance and purpose. Ignorance of just how tough the path ahead will be. And a driving purpose, which keeps you going nonetheless."

"Most Channel crossings are won or lost before the first stroke is even taken."

"Never, ever did I think that there would be a debate in this arid country about which was more important – gas or water. We can survive without gas. We cannot live without water."

"Look around the world. Wherever you damage the environment, you have conflict. We have had enough conflict in [South Africa] – now is the time for peace."

"Now is the time for change. We cannot drill our way out of the energy crisis. The era of fossil fuels is over. We must invest in renewable energy. And we must not delay."

"The right to have our environment protected for the benefit of our generation and the benefit of future generations is our most crucial human right. I do not say that lightly - especially given South Africa’s past."

"We cannot afford the luxury of cynicism or even pessimism in our reaction to climate change. The situation is too serious. We must tackle it head on – and immediately."

"I have seen what the challenge of the impossible does to some athlete's minds - once their minds accept that the impossible is achievable, their bodies soon follow."

"Afterwards, I saw a visible transformation in Pugh, and was reminded again of the power of a single event to change a sportsperson's life radically. I have witnessed this twice in my career - once when Joel Stransky kicked the winning goal in the 1995 Rugby World Cup final, and now with Pugh's North Pole swim. Both became more complete and confident people after achieving such sporting milestones."

"Lewis Pugh is a maritime lawyer by training and a pursuer of dreams by inclination. There isn't an ocean he hasn't wanted to swim, or a mountain he hasn't wan't to climb, and it's no surprise that he quit his well-paid lawyer's job in the City of London for a more interesting life."

"He just pulls on his Speedos and gets on with it. It's Britishly mad."

"The United Kingdom's contribution to the European Convention on Human Rights has been immense. British parliamentarians and lawyers played a key role in its conception and its drafting."

"The court has overseen the slow but steady consolidation of the rule of law and democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. Much remains to be done, but the court can be proud of what it has achieved over the past 10 years."

"The Strasbourg court has been particularly respectful of decisions emanating from courts in the UK since the coming into effect of the Human Rights Act, and this because of the very high quality of those judgments."

"It is disappointing to hear senior British politicians lending their voices to criticisms more frequently heard in the popular press, often based on a misunderstanding of the court's role and history, and of the legal issues at stake. It is particularly unfortunate that a single judgment of the court on a case relating to UK prisoners' voting rights, which was delivered in 2005 and has still not been implemented, has been used as the springboard for a sustained attack on the court and has led to repeated calls for the granting of powers of Parliament to override judgments of the court against the UK, and even for the withdrawal of the UK from the convention."

"The UK can be proud of its real contribution to this unique system and its influence in bringing about effective human rights protection throughout the European continent. It would be deeply regrettable if it were to allow its commitment to that system to be called into question by a failure to defend it against its detractors or to offer its strong support for the vital work of the court."

"A good corroborating chain, if they fail in the last link, the whole will fall to the ground."

"Gentlemen, I speak for myself as well as for you: I never read anything about what may come before me in a Court of Justice; I keep my mind free from everything of the kind. There is often a necessity for me to look into the law: but I never suffer my mind to be biassed by reports, or such papers or pamphlets as are written with a view to pervert justice."

"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property. That right is preserved sacred and incommunicable in all instances, where it has not been taken away or abridged by some public law for the good of the whole. The cases where this right of property is set aside by private law, are various. Distresses, executions, forfeitures, taxes etc are all of this description; wherein every man by common consent gives up that right, for the sake of justice and the general good. By the laws of England, every invasion of private property, be it ever so minute, is a trespass. No man can set his foot upon my ground without my license, but he is liable to an action, though the damage be nothing; which is proved by every declaration in trespass, where the defendant is called upon to answer for bruising the grass and even treading upon the soil. If he admits the fact, he is bound to show by way of justification, that some positive law has empowered or excused him. The justification is submitted to the judges, who are to look into the books; and if such a justification can be maintained by the text of the statute law, or by the principles of common law. If no excuse can be found or produced, the silence of the books is an authority against the defendant, and the plaintiff must have judgment."

"Taxation and representation are inseparable... whatever is a man's own, is absolutely his own; no man has a right to take it from him without his consent, either expressed by himself or representative; whoever attempts to do it, attempts an injury; whoever does it, commits a robbery; he throws down and destroys the distinction between liberty and slavery."

"As to Greek and Latin, which I understood was to be the work of this term, I imagine you want no tutor. Yet I wish you to make a point of studying that branch of literature because, though these languages are dead, you will form a taste for elegant writing from those authors much better than from any writing of the moderns. And I would more particularly recommend the Ancients to your perusal as they are the only instructors in the art of speaking as well as composition, the first of which must from your rank be your principal occupation when you make your entrance in the great world as a public character."

"History repeats itself: historians repeat each other."

"Autobiography—that unrivalled vehicle for telling the truth about other people."

"An housbande can not well thryue by his come without he haue other cattell, nor by his cattell without come. For els he shall be a byer, a borrower or a beggar."

"Those that be washen wyll not take scabbe after (if they haue sufficient meate); for that is the beste grease that is to a shepe, to grease hym in the mouthe with good meate."

"It is a wive's occupation to wynowe all manner of cornes, to make malte, to washe and wrynge, to make heye, shere corne, and, in time of nede, to helpe her husbande to fyll the muckewayne or dounge carte, drive the ploughe, to loade heye, corne, and suche other. And to go or ride to the market, to sel butter, chese, mylke, egges, chekyns, capons, hennes, pygges, gese, and all manner of cornes."

"Ryght so euery man is capitayne of his owne soule."

"How Fitzherbert could be a practitioner of the art of agriculture for 40 years, as he himself says in 1534, is pretty extraordinary. I suppose it was his country amusement in the periodical recesses between the terms."

"There is very little of his work that should be omitted, and not a great deal of subsequent science that need be added, with regard to the culture of corn, in a manual of husbandry adapted to the present time. It may surprise some of the agriculturists of the present day, an eminent agricultural writer remarks, to be told that, after the lapse of almost three centuries, Fitzherbert's practice, in some material branches, has not been improved upon; and that in several districts abuses still exist, which were as clearly pointed out by him at that early period, as by any writer of the present age. His remarks on sheep are so accurate, that one might imagine they came from a storemaster of the present day: those on horses, cattle, etc., are not less interesting; and there is a very good account of the diseases of each species, and some just observations on the advantage of mixing different kinds in the same pasture. Swine and bees conclude this branch of the work."

"Sir Anthony Fitzherbert (1470-1538) was the English judge whose law books are, or should be, known to all lawyers. His Boke of Husbandry, published in 1534, is one of the classics of English agriculture, and justly, for it is full of shrewd observation and deliberate wisdom expressed in a virile style, with agreeable leaven of piety and humour."

"The white chalk which Scrofa saw used as manure in Transalpine Gaul, when he was serving in the army under Julius Caesar, was undoubtedly marl, the use of which in that region as in Britain was subsequently noted by Pliny (H. N. XVII, 4). There were no deposits of marl in Italy, and so the Romans knew nothing of its use, from experience, but Pliny's treatment of the subject shows a sound source of information. In England, where several kinds of marl are found in quantities, its use was probably never discontinued after the Roman times. discusses its use in the thirteenth century, and Sir Anthony Fitzherbert continues the discussion in the sixteenth century. In connection with the history of the use of marl in agriculture may be cited the tender tribute which Arthur Young recorded on the tombstone of his wife in Bradfield Church. The lady's chief virtue appears to have been, in the memory of her husband, that she was "the great-grand-daughter of John Allen, esq. of Lyng House in the County of Norfolk, the first person according to the Comte de Boulainvilliers, who there used marl."

"According to Sir Anthony Fitzherbert it was the custom in England to shear wheat and rye and to leave the straw standing after the third method described by Varro, the purpose being to preserve the straw to be cut later for thatching, as threshing It would necessarily destroy its value for thatching. It was the custom in England, however, to mow barley and oats."

"Then, sir, you will turn it over once more in what you are pleased to call your mind."

"It was, however, from Spain, and not from Arabia, that a knowledge of eastern mathematics first came into western Europe. The Moors had established their rules in Spain in 747, and by the tenth or eleven century had attained a high degree of civilisation."

"Babbage was one of the founders of the Cambridge Analytical Society whose purpose he stated was to advocate "the principles of pure d-ism as opposed to the dot-age of the university."

"The great masters of modern analysis are Lagrange, Laplace, and Gauss, who were contemporaries. It is interesting to note the marked contrast in their styles. Lagrange is perfect both in form and matter, he is careful to explain his procedure, and though his arguments are general they are easy to follow. Laplace on the other hand explains nothing, is indifferent to style, and, if satisfied that his results are correct, is content to leave them either with no proof or with a faulty one. Gauss is as exact and elegant as Lagrange, but even more difficult to follow than Laplace, for he removes every trace of the analysis by which he reached his results, and studies to give a proof which while rigorous shall be as concise and synthetical as possible."

"The history of mathematics cannot with certainty be traced back to any school or period before that of the…Greeks…. Though all early races …knew something of numeration yet the rules…were neither deduced from nor did they form part of any science."

"The sheriffs of London have been immemorially the sheriff of Middlesex."

"Old rights must remain: it would be very unreasonable if it should be otherwise."

"The Court must have ministers : the attornies are its ministers."

"The Courts can take no notice of anything but what comes judicially before them."

"It is proper to inquire into the practice and precedents; and to see whether they have been uniform and concomitant."

"If the custom be general, it is the law of the realm: if local only, it is lex loci, the law of the place. Now, all laws are general, as far as the law extends; and all customs of England are of course, immemorial.1 No usage, therefore, can be part of that law, or have the force of a custom, that is not immemorial."

"The common law of England must direct the determination of a common law question. By common-law determinations we are bound; and to them we must always adhere: for, these are the proper constitutional declarations of the law of the land. They are so considered, even by the Court of Chancery itself. When any doubt arises in a cause of equity concerning a point of common law, it is usually referred to the determination of a Court of Common Law."

"Great attention and respect is undoubtedly due to the decisions of a Lord Chancellor: but they are not conclusive upon a Court of common law."

"It is certain that every man has a right to keep his own sentiments, if he pleases: he has certainly a right to judge whether he will make them public, or commit them only to the sight of his own friends. In that state the manuscript is, in every sense his peculiar property; and no man can take it from him or make any use of it which he has not authorized, without being guilty of a violation of his property."

"Ideas are free. But while the author confines them to his study, they are like birds in a cage, which none but he can have a right to let fly : for till he thinks proper to emancipate them, they are under his own dominion."

"Nothing but what has visible substance, is capable of actual possession."

"The law is too tenacious of private peace, to suffer litigations to be negotiable."

"No tort is assignable, in law or equity. It is not within any species of action at common law."

"Improvement in learning was no part of the thoughts or attention of our ancestors."

"The invention of an author is a species of property unknown to the common law of England. Its usages are immemorial; and the views of it tend to the benefit and advantage of the public with respect to the necessaries of life, and not to the improvement and graces of mind."

"Every reward has its proper bounds."

"I wish as sincerely as any man, that learned men may have all the encouragements, and all the advantages that are consistent with the general right and good of mankind."

"Sacred to the Memory of the Honorable Sir Joseph Yates, Knight, of Peel Hall in Lancashire, successively a Judge of the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas; whose merit advanced him to the feat of Justice, which he filled with the most distinguished abilities and invincible integrity. He died the 7th day of June 1770, in the 48th year of his age, leaving the world to lament the loss of an honest Man and able Judge, firm to assert and strenuous to support the laws and constitution of his Country."

"Public policy does not admit of definition and is not easily explained. It is a variable quantity; it must vary and does vary with the habits, capacities, and opportunities of the public."

"It is to my mind much to be regretted, and it is a regret which I believe every Judge on the bench shares, that text-books are more and more quoted in Court—I mean, of course, text-books by living authors—and some Judges have gone so far as to say that they shall not be quoted."

"This seems to me to be one of those cases in which the Court is bound to arrive at a conclusion without having any satisfactory means of arriving at it. The only guide I have is this. I am entitled to sit in the testator's chair as he wrote his own will."

"I think that the proper and safe course is to follow a decision of a Court of co-ordinate jurisdiction, unless some cogent reason is given to the contrary."

"It is the right of her Majesty's subjects to make claims and to have them tried in the constitutional way."

"Motives do not concern me; they are a dangerous subject with which to deal."

"The difficulty which I feel as a Judge, and always felt at the Bar, is this: a defendant is entitled to put his back against the wall and to fight from every available point of advantage."

"I am always afraid of quoting my own decisions; I do not think it is the right thing for a judge to do, but I often do refer to them when I can thereby avoid repeating in different words what I have said before."

"A decision of the House of Lords requires no sanction."

"Masterly inactivity may be prudence to one man, desperate rashness to another."

"Born and bred, so to say, in Chancery, I have a strong leaning towards the rule of the Court of Chancery, of requiring full discovery."

"I have said frequently, and I repeat it, that there is no Judge on the bench who is more willing to allow amendments, even at the last moment, than I, provided there is no surprise."

"It is impossible for us English lawyers, dealing with the English language, to express our views except in the technical language of our law."

"I wish to uphold counsel in the exercise of their discretion."

"I must look at the decision with reference to all the circumstances which led to it."

"Any man who spends his income, whether large or small, benefits the community by putting money in circulation."

"Experience tells us that sometimes, when minorities insist on their rights, they ultimately prevail."

"I do not think I can pass over the distinct words of Sir George Jessel, who knew practice as thoroughly as any Judge who ever sat on the bench."

"Decisions in the American Courts are entitled to great respect, but are not binding here; and there are many circumstances affecting questions arising between the laws of different States which may or may not be applicable to questions arising here."

"In questions of international law we should not depart from any settled decisions, nor lay down any doctrine inconsistent with them."

"When we talk of parental influence we do not think of terror in connection with it—that is not the primary idea—it is not terror and coercion, but kindness and affection, which may bias the child's mind, and induce the child to do that which may be highly imprudent, and which, if the child were properly protected, he would never do."

"No doubt there are plenty of people in this world whom it is difficult to drive, but whom anybody can lead. It is well known that people who are generally most difficult to drive, are usually the most easily to be led by others who understand them."

"It is not fair to criticise every line and letter of a summing-up which has been delivered by a Judge in trying a case, especially when there is a somewhat imperfect record of it."

"Books are published with an expectation, if not a desire, that they will be criticised in reviews, and if deemed valuable that parts of them will be used as affording illustrations by way of quotation, or the like, and if the quantity taken be neither substantial nor material, if, as it has been expressed by some Judges, "a fair use" only be made of the publication, no wrong is done and no action can be brought."

"When I look at the man at the head of the French monarchy, surrounded as he is with all the pomp of power, and all the pride of victory, distributing kingdoms to his family, and principalities to his followers; seeming, as he sits upon his throne, to have reached the summit of human ambition, the pinnacle of earthly happiness; and when I follow him into his closet, or to his bed, and contemplate the anguish with which his solitude must be tortured, by recollections of the blood he has spilt, and the oppressions he has committed."

"And when I compare with these pangs of remorse the feelings which must accompany my honorable friend from this house to his home, after the vote of this night shall have accomplished the object of his humane and unceasing labours, when he shall retire into the bosom of his delighted and happy family, and when he shall lay himself down on his bed, reflecting on the innumerable voices that will be raised in every quarter of the world to bless his name, how much more enviable his lot, in the consciousness of having preserved so many millions of his fellow creatures, than that of the man with whom I have compared him, on a throne to which he has waded through slaughter and oppression!"

"Who will not be proud to concur with my honored friend in promoting the greatest act of national benefit, and securing to the Africans the greatest blessing which God has ever put in the power of man to confer on his fellow creatures?"

"Some women use their tongues—she look’d a lecture, Each eye a sermon, and her brow a homily, An all-in-all sufficient self-director, Like the lamented late Sir Samuel Romilly, The Law’s expounder, and the State’s corrector, Whose suicide was almost an anomaly— One sad example more, that “All is vanity” (The jury brought their verdict in “Insanity”)."

"A serjeant is a soldier with a halbert, and a drummer is a soldier with a drum."

"In case of private jurisdictions, the Court has inclined not to intermeddle."

""None shall be disseised of his freehold" (Magna Charta)."

"The point now before us is a settled case, and therefore there is no need to enter into arguments about it."

"The custom of the city of London is a matter of fact."

"To the memory of Sir Thomas Denison, Knt., this monument was erected by his afflicted widow. He was an affectionate husband, a generous relation, a sincere friend, a good citizen and most importantly an honest man. Skilled in all the learning of the common law, he raised himself to great eminence in his profession; and showed by his practice, that a thorough knowledge of the legal art and form is not litigious, or an instrument of chicane, but the plainest, easiest, and shortest way to the end of strife. For the sake of the public he was pressed, and at the last prevailed upon, to accept the office of a judge in the Court of King's Bench. He discharged the important trust of that high office with unsuspected integrity, and uncommon ability. The clearness of his understanding, and the natural probity of his heart, led him immediately to truth, equity, and justice; the precision and extent of his legal knowledge enabled him always to find the right way of doing what was right. A zealous friend to the constitution of his country, he steadily adhered to the fundamental principle upon which it is built, and by which alone it can be maintained, a religious application of the inflexible rule of law to all questions concerning the power of the crown, and privileges of the subject. He resigned his office February 14, 1765, because from the decay of his health and the loss of his eyesight, he found himself unable any longer to execute it. He died September 8, 1765, without issue, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. He wished to be buried in his native country, and in this church. He lies here near the Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, who by a resolute and judicious exertion of authority, supported law and government in a manner which has perpetuated his name, and made him an example famous to posterity."

"Working days in England are not the same as working days in foreign ports, because working days in England, by the custom and habits of the English, if not by their law, do not include Sundays."

"It seems to me that whenever circumstances arise in the ordinary business of life in which, if two persons were ordinarily honest and careful, the one of them would make a promise to the other, it may properly be inferred that both of them understood that such a promise was given and accepted."

"I do not think that a Judge would wish any statement which he may have made in the course of a case, merely obiter and casually, to be treated as necessarily being an authority on the subject in question; but when a Judge has thought it necessary for the purpose of a case to make a deliberate examination of the practice of his Court, and to state such practice, I do not think the authority of such statement can be got rid of merely by arguing that it was not really necessary for the actual decision of the case. I think that such a statement if cited as an authority is entitled to great weight, though of course not binding on us as a decision."

"Personally, I detest any attempt to bring the law into maxims. Maxims are invariably wrong, that is, they are so general and large that they always include something which is not intended to be included."

"To my mind when a great Judge, a master of the whole subject, thinking it necessary for the decision of the case to carefully examine into and to state the practice, it is nothing to say as against that, that it was not necessary for the decision."

"Parties cannot by consent give to the Court a power which it would not have without it."

"The Court ought never to come to the conclusion that two cases in the same Court, or in Courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction, are in conflict, unless it is obliged to. I agree that if two cases are in conflict the Court must say with which of them it agrees."

"I agree that is the law, though I think it is a hard law; but we have nothing to do with the question of hardship."

"As to proceedings in Courts of justice, it is for the interest of all the public to hear what takes place in Court."

"I for one will not re-open the floodgates of Admiralty jurisdiction upon the people of this country."

"Well, then, the moment there is a patent case one can see it before the case is opened, or called in the list. How can we see it? We can see it by a pile of books as high as this invariably... Now, what is the result of all this? Why that a man had better have his patent infringed, or have anything happen to him in this world, short of losing all his family by influenza, than have a dispute about a patent. His patent is swallowed up, and he is ruined. Whose fault is it? It is really not the fault of the law; it is the fault of the mode of conducting the law in a patent case. This is what causes all this mischief."

"Public policy requires that some hardship should be suffered by individuals rather than that judicial proceedings should be held in secret."

"In the administration of justice, whether by a recognised legal Court or by persons who, although not a legal public Court, are acting in a similar capacity, public policy requires that, in order that there should be no doubt about the purity of the administration, any person who is to take part in it should not be in such a position that he might be suspected of being biassed."

"An amendment ought not to be allowed if it will occasion injustice; but if it can do no injustice, and will only save expense, it ought to be made."

"A great deal of difficulty has been caused in the administration of the law, and particularly of the common law, by decisions in which technical rules have been formulated which were not true—that is, were not in accordance with the facts of the case."

"Where a man calls himself by a name which is not his name, he is telling a falsehood."

"No one should be fooled into believing that Saudi Arabia is striving towards a more open and pluralistic form of government. ... The very opposite is true, what we are witnessing is a that is tightening its grip on the social fabric of society, choking all forms of open debate, suffocating civil society, silencing the voice of reform and imprisoning those who are striving towards modernity."

"The House of Saud knows full well that it cannot survive the forces of change, that it cannot withstand the inevitable tide of history and that it will in due course be swept away as the clamour for governmental transparency and social justice grows."

"Saudi Arabia's addiction to the blood cult of public execution demeans and humiliates not only the victims, but all those who participate in the process and Saudi society as a whole."

"We should not be too strict in construing instruments or contracts generally drawn up on the spur of the moment."

"It is fraud in law if a party makes representations which he knows to be false, and injury ensues, although the motives from which the representations proceeded may not have been bad."

"Whatever is injurious to the interests of the public is void, on the grounds of public policy."

"Whatever restraint is larger than the necessary protection of the party, can be of no benefit to either, it can only be oppressive; and if oppressive, it is, in the eye of the law unreasonable."

"It is to be remembered that contracts in restraint of trade are in themselves, if nothing more appears to show them reasonable, bad in the eye of the law."

"There is no reason for assuming, that the time of medical men and attornies is more valuable than that of others whose livelihood depends on their own exertions."

"The intention of the testator is the polar star by which we must be guided."

"Judicial decisions in Courts of justice are ranked by Lord Hale as one of the grounds or constituents of the common law."

"Illegality is not to be presumed; it is to be alleged and proved when it does not appear on the face of the instrument itself."

"Immemorial enjoyment is the most solid of all titles."

"It is between the stirrup and the ground, Brother; but you may amend by replying."

"Every Court is the guardian of its own records, and master of its own practice."

"It will appear, no doubt, that at various periods of our history there have been decisions as to the nature and description of the religious solemnities necessary for the completion of a perfect marriage, which cannot be reconciled together; but there will be found no authority to contravene the general position, that at all times, by the common law of England, it was essential to the constitution of a full and complete marriage, that there must be some religious solemnity; that both modes of obligation should exist together, the civil and the religious."

"Not one job in Britain is at risk because of losing our EU membership, not one, because there would be a free trade agreement, because we're so important to Europe."

"I actually campaigned for Brexit, and I made it very clear in every speech I gave that we would be economically worse off."

"The British are among the worst idlers in the world."

"The typical user of a food bank is not someone that's languishing in poverty, it's someone who has a cash flow problem."

"I think it's understandable there are jitters on all sides of this debate and we need to hold our nerve. The end is in sight in terms of a good deal - the prize we want - a good deal with the EU and I think colleagues should wait and see what that looks like."

"We are – and I hadn't quite understood the full extent of this, but if you look at the UK and if you look at how we trade in goods – we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing."

"The NHS is not for sale to any country and never would be."

"I've got say, on this take the knee thing – which, I don't know, maybe it's got a broader history but it seems to be taken from the Game of Thrones – feels to me like a symbol of subjugation and subordination, rather than one of liberation and emancipation."

"In fact the sea wasn't open."

"is absolutely wrong whether it's a man against a woman or a woman against a man."

"The police don't normally look back and investigate things that have taken place a year ago."

"[I ask] the question of the role the police should play, if any, in civil society. Who are they protecting and from what?"

"The referendum is clear and has to be accepted and we can't have a re-run of the question that was put to the country earlier this year. But, and it's a big but, there has to be democratic grip of the process and, at the moment, what the prime minister's trying to do is to manoeuvre without any scrutiny in Parliament and that's why the terms on, which we're going to negotiate absolutely have to be put to a vote in the House."

"We accept and respect the outcome of the referendum."

"What I think is really important is that the government aims high. My worry is that the government has attached so much importance to immigration that it's not even going to try to get the best access to the single market. In other words, it's going to give up before it starts. My sense is that the government is saying 'because we want to take such a hard line on immigration we are going to give up on parts of the argument that would be better for the economy'."

"I wish the result had gone the other way. I campaigned passionately for that. But as democrats our party has to accept that result and it follows that the prime minister should not be blocked from starting the Article 50 negotiations."

"What's clear, from the CBI and others, is that there is no result that would be worse for the British economy than leaving [the EU] with no deal"

"The Labour Party has supported strong counter-terrorism legislation over the years and we have that commitment in our manifesto"

"We are absolutely clear we can not have a hard border we need to negotiate with our EU partners."

"Labour would seek a transitional deal that maintains the same basic terms that we currently enjoy with the EU. That means we would seek to remain in a customs union with the EU and within the single market during this period. It means we would abide by the common rules of both."

"Remaining in a form of customs union after a transition post-Brexit phase remained a possible end destination for the Labour party."

"[I want a partnership with the EU that] retains the benefits of the single market and the customs union"

"Obviously, there are lots of benefits from a customs union, none more so, in many respects, than in Northern Ireland."

"We all want to do bold new trade agreements but we would be better off doing that with the EU."

"Benefits of the single market and customs union... need to be hard-wired into the final agreement"

"There's a growing view, I think probably a majority view in Parliament now, that it's in our national interests and economic interests to stay in a customs union with the EU. We've got a huge manufacturing sector in the UK that needs to be protected, with many goods going over borders many, many times, and we need to protect that."

"It is right for Parliament to have the first say but if we need to break the impasse, our options must include campaigning for a public vote and nobody is ruling out Remain as an option."

"I remain as convinced as ever that the consequences of no deal would be so severe that it cannot be allowed to happen."

"During the talks, almost literally as we were sitting in the room talking, cabinet members and wannabe Tory leaders were torpedoing the talks with remarks about not being willing to accept the customs union. In terms of the team that we were negotiating with, I'm not blaming them. Circling around those that were in the room trying to negotiate were others who didn't want the negotiation to succeed because they had their eye on what was coming next."

"When you say you will leave without a deal - do or die - what sort of message does that send to the people of Northern Ireland?"

"I don’t think there are big issues on which I’ve changed my mind. The big issue we were grappling with then was how the Labour Party, or the left generally, bound together the wider movement and its strands of equality – feminist politics, green politics, LGBT – which I thought was incredibly exciting, incredibly important."

"Passover is also a fitting moment for me to acknowledge the pain and hurt that the Labour Party has caused Jewish people in recent years. Anti-Semitism has been a stain on our party. I have seen first-hand the unacceptable and unimaginable levels of grief and distress it has caused many in the Jewish community and beyond. It is why my very first act on becoming leader over the weekend was to apologise for the hurt that has been caused. I want to apologise again and reiterate my pledge to tear out this poison by its roots."

"The principle of what I want to achieve is clear: if you are anti-Semitic, you cannot and should not be in the Labour Party. No ifs, no buts."

"There are four elections on Thursday 6 May."

"I will change the things that need changing and that is the change that I will bring about."

"I've got to do Kinnock and Blair's job in one term."

"What a pathetic spectacle: the dying act of his [Boris Johnson's] political career is to parrot that nonsense. As for those who are left, they are only in office because no one else is prepared to debase themselves any longer—the charge of the lightweight brigade. Have some self-respect! For a week, he has had them defending his decision to promote [Chris Pincher] a sexual predator. Every day, the lines he has forced them to take have been untrue: first, that he was unaware of any allegation—untrue; then, that he was unaware of any “specific” allegation—untrue; then, that he was unaware of any “serious, specific” allegation; and now he wants them to go out and say that he simply forgot that his Whip was a sexual predator. Anyone with anything about them would be long gone from his Front Bench. In the middle of a crisis, does the country not deserve better than a Z-list cast of nodding dogs?"

"So let me be very clear: with Labour, Britain will not go back into the EU. We will not be joining the single market. We will not be joining a customs union."

"[Asked if he was concerned about the police dealing with anti-monarchist protesters during a period of national mourning six days after Queen Elizabeth II died.] The word I would use around that issue is respect. I think if people have spent a long time waiting to come forward to have that moment as the coffin goes past or whatever it may be, I think respect that, because people have made a huge effort to come and have that private moment to say thank you to Queen Elizabeth II. Respect that. Obviously we have to respect the fact that some people disagree. One of the great British traditions is the ability to protest and to disagree. But I think if it can be done in the spirit of respect. Respect the fact that hundreds of thousands of people do want to come forward and have that moment. Don’t ruin it for them. But also we do need to respect the fact that other people must be entitled to express their different views."

"Today I want to set out what's at stake for Britain, because while politics is always about choices, the choice now is as stark as it gets. We face a battle for the soul of our country, who we are, who we're for, and the Labour choices of Britian is that it's greener, fairer, and more dynamic."

"The lady's not for turning up."

"The only mandate she's ever had was from members opposite. It was a mandate built on fantasy economics, and it ended in disaster. The country's got nothing to show for it except the destruction of the economy and the implosion of the Tory Party. I've got the list here: 45p tax cut, gone. Corporation tax cut, gone. 20p tax cut, gone. Two-year energy freeze, gone. Tax-free shopping, gone. Economic credibility, gone! And her supposed best friend the former chancellor, he's gone as well. They're all gone! So why is she still here?"

"The only time he ran in a competitive election, he got trounced by the former prime minister, who herself got beaten by lettuce!"

"So that means fair rules, firm rules, a points-based system. What I would like to see is the numbers go down in some areas. I think we're recruiting too many people from overseas into, for example, the health service. But on the other hand, if we need high-skilled people in innovation in tech to set up factories etc, then I would encourage that."

"[Opposing a future Scottish independence referendum regardless of the Supreme Court in London potentially deciding to accept the Scottish Parliament has a legal right to hold one.] It's good the case has gone to court because I think it's better to have legal certainty, so we all know the basis on which we're operating [...] All the court is going to be able to rule is, if it does rule in favour, is that there could or can be, [that] it's legally permissible to have a referendum. That doesn't answer the political question, which is 'should there be a referendum'?"

"We took the decision to leave and we have left. So now what we need to do is rather than just sticking with the deal we've got which is not good enough, we need to make Brexit work."

"Antisemitism is an evil. It is a very specific type of racism, one that festers and spreads like an infection. Its conspiratorial nature attracts those who would have no truck with any other form of prejudice. Indeed, it can be those who call themselves "anti-racist" who are most blind to it. The reason the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) opened their investigation into the Labour Party was because it had become an incubator for this poison. We needed to change. That's why my first act as leader was to commit to tearing antisemitism out by the roots, without fear or favour."

"The Labour Party I lead today is unrecognisable from 2019. There are those who don't like that change, who still refuse to see the reality of what had gone on under the previous leadership. To them I say in all candour: we are never going back. If you don’t like it, nobody is forcing you to stay."

"The Labour Party I lead is patriotic. It is a party of public service, not protest. It is a party of equality, justice and fairness; one that proudly puts the needs of working people above any fringe interest. It is a party that doesn't just talk about change – it delivers it."

"The lettuces are out, but the turnips are in."

"They blew up for me an incredibly detailed photograph of a lung with very dark marks on it which were all the air pollution from our roads which were causing cancer in that and many other patients. It's worth us all just asking ourselves...if we are not prepared to do these sort of schemes what are we going to do. If increasing numbers of people, and young people as well, are getting cancer...I have to say..intake of breath when I saw the phot[o]graph, they said there are the dark areas that are lung cancer because of it (air pollution). We can’t just sit that out."

"[On the Just Stop Oil protests] I can't wait for them to stop their antics, frankly. They're interrupting iconic sporting events that are part of our history, tradition and massively looked forward to across the nation. I absolutely condemn the way they go about their tactics. And I have to say it's riddled with an arrogance that only they have the sort of right to force their argument on other people in this way."

"In fact, I hate tree huggers."

"As for Uxbridge [and South Ruislip], we always knew that was going to be tough [...] We didn't win Uxbridge in 1997, and obviously we knew that ULEZ [(Ultra Low Emission Zone)] was an issue. That's why we lost in Uxbridge. We all need to reflect on that, including the mayor [of London], but there's no taking away from the historic event that has happened here in Selby [and Ainsty]."

"Every time there's been the threat of a rebellion he's backed down. The one thing you get if you win the leadership of your party is the right to say 'I've won the leadership and I'm going to do this, and we're going to do it and this is what I'm saying we're going to do with the party, and we're going to do it’. He doesn't have the ability to do that because he hasn't got a mandate."

"Further information came to light yesterday calling for decisive action, so I took decisive action. It is a huge thing to withdraw support for a Labour candidate during the course of a by-election. It's a tough decision, a necessary decision, but when I say the Labour Party has changed under my leadership I mean it."

"Tonight the Prime Minister has finally announced the next General Election. A moment the country needs – and has been waiting for. And where, by the force of our democracy power returns to you. A chance to change for the better. Your future. Your community. Your country. It will feel like a long campaign – I’m sure of that. But no matter what else is said and done. That opportunity for change is what this election is about. Over the course of the last four years – we have changed the Labour Party. Returned it once more to the service of working people. All we ask now – humbly – is to do exactly the same for our country. And return Britain to the service of working people. To that purpose. We offer three reasons why you should change Britain with Labour. One – because we will stop the chaos. Look around our country. The sewage in our rivers. People waiting on trolleys in A&E. Crime virtually unpunished. Mortgages and food prices – through the roof. It’s all – every bit of it – a direct result of the Tory chaos in Westminster. Time and again, they pursue their own interests. Rather than tackling the issues that affect your family. And if they get another five years, they will feel entitled to carry on exactly as they are. Nothing will change. A vote for Labour is a vote for stability – economic and political. A politics that treads more lightly on all our lives. A vote to stop the chaos. Two – because it’s time for change. Our offer is to reset both our economy and our politics. So that they once again serve the interests of working people. We totally reject the Tory view that economic strength is somehow gifted from those at the top. Over the past fourteen years – through all the crises we have had to face – sticking with this idea has left our country exposed, insecure and unable to unlock the potential of every community. But a vote for Labour is a vote to turn the page on all that. A vote for change. And finally, three – because we have a long-term plan to rebuild Britain. A plan that is ready to go. Fully-costed and fully funded. We can deliver economic stability. Cut the NHS waiting times. Secure our borders with a New Border Security Command. Harness Great British Energy to cut your bills for good. Tackle anti-social behaviour. And get the teachers we need in your children’s classroom. But most of importantly of all, we do all this with a new spirit of service. Country first, party second. A rejection of the gesture politics you will see in this campaign, I have no doubt from the Tories and from the SNP. I am well aware of the cynicism people hold towards politicians at the moment. But I came into politics late, having served our country as leader of the Crown Prosecution Service. And I helped the Police Service in Northern Ireland to gain the consent of all communities. Service of our country is the reason – and the only reason – why I am standing here now – asking for your vote. And I believe with patience, determination and that commitment to service there is so much pride and potential we can unlock across our country. So – here it is – the future of the country – in your hands. On 4th July you have the choice. And together, we can stop the chaos. We can turn the page. We can start to rebuild Britain. And change our country. Thank you."

"This is a serious plan, carefully thought through. It is not about rabbits out of the hat, it's not about pantomime, we've had enough of that. I'm running as a candidate to be prime minister, not a candidate to run the circus."

"If you want politics as pantomime, I hear Clacton is nice this time of year."

"We did it. You campaigned for it, you fought for it, you voted for it and now it has arrived. Change begins now. And it feels good, I have to be honest. Four-and-a-half years of work changing the party. This is what it is for – a changed Labour Party ready to serve our country, ready to restore Britain to the service of working people. And across our country, people will be waking up to the news – relieved that a weight has been lifted, a burden finally removed from the shoulders of this great nation. And now we can look forward again, walk into the morning, the sunlight of hope, pale at first, but getting stronger through the day, shining once again on a country with the opportunity after 14 years to get its future back. And I want to thank each and every one of you here for campaigning so hard for change, and not just in this campaign either – also for these four-and-a-half years changing our party. The Labour movement is always – everything’s achieved past and future – down to the efforts of its people. So thank you truly – you have changed our country. But a mandate like this comes with great responsibility. Our task is nothing less than renewing ideas that hold this country together – national renewal. Whoever you are, wherever you started in life, if you work hard, if you play by the rules, this country should give you a fair chance to get on. It should always respect your contribution and we have to restore that. And alongside that, we have to return politics to public service, show that politics can be a force for good. Make no mistake, that is the great test of politics in this era – the fight for trust is the battle that defines our age. It is why we campaigned so hard on demonstrating we are fit for public service. Service is the pre-condition for hope, respect the bond that can unite a country. Together, the values of this changed Labour Party are the guiding principle for a new government – country first, party second. That is the responsibility of this mandate. You know, 14 years ago, we were told that we're all in it together. I say to the British people today, imagine what we can do if that were actually true. So by all means, enjoy this moment. Nobody can say you haven’t waited patiently. Enjoy the feeling of waking up on a morning like this with the emotion that you do see the country through the same eyes. Hold onto it, because it is what unity is made from, but use it to show to the rest of the country, as we must, that this party has changed, that we will serve them faithfully, govern for every single person in this country. But also don’t forget how we got here. This morning, we can see that the British people have voted to turn the page on 14 years but don’t pretend that there was anything inevitable about that – there’s nothing pre-ordained in politics. Election victories don’t fall from the sky. They’re hard won and hard fought for, and this one could only be won by a changed Labour Party. We have the chance to repair our public services because we’ve changed the party. We have the chance to make work pay because we’ve changed the party. We have the chance to deliver for working people, young people, vulnerable people, the poorest in our society because we’ve changed the party. 'Country first, party second' isn’t a slogan – it's the guiding principle (of) everything we have done and must keep on doing – on the economy, on national security, on protecting our borders. The British people have to look us in the eye and see that we can serve their interest and that work doesn’t stop now – it never stops. The changes we've made are permanent, irreversible and we must keep going. We ran as a changed Labour Party and we will govern as a changed Labour Party. I don't promise you it will be easy. Changing a country's not like flicking a switch, it's hard work, patient work, determined work, and we will have to get moving immediately. But even when the going gets tough, and it will, remember, tonight and always, what this is all about. Now I may have mentioned my parents a few times in this campaign – once or twice – but the sense of security we had, the comfort they took from believing that Britain would always be better for their children, the hope, not high-minded, not idealistic, but a hope that working-class families like mine could build their lives around. It is hope that may not burn brightly in Britain at the moment, but we have earned the mandate to relight the fire. That is the purpose of this party and of this Government. We said we would end the chaos and we will. We said we would turn the page and we have. Today we start the next chapter, begin the work of change, the mission of national renewal and start to rebuild our country. Thank you."

"I call again for...the return of the sausages."

"I am clear that Israel has the right to defend itself against Iranian aggression. I'm equally clear that we need to avoid further regional escalation and urge all sides to show restraint. Iran should not respond"

"I have just returned from Buckingham Palace, where I accepted an invitation from His Majesty the King to form the next government of this great nation. I want to thank the outgoing Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. His achievement as the first British Asian Prime Minister of our country — the extra effort that that will have required — should not be underestimated by anyone. We pay tribute to that today, and we also recognise the dedication and hard work he brought to his leadership. But now our country has voted decisively for change, for national renewal and a return of politics to public service."

"When the gap between the sacrifices made by people and the service they receive from politicians grows this big, it leads to a weariness in the heart of a nation, a draining away of the hope, the spirit, the belief in a better future — that we need to move forward together. Now this wound, this lack of trust, can only be healed by actions, not words. I know that, but we can make a start today with the simple acknowledgement that public service is a privilege and that your government should treat every single person in this country with respect. If you voted Labour yesterday, we will carry the responsibility of your trust as we rebuild our country. But whether you voted Labour or not — in fact, especially if you did not — I say to you directly, my government will serve you. Politics can be a force for good. We will show that. We’ve changed the Labour Party, returned it to service — and that is how we will govern, country first party second."

"Yet, if I am honest, service is merely a precondition of hope, and it is surely clear to everyone that our country needs a bigger reset, a rediscovery of who we are. Because no matter how fierce the storms of history, one of the great strengths of this nation has always been our ability to navigate away to calmer waters. And yet this depends upon politicians, particularly those who stand for stability and moderation — as I do — recognising when we must change course. For too long now, we turned a blind eye as millions slid into greater insecurity. Nurses, builders, drivers, carers, people doing the right thing, working harder every day, recognised at moments like this before, yet, as soon as the cameras stop rolling, their lives are ignored. I want to say very clearly to those people — not this time."

"Changing a country is not like flicking a switch. The world is now a more volatile place. This will take a while. But have no doubt that the work of change begins immediately. Have no doubt that we will rebuild Britain with wealth created in every community."

"Brick by brick, we will rebuild the infrastructure of opportunity, the world class schools and colleges, the affordable homes that I know are the ingredients of hope for working people, the security that working class families like mine can build their lives around. Because if I asked you now whether you believe that Britain will be better for your children, I know too many of you would say no, and so my government will fight every day until you believe again. From now on, you have a government unburdened by doctrine guided only by the determination to serve your interest, to defy, quietly, those who have written our country off."

"You have given us a clear mandate, and we will use it to deliver change. To restore service and respect to politics, end the era of noisy performance, tread more lightly on your lives and unite our country. Four nations standing together again, facing down as we have so often in our past, the challenges of an insecure world committed to a calm and patient rebuilding. So with respect and humility, I invite you all to join this government of service in the mission of national renewal. Our work is urgent, and we begin it today."

"He’s a true one-off, a pioneer in business, in politics. Many people love him. Others love to hate him. But to us, he's just... Peter."

"I actually welcome the judgment because I think it gives real clarity. It allows those that have got to draw up guidance to be really clear about what that guidance should say. So I think it's important that we see the judgment for what it is. It's a welcome step forward. It's real clarity in an area where we did need clarity, I'm pleased it's come about. We need to move and make sure that we now ensure that all guidance is in the right place according to that judgment."

"Let me start by saying that the victims of Epstein are at the forefront of our minds. He was a despicable criminal who committed the most heinous crimes and destroyed the lives of so many women and girls. The ambassador has repeatedly expressed his deep regret for his association with Epstein, and he is right to do so. I have confidence in him, and he is playing an important role in the UK–US relationship."

"Let me start where I must: with the victims of Epstein. All our thoughts are with them. Our thoughts are also with all those who lost jobs, savings and livelihoods in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash. To learn that there was a Cabinet Minister leaking sensitive information at the height of the response to the 2008 crash is beyond infuriating, and I am as angry as the public and any Member of this House. Mandelson betrayed our country, our Parliament and my party. He lied repeatedly to my team when asked about his relationship with Epstein, before and during his tenure as ambassador. I regret appointing him. If I knew then what I know now, he would never have been anywhere near Government. That is why yesterday the Cabinet Secretary, with my support, took the decision to refer material to the police, and there is now a criminal investigation. I have instructed my team to draft legislation to strip Mandelson of his title, and wider legislation to remove disgraced peers. This morning I have agreed with His Majesty the King that Mandelson should be removed from the list of Privy Counsellors on the grounds that he has brought the reputation of the Privy Council into disrepute."

"I am sorry. Sorry for what was done to you, sorry that so many people with power failed you, sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointing him."

"We don't support trying to deliver regime change from the air"

"Two-tier Keir"

"[H]e got into Leeds University where he was told by academics that if only the world was ruled by human rights, it would be just and peaceful and there'd be no war. So he really believes in all that. That was his formation. And then he becomes prime minister and has this terrible awareness that the world is not ruled by words and paper. There’s things like armies and war in Europe and Donald Trump got elected. This is all pretty shocking [to him]."

"Has Britain elected a bumbling nobody to the highest office in the land? Or does his dullness conceal a driving purpose?"

"The worst mistake of political conservatives in the western world has been to refuse to understand and examine the length, breadth, depth, and height of the post-1968 left in Europe and North America. If you do not know what you are fighting, you will never find out why you are fighting, or how you should fight it. By becoming dull, and by speaking in code, the revolution has overwhelmed those who would have fought it with all their might if it had appeared in the guise of the Bolsheviks or the Jacobins."

"If you want a culture wars warrior, Starmer is not your man. If you want a radical socialist who seeks to overturn capitalism, Starmer is not your man. If you want an entertainer, a comedian, a tweeter, Starmer is not your man. If you want to rerun previous leaders, Wilson or Blair, or someone who runs an agile team firing on all cylinders, sorry, Starmer is not your man. But if you want a leader who might start to heal the sinews of an enfeebled state and anaemic economy, and who will work in the interests of the relatively powerless, then he may very well be who we need."

"On 5 July, either Keir Starmer or I will be Prime Minister. He has shown time and time again that he will take the easy way out and do anything to get power. If he was happy to abandon all the promises he made to become Labour leader once he got the job, how can you know that he won't do exactly the same thing if he were to become Prime Minister? If you don't have the conviction to stick to anything you say, if you don't have the courage to tell people what you want to do, and if you don't have a plan, how can you possibly be trusted to lead our country, especially at this most uncertain of times?"

"Whilst he has been my political opponent, Sir Keir Starmer will shortly become our Prime Minister. In this job, his successes will be all our successes, and I wish him and his family well. Whatever our disagreements in this campaign, he is a decent, public-spirited man, who I respect. He and his family deserve the very best of our understanding, as they make the huge transition to their new lives behind this door, and as he grapples with this most demanding of jobs in an increasingly unstable world."

"As Labour MPs wargame how to depose Sir Keir Starmer, some have a strategy from the Margaret Thatcher years in mind. In 1990, the former Conservative Prime Minister was told her time was up by a delegation of “men in grey suits” from her party. Now, Labour MPs are discussing sending a deputation of women to tell Starmer to resign."

"This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with."

"The king must not be under man but under God and under the law."

"Those who took the road to democracy to be the road to freedom mistook temporary means for an ultimate end."

"It is hard to think away out of our heads a history which has long lain in a remote past but which once lay in the future."

"All Europe over, lawyers were being at once attracted and puzzled by the Roman doctrine of possession... Roman law compels us to hold that there are some occupiers who are not possessors. In an evil hour the English judges, who were controlling a new possessory action, which had been suggested by foreign models, adopted this theory at the expense of the termor... English law for six centuries and more will rue this youthful flirtation with Romanism."

"It was a court of politicians enforcing a policy, not a court of judges administering the law."

"Maitland did not write a history of the constitution nor narrative history like Freeman. He thought that Freeman and most English historians (but not Stubbs) were insular. They had not learnt the German way of interpreting history. It should not be interpreted through their rulers, the battles they had fought and the treaties they had made. It should be interpreted through the origins of their land, their institutions, their language and their folk tales and myths. He did not, like Marx, invest an all-embracing theory that would explain the inseparable processes that determined the direction in which society must move."

"It was his long and dazzling introduction to Otto Gierke's Political Theories of the Middle Ages that made me first realize what the history of ideas could be. When Leslie Stephen's wife died Maitland wrote to him, "I have an irrepressible wish, however foolish and wrong it may be, to touch your hand and tell you in two words what I think of you." I have the same foolish and irrepressible wish about Maitland."

"He was introducing a set of documents and not rewriting the history of parliament."

"While others lingered among the tombs, he drew his knowledge of our law, not from the sepulchres of its sages, but straight from the source itself. For him no fetish blocked the way; for him no vain repetition of statements from the legal Talmud would make those statements true. If “Co. Litt.” was wrong, it was not blasphemy to say so; to treat its “sentence” as a judgment from which there was no appeal was worthy of the Middle Ages. I do not know, nor do I suppose that the famous Downing Professor ever said so much, but one can imagine, had he spoken out, how his witty raillery might have shocked the veterans of Bench and Bar. For in his ever vivid originality, in the daring brilliance of his style, Maitland was the Whistler of the Law."

"We may safely say that Maitland will remain a force and an inspiration when some, even of those who occupied the woolsack, are mere names. If all his theories could be overthrown, all his positive results peptonized into textbooks, he would still live as a model of critical method, a model of style, and a model of intellectual temper. He shall not be shamed, whatever records leap to light. A century hence his name will stand higher still than it does to-day."

"It was Maitland's good fortune to be only moderately successful academically as a young man, so he escaped the easy assurance of the eminently successful man looking at the world. He had to learn about documents the hard way, in a conveyancer's office. This taught him to keep close to the ground. He learned that the approach to history must be through drudgery, and that no amount of elegance, economy, and precision of mind can take the place of an enormous capacity for hard work. He had no successors. Yet in a sense all modern historical researchers are his successors. Maitland's virtues are the virtues we should all like to possess; his way of doing things is the way of all modern research."

"By the History of English Law, and Domesday Book and Beyond, to say nothing of Roman Canon Law in the Church of England, and his other contributions to legal history, Professor Maitland has laid students of the English constitution under obligations that are incalculable."

"The division between left and right in history is both evident and real. For example, the few detailed histories of specific anti-fascism that exist describe a conflict unrecognisable beside the subtle arguments of these liberal historians. The struggles between fascists and anti-fascists have been violent, lethal and real. The study of them makes it clear that the liberal historians have ignored the decisive importance of anti-socialism to the fascists. They have also overlooked the facists that in every country, socialists and communists have proven to be fascism's staunchest enemies, and that the political left has always been the first victim of fascist rule."

"The alleged symmetry of fascist and socialist thought rarely amounts to anything more than a recognition that both groups have sought to change society and used political parties to affect this change. The fact that fascism and socialism differ in terms of ideas and traditions, have distinct sources of support and radically different relationships to the capitalist status quo, all seem to be neglected. The historians also glide gently over the obvious fact that fascism acquires its allies from the right and not the left."

"The great problem with understanding fascism simply as an ideology is that many of the ideas that characterise fascism are not in themselves distinctive. Some of these ideas are purely nationalistic, and there have been many nationalists who were not fascists. Similarly, many conventional conservative parties have had racist supporters."

"Historians must break out of the prison of ideas. The alternative is to analyse fascism as an active force within society. In order to understand fascism, therefore, any theory must base itself on an examination of the history of the movement, and of its behaviour as a political tradition. It is only from such a sound historical foundation, that a more adequate theoretical understanding can be achieved."

"It’s weird looking back that I was so certain I couldn’t write. Not fiction. At the time that I had that view, in my 20s and 30s, I didn’t think that it was because I was the grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien, although I think now that that was the reason. I don’t know what’s changed. I think it’s possibly confidence."

"I was an only child and grew up in a cottage in the Oxfordshire countryside. I was thrown very much on my own resources which consisted of books, books and more books. I used to think I was very deprived by this experience but now I think the opposite. The books I read lying on my bed filled up my imagination and they are the fuel for my creativity now."

"It seems to me that this problem of the distressed areas cannot be dealt with as though it were a problem existing by itself and divorced from the whole of the economic and social complex of affairs out of which it arises. I have heard during this Debate and during the Debates that have preceded it in the past week many gibes at this party because, as was alleged, it has refrained from endeavouring to apply its Socialistic faith to the problems that we were discussing. Therefore, I hope the House will not think me too doctrinaire or dogmatic if I endeavour to say how, in my view, those Socialistic ideas and principles, for which I and my friends stand and work, are the only principles which have any relevance to the problems which the House is discussing on this Motion. I am bound to say that, listening to the jibes during the past week and coming here for the first time straight from the open air and light which seem to come so rarely in this Chamber, either physically or otherwise, I felt a sense of deepening gloom as speaker after speaker from the Government Benches, beginning with the Prime Minister, made speech after speech the burden of which was, so far as I could see, purely a confession of impotence—they could not do anything, this course will not do, that measure will not do, no grand schemes will be of any effect and no particular schemes are worth pressing very hard."

"It is no accident that the distressed areas we are discussing are the very areas which, in the past, have contributed most to the prosperity of this country and to its achievements all over the world. The hon. Member for East Aberdeen was right when he said that we must pay people to eat. I would invite him to go further and say that we must learn how to pay people not to work. Only in that way can we use that dividend of civilisation in the interests of the community which has achieved those things."

"I think it is true to say that the people of this country have no enthusiasm for this or for any war, but they would not be willing, in the main, now that the war has started, to let it end on such terms as would restore the world to the position in which it was —or to anything like that position— before we started. It was a position in which we were continually stumbling along from one crisis to the next, never knowing what was to happen, and without any kind of order, stability or security. I think the people of this country would not go back to that now, and that they are prepared to fight until some kind of order, based on stability and justice can be secured."

"It may be that you hold the view that no kind of peace is possible unless the Nazi regime in Germany is removed. If that is one of the things you regard as essential, say so by all means; but do not stop there. You have to say what you would do then. Suppose that the Nazi regime went, suppose that the abnoxious individual went, what then would you propose?"

"It is possible that the war might go on for many years before we got peace. You could create a European desert and call it peace, and give it the permanence of the grave. The objects that we regard as essential for the maintenance of civilisation may require a long war. If so, we should not be afraid of it. But neither should we assume that that is going to be necessary. Now, while people are in the mood to talk, talk to them. It is not necessary to talk on their terms; but if you tell them what are your terms and invite them to talk on your basis, you take the initiative out of their hands, you take the leadership, and perhaps you do something to acquire a long-wanted diplomatic success for ourselves."

"I would just summarise, very shortly, the qualities and aspects of this penalty which make it to all of us a revolting and barbaric thing. It is hot only the melodrama and sensationalism with which these proceedings are surrounded; it is not only the sordid squalor, every detail of which spreads into the newspapers in every one of these crimes, and whose effect on juvenile delinquency has never been measured but must be very considerable; it is not only the relentless finality of this penalty, the relentless finality which makes this result that once it has been inflicted there is no room for rectification if there were error or miscarriage of justice. No one who knows the records can doubt that there have been cases of error, that there have been miscarriages of justice, and that innocent men have in fact been executed. Above all these things, there is the sense which we all have that this penalty, of itself, denies the very principle on which we claim the right to inflict it—namely, the sanctity of human life."

"Sydney Silverman will be remembered as one of the great backbenchers of the House of Commons. The respect he commanded, even among those who bitterly opposed his views, was total. As a parliamentarian, he was totally dedicated, and therefore dominating. As a politician, he was uncompromising and vehement in saying what he had to say—often a superbly lucid crystallisation of what others had been trying to present Nobody could put a lawyer's training in argument and grasp of essentials to better parliamentary use, but where Silverman differed from many Commons lawyers was that, when he reached the heart of the matter, it invariably had a heart. It also had sense, and a solid backing of relevant fact. He was a somewhat pompous figure but, in his case, this was accepted as a virtue. Pomposity is one of the first things to be laughed at in the Commons, but one would have to search far back in one's memory to recall anybody laughing at Sydney Silverman. Physically he was tiny; his shoes, as he sat on his familiar front bench below the gangway, scarcely touched the carpet. If he had been a Minister, there would have been no point in his trying to put his feet on the table in the orthodox manner of nonchalance. But his dignity was unassailable. and nonchalance, was not part of sis nature. He was one of the few remaining backbenchers, who could put many Ministers and Shadow Ministers utterly in the shade."

"[I] felt it was important as a Muslim to lend my voice to this fight against antisemitism. We have only ever defeated intolerance when we have come together. Antisemitism will only stop when all of us, whatever faith we belong to or none – oppose it and challenge it."

"I'm really, really hesitant about making this Sayeeda v the Tory party."

"There is a lot of emotional attachment here. It's like a really painful divorce. It does feel like I'm in an abusive relationship at the moment, where I'm with somebody that I really shouldn't be with. It’s not healthy for me to be there any more with the Conservative party."

"[On Sajid Javid] He's chancellor of the exchequer. He's got the second or third most powerful role in government and he still doesn't feel like he can exercise power? I get this art of playing politics to get to a position where you're increasingly more powerful … but I think that politicians are so focused on amassing power that they forget about what they're amassing it for."

"Of course he should. If you can't call racism racism, if you can't call antisemitism antisemitism, and if you can't call Islamophobia Islamophobia, then how are we going to fix it?"

"Every day before we start parliamentary business in the Commons and Lords we say a prayer and praise God – we say our parliamentary version of Allahu Akbars at the heart of democracy – a process Robert Jenrick is a part of. This language from Jenrick is more of his usual nasty divisive rhetoric."

"It is with a heavy heart that I have today informed my whip and decided for now to no longer take the Conservative whip. This is a sad day for me. I am a Conservative and remain so but sadly the current party are far removed from the party I joined and served in Cabinet. My decision is a reflection of how far right my party has moved and the hypocrisy and double standards in its treatment of different communities."

"The decision is dire but we have a plan” which includes “fighting the government and Equinor here on the streets but we are also going to fight them in court”."

"A legal challenge is being prepared challenge the approval."

"The confidence that carried me through that initial uncertainty was at least partly inspired by the women I worked with for the previous three years."

"In short, as critical as it is for us to speak up as individuals, our real power emerges when we act collectively."

"Henry VII."

"This tweet from the BBC is crass and unnecessary. Do we really need silly innuendo about the race of the next Pope?"

"as Caribbean people we are not going to forget our history — we don't just want to hear an apology, we want reparation!"

"I am here, because you were there. We are here, because you were there."

"My own career in law and politics owes so much to the U.S., which gave me the honor of becoming the first black Briton to study at Harvard Law School. The land of the free has overwhelmingly been a force for progress around the world. When Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of his dreams for emancipation in the 1950s and 1960s, he empowered black people far beyond America’s 50 states."

"The president's threats to NATO and the U.N. are no more logical than arson. His trade wars with the E.U. and China could trigger the next great economic crisis of our times. Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath. He is also a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress for so long."

"The world does not need any more white saviours. As I’ve said before, this just perpetuates tired and unhelpful stereotypes. Let’s instead promote voices from across the continent of Africa and have serious debate."

"I would say that that wasn't strong enough... I don't care how elected they were: so was the far right in Germany."

"You're going to struggle to find any politician in the Western world who hasn't had things to say in response to Donald Trump."

""We cannot be blown off course by an imperialist fascist" (Talking about Vladimir Putin)"

"Yet hath he loved the vision of this world, And found it good."

"From troubles of the world I turn to ducks, Beautiful comical things."

"Samuel Warren, though able, yet vainest of men, Could he guide with discretion his tongue and his pen, His course would be clear for—"Ten Thousand a Year," But limited else to a brief—"Now and Then.""

"Why should Honesty seek any safer retreat From the lawyers or barges, odd-rot-'em? For the lawyers are just at the top of the street, And the barges are just at the bottom!"

"O thou who read'st what 's written here, Commiserate the lot severe, By which, compell'd, I write them. In vain Sophia I withstand, For Anna adds her dread command; I tremble—and indite them. Blame Eve, who, feeble to withstand One single devil, rais'd her hand, And gather'd our damnation; But do not me or Adam blame, Tempted by two, who did the same— His Wife—and her Relation."

"Celebrating Christmas without subscribing to Christianity is like watching the Super Bowl without having watched a single regular-season football game all year. Some people watch the Super Bowl exclusively for the commercials; others watch it for the halftime show."

"Christmas sits like a black hole on the calendar, and the other holidays implied by "happy holidays"—Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, etc.—are powerless to be drawn in by its force."

": You were disparaging my lover. : On the contrary, I was reminiscing about my wife. : It comes to the same thing. : Things mostly do, you know."

": I hear she's a scrubbed blonde with all the sex appeal of chilled Dettol. : (with dignity) There are those who believe that cleanliness is next to sexiness."

": You can take it from me that Tēa's an engaging little trollop, and she suits me mightily. Mind you, she takes a bit of keeping up with, it's a good thing I'm pretty much of an Olympic sexual athlete. : I suppose these days you're concentrating on the sprints rather than on the long distance stuff. : Not so, dear boy. I'm in the pink of condition. I could copulate for England at any distance. : Well, they do say in Olympic circles, that the point is to take part, rather than to win, so I suppose there's hope for us all."

": So she's used to luxury. Whose fault is that? : It's not a fault if you can afford it. But can you?"

": You must be joking. : You would know it if I were."

": Supposing someone saw you climbing in? : Who? You're not overlooked. : Who knows? A dallying couple. A passing sheep rapist."

": You have to be serious if you want to be in love. : You have to be serious about crime if you want to afford to be in love."

": You seem to regard marriage as a game, sir. : Not marriage, Inspector. Sex. Sex is the game with marriage the penalty."

": Now, the shortest way to a man's heart is humiliation. You soon find out what he's made of."

"All fiefs were originally masculine, and women were excluded from the succession of them because they cannot keep secrets."

"Perhaps I should have been more persistent."

"Eliza Orme had argued more generally in the 1890s that it was necessary to break down conventional barriers, allowing “each individual to do what natural talent prompts rather than what social status demands”"

"Things look more hopeful now than ever."

"Eliza Orme’s Ambitions fills out earlier scant accounts of this intriguing life, while speculating about why it has been overlooked."

"The Dominion of the Sea, as it is an ancient and undoubted right of the Crown of England, so it is the best security of the Land; for it is Impregnable, so long as the Sea is well-guarded: therefore out of all question, it is a thing of absolute necessity, that the guard of the Sea be exactly looked unto; and those Subjects, whose minds are most fixed upon the Honour of the King and Country, will with no patience endure to think of it; that this Dominion of the Sea, which is so great an Honour, should be either lost or diminished: besides, for safeties fake, the Dominion of the Sea is to be kept, and the Sea guarded. The Wooden-Walls are the best Walls of this Kingdom; and if the Riches and Wealth of the Kingdom be respected, for that cause the Dominion of the Sea ought to be respected; for else what would become of our Wool, Lead and the like, the prices whereof would fall to nothing if others should be Masters of the Sea."

"Without you, Heaven would be too dull to bear, And Hell would not be Hell if you are there."

"The Bee and Spider by a diverse power, Sucke Hony and Poyson from the selfe same flower."

"Personalized education using AI for kids is going to be a huge game changer."

"On the other hand, such toys raise a host of issues that policymakers are only starting to get a handle on. The privacy implications alone of potentially having a toy — or a succession of them — collect a child's every utterance from the time they can talk until adulthood are tremendous. That is an issue that we really have to solve."

"The technology promises improvements to everything from industrial processes to agriculture to transportation, Firth-Butterfield said. But it also could lead to a raft of challenges and dangers, including massive job losses in a relatively short period of time, the illegitimate denial of goods or services thanks to flawed or biased algorithms, and citizens' loss of control of what was previously personal data."

"It's really important that we know that there are all these different tensions, because without addressing them, we are really left with, I suspect, a failing trust in the technology," she said. "What I certainly don't want to see are all the benefits of AI somehow being lost because we haven't put in the ethical underpinnings to help the public know that we're doing something safe"

"It's going to enable us to feed more people"

"It's really important" that we make sure that we're "not encoding own prejudices and taking them forward with us, because if do that, we will actually stultify the development of the world."

"We don't have the luxury of a long time to actually even out the effects on job loss with this revolution, because it's happening so quickly."

"AI's running fast, and we need to run as fast with governance mechanisms."

"[negative numbers] ‘…darken the very whole doctrines of the equations and make dark of the things which are in their nature excessively obvious and simple.’"

"In a certain sense, many of us mutilate the mind and render it impotent, for there is in the nature of man an irresistible tendency to religion; it is founded in our wants and passions, in the extent of our faculties, in the quality of mind itself. 's description of the untired soul darting from world to world, is a noble image of the restless longing of the mind after God and immortality. The stronger his sensibility, the more exalted his imagination, the more pious will every man be. And in this inherent and essential quality of our minds can we alone account for the various absurd and demonstrably false dogmas believed so honestly and zealously by some. Men run headlong into superstition in the same way as young boys and girls run into matrimony."

"Lamb had written to Coleridge about one of their old masters, who had been a severe disciplinarian, intimating that he hoped Coleridge had forgiven all injuries. Coleridge replied that he certainly had; he hoped his soul was in heaven, and that when he went there he was borne by a host of cherubs, all face and wing, and without anything to excite his whipping propensities!"

"Dined at Gooden’s, where I met among others , the Secretary of the . He surprised me by saying that he knew Goethe only as a botanist, in which character he thought most highly of him, he being the author of the New System of Botany; and that this is now the opinion of the most eminent botanists both in France and England. I rejoice at this unexpected intelligence."

"Lamb was the first English writer of eminence whom Crabb Robinson tried to convince of the excellence of Goethe."