Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom

"[T]he British workman has more to hope for from the rising tide of Tory democracy than from the dried up drain-pipe of Radicalism."

"There are not wanting those who say that in this Jubilee year our Empire has reached the height of its glory and power, and that now we shall begin to decline, as Babylon, Carthage, Rome declined. Do not believe these croakers but give the lie to their dismal croaking by showing by our actions that the vigour and vitality of our race is unimpaired and that our determination is to uphold the Empire that we have inherited from our fathers as Englishmen (cheers), that our flag shall fly high upon the sea, our voice be heard in the councils of Europe, our Sovereign supported by the love of her subjects, then shall we continue to pursue that course marked out for us by an all-wise hand and carry out our mission of bearing peace, civilisation and good government to the uttermost ends of the earth. (Loud cheers.)"

"Every influence, every motive, that provokes the spirit of murder among men, impels these mountaineers to deeds of treachery and violence. The strong aboriginal propensity to kill, inherent in all human beings, has in these valleys been preserved in unexampled strength and vigour. That religion, which above all others was founded and propagated by the sword — the tenets and principles of which are instinct with incentives to slaughter and which in three continents has produced fighting breeds of men — stimulates a wild and merciless fanaticism. The love of plunder, always a characteristic of hill tribes, is fostered by the spectacle of opulence and luxury which, to their eyes, the cities and plains of the south display. A code of honour not less punctilious than that of old Spain, is supported by vendettas as implacable as those of Corsica."

"Every tribesman has a blood feud with his neighbor. Every man’s hand is against the other, and all against the stranger….Every influence, every motive, that provokes the spirit of murder among men, impels these mountaineers to deeds of treachery and violence. The strong aboriginal propensity to kill, inherent in all human beings, has in these valleys been preserved in unexampled strength and vigour. That religion [Islam], which above all others was founded and propagated by the sword—the tenets and principles of which are instinct with incentives to slaughter and which in three continents has produced fighting breeds of men—stimulates a wild and merciless fanaticism. The love of plunder, always a characteristic of hill tribes, is fostered by the spectacle of opulence and luxury which, to their eyes, the cities and plains of the south display. A code of honour not less punctilious than that of old Spain, is supported by vendettas as implacable as those of Corsica.[3]"

"We see them in their squalid, loopholed hovels, amid dirt and ignorance, as degraded a race as any on the fringe of humanity: fierce as the tiger, but less cleanly; as dangerous, not so graceful. Those simple family virtues, which idealists usually ascribe to primitive peoples, are conspicuously absent. Their wives and their womenkind generally, have no position but that of animals. They are freely bought and sold, and are not infrequently bartered for rifles. Truth is unknown among them. A single typical incident displays the standpoint from which they regard an oath. In any dispute about a field boundary, it is customary for both claimants to walk round the boundary he claims, with a Koran in his hand, swearing that all the time he is walking on his own land. To meet the difficulty of a false oath, while he is walking over his neighbor’s land, he puts a little dust from his own field into his shoes. As both sides are acquainted with the trick, the dismal farce of swearing is usually soon abandoned, in favor of an appeal to force.... All are held in the grip of miserable superstition. The power of the ziarat, or sacred tomb, is wonderful. Sick children are carried on the backs of buffaloes, sometimes sixty or seventy miles, to be deposited in front of such a shrine, after which they are carried back—if they survive the journey—in the same way. It is painful even to think of what the wretched child suffers in being thus jolted over the cattle tracks. But the tribesmen consider the treatment much more efficacious than any infidel prescription. To go to a ziarat and put a stick in the ground is sufficient to ensure the fulfillment of a wish. To sit swinging a stone or coloured glass ball, suspended by a string from a tree, and tied there by some fakir, is a sure method of securing a fine male heir. To make a cow give good milk, a little should be plastered on some favorite stone near the tomb of a holy man. These are but a few instances; but they may suffice to reveal a state of mental development at which civilization hardly knows whether to laugh or weep.”"

"Their superstition exposes them to the rapacity and tyranny of a numerous priesthood ‘Mullahs,’ ‘Sahibzadas,’ ‘Akhundzadas,’ ‘Fakirs,’—and a host of wandering Talib-ul-ilms, who correspond with the theological students in Turkey, and live free at the expense of the people. More than this, they enjoy a sort of droit du seigneur, and no man’s wife or daughter is safe from them. Of some of their manners and morals it is impossible to write. As Macaulay has said of Wycherley’s plays, ‘they are protected against the critics as a skunk is protected against the hunters.’ They are ‘safe, because they are too filthy to handle, and too noisome even to approach.’"

"[when] the Mullah will raise his voice and remind them of other days when the sons of the prophet drove the infidel from the plains of India, and ruled at Delhi, as wide an Empire as the Kafir holds to-day: when the true religion strode proudly through the earth and scorned to lie hidden and neglected among the hills: when mighty princes ruled in Bagdad, and all men knew that there was one God, and Mahomet was His prophet. And the young men hearing these things will grip their Martinis[1], and pray to Allah, that one day He will bring some Sahib—best prize of all—across their line of sight at seven hundred yards so that, at least, they may strike a blow for insulted and threatened Islam."

"During the two years that the British flag had floated over Chakdara and the Malakand the trade of the Swat Valley had nearly doubled. As the sun of civilisation rose above the hills, the fair flowers of commerce unfolded, and the streams of supply and demand, hitherto congealed by the frost of barbarism, were thawed…. But a single class had viewed with quick intelligence and intense hostility the approach of the British power. The priesthood of the Afghan border instantly recognised the full meaning of the Chitral road. The cause of their antagonism is not hard to discern. Contact with civilisation assails the ignorance, and credulity, on which the wealth and influence of the Mullah depend. A general combination of the religious forces of India against that civilising, educating rule, which unconsciously saps the strength of superstition, is one of the dangers of the future. Here Mahommedanism [Islam] was threatened and resisted. A vast, but silent agitation was begun. Messengers passed to and fro among the tribes. Whispers of war, a holy war, were breathed to a race intensely passionate and fanatical. Vast and mysterious agencies, the force of which is incomprehensible to rational minds, were employed. More astute brains than the wild valleys of the North produce conducted the preparations. Secret encouragement came from the South—from India itself. Actual support and assistance was given from Cabul. In that strange half light of ignorance and superstition, assailed by supernatural terrors and doubts, and lured by hopes of celestial glory, the tribes were taught to expect prodigious events. Something was coming. A great day for their race and faith was at hand. Presently the moment would arrive. They must watch and be ready. The mountains became as full of explosives as a magazine. Yet the spark was lacking. At length the time came. A strange combination of circumstances operated to improve the opportunity. The victory of the Turks over the Greeks; the circulation of the Amir’s book on ‘Jehad [Jihad]’; his assumption of the position of a Caliph of Islam, and much indiscreet writing in the Anglo-Indian press, [Articles in Anglo-Indian papers on such subjects as The Recrudescence of Mahommedanism [Islam] produce more effect on the educated native mind than the most seditious frothings of the vernacular press] united to produce a ‘boom’ in Mahommedanism [Islam]]. The moment was propitious; nor was the man wanting. What Peter the Hermit was to the regular bishops and cardinals of the Church, the Mad Mullah was to the ordinary priesthood of the Afghan border. A wild enthusiast, convinced alike of his Divine mission and miraculous powers, preached a crusade, or Jehad [Jihad], against the infidel. The mine was fired. The flame ran along the ground. The explosions burst forth in all directions. The reverberations have not yet died away.[6]"

"It is, thank heaven, difficult if not impossible for the modern European to fully appreciate the force which fanaticism exercises among an ignorant, warlike and Oriental population. Several generations have elapsed since the nations of the West have drawn the sword in religious controversy, and the evil memories of the gloomy past have soon faded in the strong, clear light of Rationalism and human sympathy. Indeed it is evident that Christianity, however degraded and distorted by cruelty and intolerance, must always exert a modifying influence on men's passions, and protect them from the more violent forms of fanatical fever, as we are protected from smallpox by vaccination. But the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis—as dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace. Luckily the religion of peace is usually the better armed."

"I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact."

"It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic."

"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

"It is the habit of the boa constrictor to besmear the body of his victim with a foul slime before he devours it; and there are many people in England, and perhaps elsewhere, who seem to be unable to contemplate military operations for clear political objects, unless they can cajole themselves into the belief that their enemy are utterly and hopelessly vile. To this end the Dervishes, from the Mahdi and the Khalifa downwards, have been loaded with every variety of abuse and charged with all conceivable crimes. This may be very comforting to philanthropic persons at home; but when an army in the field becomes imbued with the idea that the enemy are vermin who cumber the earth, instances of barbarity may easily be the outcome. This unmeasured condemnation is moreover as unjust as it is dangerous and unnecessary."

"What is the true and original root of Dutch aversion to British rule? It is the abiding fear and hatred of the movement that seeks to place the native on a level with the white man ... the Kaffir is to be declared the brother of the European, to be constituted his legal equal, to be armed with political rights."

"There must be room in our army system for nearly everyone who is not grossly idle or grossly stupid. It is not a case of employing incompetent or worthless men, and such should, of course, be expelled from the army. It is a case of finding suitable employment for officers not fit for higher command."

"It may be said, therefore, that the military opinion of the world is opposed to those people who cry 'Democratize the army!' and it must be remembered that an army is not a field upon which persons with Utopian ideas may exercise their political theories, but a weapon for the defence of the State."

"I think we shall have to take the Chinese in hand and regulate them. I believe that as civilized nations become more powerful they will get more ruthless, and the time will come when the world will impatiently bear the existence of great barbaric nations who may at any time arm themselves and menace civilized nations. I believe in the ultimate partition of China — I mean ultimate. I hope we shall not have to do it in our day. The Aryan stock is bound to triumph."

"In former days, when wars arose from individual causes, from the policy of a Minister or the passion of a King, when they were fought by small regular armies of professional soldiers, and when their course was retarded by the difficulties of communication and supply, and often suspended by the winter season, it was possible to limit the liabilities of the combatants. But now, when mighty populations are impelled on each other, each individual severally embittered and inflamed—when the resources of science and civilisation sweep away everything that might mitigate their fury, a European war can only end in the ruin of the vanquished and the scarcely less fatal commercial dislocation and exhaustion of the conquerors. Democracy is more vindictive than Cabinets. The wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings."

"The ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year – and to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen."

"The old Conservative Party, with its religious convictions and constitutional principles, will disappear, and a new Party will arise like perhaps the Republican Party of the United States of America—rich, materialist, and secular—whose opinions will turn on tariffs, and who will cause the lobbies to be crowded with the touts of protected industries."

"The whole Bill looks like an attempt on the part of the Government to gratify a small but noisy section of their own supporters and to purchase a little popularity in the constituencies by dealing harshly with a number of unfortunate aliens who have no votes. It will commend itself to those who like patriotism at other people's expense and admire Imperialism on the Russian model. It is expected to appeal to insular prejudice against foreigners, to racial prejudice against Jews, and to labour prejudice against competition; and it will no doubt supply a variety of rhetorical phrases for the approaching election. The same men who are obstinate opponents of trade unionism will declaim about "the rights of British labour." Those who champion the interests of slum landlords will dilate on the evils of overcrowding. Those who have been most forward in bringing Chinese into Africa will pose as the champions of racial purity at home."

"I take leave to doubt the wisdom of this Bill even as a political manoeuvre. In spite of militarism and false ideals about trade, there is a growing spirit of fraternity between democracies. English working men are not so selfish as to be unsympathetic towards the victims of circumstances or oppression. They do not respond in any marked degree to the Anti-Semitism which has darkened recent Continental history; and I for one believe that they will disavow an attempt to shut out the stranger from our land because he is poor or in trouble, and will resent a measure which without any proved necessity smirches those ancient traditions of freedom and hospitality for which Britain has been so long renowned."

"Governments create nothing and have nothing to give but what they have first taken away — you may put money in the pockets of one set of Englishmen, but it will be money taken from the pockets of another set of Englishmen, and the greater part will be spilled on the way. Every vote given for Protection is a vote to give Governments the right of robbing Peter to pay Paul and charging the public a handsome commission on the job."

"The doc­trines that by keep­ing out for­eign goods more wealth, and con­se­quently more employ­ment, will be cre­ated at home, are either true or they are not true. We con­tend that they are not true. We con­tend that for a nation to try to tax itself into pros­per­ity is like a man stand­ing in a bucket and try­ing to lift him­self up by the han­dle."

"Politics are almost as exciting as war, and – quite as dangerous ... [I]n war, you can only be killed once. But in politics many times."

"For my own part I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities which he excites among his opponents. I have always set myself not merely to relish but to deserve thoroughly their censure."

"The conditions of the Transvaal ordinance under which Chinese Labour is now being carried on do not, in my opinion, constitute a state of slavery. A labour contract into which men enter voluntarily for a limited and for a brief period, under which they are paid wages which they consider adequate, under which they are not bought or sold and from which they can obtain relief on payment of seventeen pounds ten shillings, the cost of their passage, may not be a healthy or proper contract, but it cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude."

"I submit respectfully to the House as a general principle that our responsibility in this matter is directly proportionate to our power. Where there is great power there is great responsibility, where there is less power there is less responsibility, and where there is no power there can, I think, be no responsibility."

"Taxes are an evil—a necessary evil, but still an evil, and the fewer of them we have the better."

"They knew what to expect when their opponents returned to power a party of great vested interests—corruption at home, aggression to cover it up abroad, the trickery of tariff juggles, the tyranny of a well-fed party machine; sentiment by the bucketful, patriotism and Imperialism by the Imperial pint, the open hand at the public Exchequer, the open door at the publichouse, dear food for the million, cheap labour for the millionaire. That was the policy which the Tory party offered them, and that was the policy which he asked them to strike at with the battle-axe of Scotland."

"The Times is speechless, and takes three columns to express its speechlessness."

"Uncounted generations will trample heedlessly upon our tombs. What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on swinging bravely forward along the grand high road and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun."

"The quarrel between a tremendous democratic electorate and a one-sided hereditary chamber of wealthy men has often been threatened, has often been averted, has been long debated, has been long delayed, but it has always been inevitable, and it has come at last. It is now open, it is now flagrant, and it must now be carried to a conclusion."

"Why should five hundred or six hundred titled persons govern us, and why should their children govern our children for ever? I invite a reply from the apologists and the admirers of the House of Lords. I invite them to show any ground of reason, or of logic, or of expediency or practical common sense in defence of the institution which has taken the predominant part during the last few days in the politics of our country. There is no defence, and there is no answer, except that the House of Lords...has survived out of the past. It is a lingering relic of a feudal order. It is the remains, the solitary reminder of a state of things and of a balance of forces which has wholly passed away. I challenge the defenders, the backers, and the instigators of the House of Lords—I challenge them to justify and defend before the electors of the country the character and composition of the hereditary assembly."

"There is no difficulty in vindicating the principle of a hereditary monarchy. The experience of every country and of all ages, the practical reasonings of common sense, arguments of the highest theory, arguments of most commonplace convenience, all unite to show the wisdom which places the supreme leadership of the State beyond the reach of private ambition and above the shocks and changes of party strife."

"The House of Lords, in rejecting the Budget which provides for the national expenditure of the year, are refusing, for the first time since the great Rebellion, aids and supplies to the Crown, and by that fact and by their intrusion upon finance they commit an act of violence against the British Constitution. There is no precedent of any kind for the rejection of a Budget Bill by the House of Lords in all the long annals of the British Parliament, or, before that, in the still more venerable annals of the English Parliament. The custom of centuries forbids their intrusion upon finance."

"The House of Lords have only been tolerated all these years because they were thought to be in a comatose condition which preceded dissolution. They have got to dissolution now. That this body, utterly unrepresentative, utterly unreformed, should come forward and claim the right to make and unmake Governments, should lay one greedy paw on the prerogatives of the sovereign and another upon the established and most fundamental privileges of the House of Commons is a spectacle which a year ago no one would have believed could happen; which fifty years ago no Peer would have dared suggest; and which two hundred years ago would not have been discussed in the amiable though active manner of a political campaign, but would have been settled by charges of cavalry and the steady advance of iron-clad pikemen."

""All civilization", said Lord Curzon, quoting Renan, "all civilization has been the work of aristocracies". ... It would be much more true to say "The upkeep of aristocracies has been the hard work of all civilizations"."

"I cannot believe that in the twentieth century the British people are by their deliberate vote going to constitute this assembly – a fraction of whom no doubt are men of real eminence and dignity, but the great majority of whom are quite ordinary people of the well-to-do class with all the narrowest prejudices and special interests of that class – I cannot believe that you by your votes are going to constitute them the main foundation on which the governing power in our land is reposed. I cannot believe the middle classes and the working classes, who after all have only to use their voting strength to get their own way, are going to degrade and cast away their own voting powers which their fathers won for them in the past...I cannot believe that the electors are going obsequiously to hand over their most vital constitutional right, namely, to choose the Chamber that governs the Government, to an antiquated body of titled persons utterly beyond their control."

"There is nothing economically unsound in increasing temporarily and artificially the demand for labour during a period of temporary and artificial contraction. There is a plain need of some averaging machinery to regulate and even-up the general course of the labour market. ... by every step in that direction you would free thousands of your fellow-countrymen from undeserved agony and ruin."

"We have entered upon a period of crisis and conflict more grave and crucial than any living man has known, and it is a conflict which I think has been more deliberately undertaken and will be more resolutely fought through by both sides than any political conflict that we can recall. Terribly important as economic and constitutional questions may be, the fiscal system of a country and the system of Government which prevails in a country are only means to an end, and that end must be to create conditions favourable to the social and moral welfare of the masses of the citizens."

"We have left the wilderness of phrases and formulas, the cut and dried party issues, and we have broken violently into a world of constructive action. It would be an exaggeration to speak of these changes as though they were a revolution. They are not a revolution, but, taken altogether, the policy which has been unfolded to this country during the last two or three years, and which is gripped together and carried forward by the Budget – that policy which the Lords have for the time being brought to a full stop – constitutes by far the largest, most scientific, most deliberate, most resolute attempt at social organization and social advance which any man living can remember."

"The social conditions of the British people in the early years of the twentieth century cannot be contemplated without deep anxiety... We are at the cross-ways. If we stand on the old happy-go-lucky way, the richer classes ever growing in wealth and in number, and ever declining in responsibility, the very poor remaining plunged or plunging even deeper into helpless, hopeless misery, then I think there is nothing before us but savage strife between class and class, with an increasing disorganization, with an increasing destruction of human strength and human virtue—nothing, in fact, but that dual degeneration which comes from the simultaneous waste of extreme wealth and of extreme want."

"The greatest danger to the British Empire and to the British people is not to be found among the enormous fleets and armies of the European Continent, nor in the solemn problems of Hindustan; it is not in the 'Yellow Peril' nor the 'Black Peril' nor any danger in the wide circuit of colonial and foreign affairs. No, it is here in our midst, close at home, close at hand in the vast growing cities of England and Scotland, and in the dwindling and cramped villages of our denuded countryside. It is there you will find the seeds of Imperial ruin and national decay—the unnatural gap between rich and poor, the divorce of the people from the land, the want of proper discipline and training in our youth, the exploitation of boy labour, the physical degeneration which seems to follow so swiftly on civilized poverty, the awful jumbles of an obsolete Poor Law, the horrid havoc of the liquor traffic, the constant insecurity in the means of subsistence and employment which breaks the heart of many a sober, hard-working man, the absence of any established minimum standard of life and comfort among the workers, and, at the other end, the swift increase of vulgar, joyless luxury—here are the enemies of Britain. Beware lest they shatter the foundations of her power."

"The Budget, and the policy of the Budget, is the first conscious attempt on the part of the State to build up a better and a more scientific organization of society for the workers of this country."

"If large classes of the population live under conditions which make it difficult if not impossible for them to keep a home together in decent comfort, if the children are habitually underfed, if the housewife is habitually overstrained, if the bread-winner is under-employed or under-paid, if all are unprotected and uninsured against the common hazards of modern industrial life, if sickness, accident, infirmity, or old age, or unchecked intemperance, or any other curse or affliction, break up the home, as they break up thousands of homes, and scatter the family, as they scatter thousands of families in our land, it is not merely the waste of earning-power or the dispersal of a few poor sticks of furniture, it is the stamina, the virtue, safety, and honour of the British race that are being squandered."

"Liberalism supplies at once the higher impulse and the practicable path; it appeals to persons by sentiments of generosity and humanity; it proceeds by courses of moderation. By gradual steps, by steady effort from day to day, from year to year, Liberalism enlists hundreds of thousands upon the side of progress and popular democratic reform whom militant Socialism would drive into violent Tory reaction... The cause of the Liberal Party is the cause of the left-out millions."

"The whole tendency of civilization is...towards the multiplication of the collective functions of society. The ever growing complications of civilization create for us new services which have to be undertaken by the State, and create for us an expansion of the existing services. I am of the opinion that the State should increasingly assume the position of the reserve employer of labour. I am very sorry we have not got the railways of this country in our hands. We may do something better with the canals, and we are all agreed that the State must increasingly and earnestly concern itself with the care of the sick and aged, and, above all, of the children."

"I look forward to the universal establishment of minimum standards of life and labour, and their progressive elevation as the increasing energies of production may permit. I do not think that Liberalism in any circumstances can cut itself off from this fertile field of social effort, and I would recommend you not to be scared in discussing any of these proposals, just because some old woman comes along and tells you they are Socialistic."

"Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains -- and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labour and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived."

"The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country. A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the State, and even of convicted criminals against the State, a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts towards the discovery of curative and regenerating processes, and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man—these are the symbols which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it."

"The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks constitutes a national and race danger which is impossible to exaggerate. I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed before another year has passed."

"'I propose that 100,000 degenerate Britons should be forcibly sterilized and others put in labour camps to halt the decline of the British race.'"

"I consider that every workman is well advised to join a trade union. I cannot conceive how any man standing undefended against the powers that be in this world could be so foolish, if he can possibly spare the money from the maintenance of his family, not to associate himself with an organisation to protect the rights and interests of labour."

"There can be no question of the military forces of the Crown "intervening in a labour dispute" in the proper sense of the words. That, so-far as it can be done by the Government, is a function of the Board of Trade. It is only when a trade dispute is accompanied by riot, intimidation, or other violations of the law, or when a serious interruption is caused or likely to be caused to the supply of necessary commodities, that the military can be called on to support the police; and then their duty is to maintain the law, not to interfere in the matter in dispute."

"The main argument which all these years has sustained the Home Rule cause has been the continuous and unalterable demand of the Irish people in an overwhelming majority, through every recognised channel of the national will, for the establishment of an Irish Legislature. The Irish claim has never been fairly treated by the statesmen of Great Britain. They have never tried to deal with Ireland in the spirit in which both great parties face the large problems of the British Empire. And yet, why should not Ireland have her chance? Why should not her venerable nationhood enjoy a recognised and respected existence? Why should not her own distinctive point of view obtain a complete expression? Why should the Empire, why should the world at large, be deprived of a new contribution to the sum of human effort? History and poetry, justice and good sense, alike demand that this race, gifted, virtuous, and brave, which has lived so long and has endured so much, should not, in view of her passionate desire, be left out of the family of nations, and should not be lost forever among the indiscriminated multitudes of men.—(Cheers.) What harm could Irish ideas and Irish sentiments and Irish dreams, if given their free play in the Irish Parliament, do to the strong structure of the British power? Would not the arrival of an Irish Parliament upon the brilliantly lighted stage of the modern world be an enrichment and an added glory to the treasures of the British Empire?"

"The British Navy is to us a necessity and, from some points of view, the German Navy is to them more in the nature of a luxury. Our naval power involves British existence. It is existence to us; it is expansion to them. We cannot menace the peace of a single Continental hamlet, nor do we wish to do so no matter how great and supreme our Navy may become. But, on the other hand, the whole fortunes of our race and Empire, the whole treasure accumulated during so many centuries of sacrifice and achievement would perish and be swept utterly away if our naval supremacy were to be impaired. It is the British Navy which makes Great Britain a great Power."

"The Titanic disaster is the prevailing theme here. The story is a good one. The strict observance of the great traditions of the sea towards women & children reflects nothing but honour upon our civilization... I cannot help feeling proud of our race & its traditions as proved by this event. Boat loads of women & children tossing on the sea — safe & sound — & the rest — Silence. Honour to their memory."

"Any Ulster county, upon the requisition of a tenth of the electors, can, by a simple vote, stand out, for six years, of the whole operation of the Home Rule Bill and remain exactly as they are... Consider what that offer must cost to the Irish Nationalist Leaders. When I think of the patience, the wisdom, and the eloquence with which Mr. Redmond has conducted this great historic controversy, and when I think how dearly he and those who are working with him cherish the dream, the hope, of a united and self-governing Ireland, I can measure the cruel pang with which this temporary, but none the less serious, change has been accepted by him and by the great mass of the Irish nation. It is their hope, and I think they are right and wise in hoping, that the day will come, perhaps before that period is passed, when, of their own free will, the Ulster counties that have exercised the option will seek to be incorporated in the ancient Parliament of their motherland (cheers), when that brilliant and courageous speaker, Mr. Devlin, will lead the democracy of Belfast to take their true position in the councils of a united and progressive Ireland. (Cheers.)"

"Mr. Bonar Law says, in effect, if there is civil war in Ulster it will spread to England too. I agree with him. I go farther... This will be the issue—Whether civil and Parliamentary government in these realms is to be beaten down by the menace of armed force. Whatever sympathies we have for Ulster, we need have no compunction here. It is the old battle-ground of English history. It is the same issue fought out 250 years ago on the field of Marston Moor. (Cheers.) From the language which is employed it would almost seem that we are face to face with a disposition on the part of some sections of the propertied classes to subvert Parliamentary government and to challenge the civil and constitutional foundations of society. Against such a mood, wherever it manifests itself in action, there is no lawful measure from which the Government should shrink, and there is no lawful measure from which this Government will shrink. (Cheers.)"

"Bloodshed no doubt is lamentable. I have seen some of it—more perhaps than many of those who talk about it with such levity—but there are worse things than bloodshed, even on an extensive scale. The collapse of the Central Government of the British Empire would be worse. The abandonment by public men of the righteous aims to which they are pledged in honour would be worse. The cowardly abdication of responsibility by the Executive would be worse. The trampling down of that law and order which under the conditions of a civilised State assure to millions, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—all this would be worse than bloodshed. (Cheers.)"

"As long as it effects working men in England or Nationalist peasants in Ireland, there is no measure of military force which the Tory Party will not readily employ. They denounce all violence except their own. They uphold all law except the law they choose to break. (Cheers.) They always welcome the application of force to others. (Laughter.) But they themselves are to remain immune. They are to select from the Statute-book the laws they will obey and the laws they will resist. They claim to be a party in the State free to use force in all directions, but never to have it applied to themselves. Whether in office or in opposition, as they have very often told us, they are to govern the country. If they cannot do it by the veto of privilege, they will do it by the veto of violence. If constitutional methods serve their ends, they will be Constitutionalists. If law suits their purpose, they will be law-abiding, aye, and law-enforcing. When social order means the order of the Tory Party, when social order means the order of the propertied classes against the wage-earner, when social order means the master against the man, or the landlord against the tenant, order is sacred and holy, order is dear to the heart of the Tory Party and order must be maintained by force. But if it should happen that the Constitution, or the law, or the maintenance of order stand in the path of some Tory project, stand in the path of the realisation of some appetite or ambition which they have conceived, then they vie with the wildest anarchists in the language which they use against the Constitution, against the law, and against all order and all means of maintaining order. And that is the political doctrine with which they salute the 20th century. (Cheers.)"

"If Ulster seeks peace and fair play she can find it. She knows where to find it. (Cheers.) If Ulstermen extend the hand of friendship it will be clasped by Liberals and by their Nationalist countrymen in all good faith and in all good will; but if there is no wish for peace, if every concession that is made is spurned and exploited, if every effort to meet their views is only to be used as a means of breaking down Home Rule and of barring the way to the rest of Ireland; if Ulster is to become a tool in party calculations, if the civil and Parliamentary systems under which we have dwelt so long and our fathers before us are to be brought to the crude challenge of force, if the Government and the Parliament of this great country and greater Empire are to be exposed to menace and brutality, if all the loose, wanton, and reckless chatter we have been forced to listen to these many months is in the end to disclose a sinister and revolutionary purpose, then I can only say to you: Let us go forward together and put these grave matters to the proof. (Loud cheers.)"

"Everything tends towards catastrophe and collapse. I am interested, geared up and happy. Is it not horrible to be made like this?"

"Like chasing a quinine pill around a cow pasture."

"Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer. You have only to persevere to save yourselves, and to save all those who rely upon you. You have only to go right on, and at the end of the road, be it short or long, victory and honor will be found."

"I am finished."

"[The] truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is."

"We are not a young people with an innocent record and a scanty inheritance... We have engrossed to ourselves an altogether disproportionate share of the wealth and traffic of the world. We have got all we want in territory, and our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force, often seems less reasonable to others than to us."

"Only the final results can prove whether military autocracies or Parliamentary Governments are more likely — take them for all in all — to preserve the welfare and safety of great nations. If the result is inconclusive, the conflict will be renewed after an uneasy interval. But when an absolute decision is obtained the system of the victors — whoever they are — will probably be adopted to a very great extent by the vanquished."

"The true characteristic of all British strategy lies in the use of amphibious power. Not the sea alone, but the land and the sea together: not the Fleet alone, but the Army in the hand of the Fleet."

"The German hope is that if the frontiers can be unshakeably maintained for another year, a peace can be obtained which will relieve Germany from the consequences of the hideous catastrophe in which she has plunged the world, and leave her free to scheme and prepare a decisive stroke in another generation. Unless Germany is beaten in a manner which leaves no room for doubt or dispute, unless she is convinced by the terrible logic of events that the glory of her people can never be achieved by violent means, unless her war-making capacity after the war is sensibly diminished, a renewal of the conflict, after an uneasy and malevolent truce, seems unavoidable."

"I think a curse should rest on me — because I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment — and yet — I can't help it — I enjoy every second of it."

"No compromise on the main purpose; no peace till victory; no pact with unrepentant wrong -- that is the Declaration of July 4th, 1918."

"Why should anybody make a great fortune out of the war? While everybody has been serving the country, profiteers and contractors & shipping speculators have gained fortunes of a gigantic character. Why shd we be bound to bear the unpopularity of defending old Runciman's ill-gotten gains? I wd reclaim everything above £10,000 (to let the small fry off) in reduction of the War Debt."

"One might as well legalise sodomy as recognise the Bolsheviks."

"The aid which we can give to those Russian armies which are now engaged in fighting against the foul baboonery of Bolshevism can be given by arms, munitions, equipment, and by the technical services. It is a malicious statement against the interests of the British Empire to suggest that it is necessary for us to prolong the action of the Military Service Act because of enterprises which we have on foot in Russia."

"I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gases: gases can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected ... We cannot, in any circumstances acquiesce to the non-utilisation of any weapons which are available to procure a speedy termination of the disorder which prevails on the frontier."

": Many argue that quotes from this passage are often taken out of context, because Churchill is distinguishing between non-lethal agents and the deadly gasses used in World War I and emphasizing the use of non-lethal weapons; however Churchill is not clearly ruling out the use of lethal gases, simply stating that "it is not necessary to use only the most deadly". It is sometimes claimed that gas killed many young and elderly Kurds and Arabs when the RAF bombed rebelling villages in Iraq in 1920 during the British occupation. For more information on this matter, see Gas in Mesopotamia."

"Germany will recover and Russian will rise... our policy must be directed to prevent a union between German militarism and Russian Bolshevism."

"Lenin was sent into Russia by the Germans in the same way that you might send a phial containing a culture of typhoid or cholera to be poured into the water supply of a great city, and it worked with amazing accuracy."

"First there are the Jews who, dwelling in every country throughout the world, identify themselves with that country, enter into its national life and, while adhering faithfully to their own religion, regard themselves as citizens in the fullest sense of the State which has received them. Such a Jew living in England would say, 'I am an English man practising the Jewish faith.' This is a worthy conception, and useful in the highest degree. We in Great Britain well know that during the great struggle the influence of what may be called the 'National Jews' in many lands was cast preponderatingly on the side of the Allies; and in our own Army Jewish soldiers have played a most distinguished part, some rising to the command of armies, others winning the Victoria Cross for valour. There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution, by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews, it is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders. Thus Tchitcherin, a pure Russian, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunacharski cannot be compared with the power of Trotsky, or of Zinovieff, the Dictator of the Red Citadel (Petrograd) or of Krassin or Radek -- all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses. The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during which Bela Kun ruled in Hungary. The same phenomenon has been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria), so far as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the German people. Although in all these countries there are many non-Jews every whit as bad as the worst of the Jewish revolutionaries, the part played by the latter in proportion to their numbers in the population is astonishing."

": (A note: Churchill viewed Bolshevism as a heavily Jewish phenomenon. He contrasted the Jewish role in the creation of Bolshevism with a more positive view of the role that Jews had played in England.)."

"In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all of them, have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxemburg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire."

"However we may dwell upon the difficulties of General Dyer during the Amritsar riots, upon the anxious and critical situation in the Punjab, upon the danger to Europeans throughout that province, ... one tremendous fact stands out – I mean the slaughter of nearly 400 persons and the wounding of probably three to four times as many, at the Jallian Wallah Bagh on 13th April. That is an episode which appears to me to be without precedent or parallel in the modern history of the British Empire. ... It is an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation."

"Men who take up arms against the State must expect at any moment to be fired upon. Men who take up arms unlawfully cannot expect that the troops will wait until they are quite ready to begin the conflict."

"Frightfulness is not a remedy known to the British Pharmacopaeia."

"I yield to no one in my detestation of Bolshevism, and of the revolutionary violence which precedes it. ... But my hatred of Bolshevism and Bolsheviks is not founded on their silly system of economics, or their absurd doctrine of an impossible equality. It arises from the bloody and devastating terrorism which they practice in every land into which they have broken, and by which alone their criminal regime can be maintained. ... Governments who have seized upon power by violence and by usurpation have often resorted to terrorism in their desperate efforts to keep what they have stolen, but the august and venerable structure of the British Empire ... does not need such aid. Such ideas are absolutely foreign to the British way of doing things."

"Let me marshal the facts. The crowd was unarmed, except with bludgeons. It was not attacking anybody or anything. It was holding a seditious meeting. When fire had been opened upon it to disperse it, it tried to run away. Pinned up in a narrow place considerably smaller than Trafalgar Square, with hardly any exits, and packed together so that one bullet would drive through three or four bodies, the people ran madly this way and the other. When the fire was directed upon the centre, they ran to the sides. The fire was then directed to the sides. Many threw themselves down on the ground, and the fire was then directed on the ground. This was continued for 8 or 10 minutes ... [i]f the road had not been so narrow, the machine guns and the armoured cars would have joined in. Finally, when the ammunition had reached the point that only enough remained to allow for the safe return of the troops, and after 379 persons ... had been killed, and when most certainly 1,200 or more had been wounded, the troops, at whom not even a stone had been thrown, swung round and marched away. ... We have to make it absolutely clear ... that this is not the British way of doing business. ... Our reign, in India or anywhere else, has never stood on the basis of physical force alone, and it would be fatal to the British Empire if we were to try to base ourselves only upon it."

"The scientific apparatus which has rendered possible the great expansion of the populations of the world in modern times is the result of capitalist production by individual effort. And from much earlier times the power of men to form themselves into civilised communities depended upon the observance of laws which secured personal possession of the fruits of work, or enterprise, or thrift, which procured respect for contracts entered into between man and man, which gave even greater prizes for greater efforts or greater aptitudes. These conceptions were based on the primary desire of man to seek his own benefit and that of his family. By harnessing this desire into laws, capable, no doubt, of infinite improvement, the motive power of material progress was obtained."

"I cannot pretend to feel impartial about the colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns."

"He ought to be lain bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi, and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new Viceroy seated on its back."

"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and the glory of the climb."

"Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat."

"The enthronement in office of a Socialist Government will be a serious national misfortune such as has usually befallen great States only on the morrow of defeat in war. It will delay the return of prosperity; it will check enterprise and impair credit; it will open a period of increasing political confusion and disturbance."

"Might a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings — nay to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke?."

"By abandoning the naval base at Singapore the Socialist Government has made it impossible for the British Navy to enter the Pacific, and consequently to afford the slightest assistance to Australia and New Zealand, no matter how terrible their need might be. Yet almost at the same time that the British Navy is stripped of its old power of defending the British Empire we know well that they would gladly hawk it round Europe to be the drudge of an international organization and fight in every quarrel but its own."

"Judged by every standard which history has applied to Governments, the Soviet Government of Russia is one of the worst tyrannies that has ever existed in the world. (Cheers.) It accords no political rights. It rules by terror. It punishes political opinions. It suppresses free speech. It tolerates no newspapers but its own. It persecutes Christianity with a zeal and a cunning never equalled since the times of the Roman Emperors. It is engaged at this moment in trampling down the peoples of Georgia and executing their leaders by hundreds. It is for this process that Mr. MacDonald asks us to make ourselves responsible. We are to render these tyrannies possible by lending to their authors money to pay for the ammunition to murder the Georgians, to enable the Soviet sect to keep its stranglehold on the dumb Russian nation, and to poison the world, and so far as they can, the British Empire, with their filthy propaganda. (Cheers.) That is what we are asked to take upon ourselves. It is an outrage on the British name."

"But contrast the attitude of the Socialist Government towards their Bolshevist friends and their attitude to the great self-governing Dominions of the Crown. To the enemies of Britain, of civilization, of freedom, to those who deserted us in the crises of the war—smiles, compliments, caresses, cash. But for Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, who sent their brave men to fight and die by scores of thousands, who never flinched and never wearied, who are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh—to them nothing but frigid repulsion. Our bread for the Bolshevist serpent; our aid for the foreigner of every country; our favours for the Socialists all over the world who have no country; but for our own daughter States across the oceans, on whom the future of the British island and nation depends, only the cold stones of indifference, aversion, and neglect. (Cheers.) That is the policy with which the Socialist Government confronts us, and against that policy we will strive to marshal the unconquerable might of Britain."

"Mankind has never been in this position before. Without having improved appreciably in virtue or enjoying wiser guidance, it has got into its hands for the first time the tools by which it can unfailingly accomplish its own extermination. That is the point in human destinies to which all the glories and toils of men have at last led them. They would do well to pause and ponder upon their new responsibilities...Surely if a sense of self-preservation still exists among men, if the will to live resides not merely in individuals or nations but in humanity as a whole, the prevention of the supreme catastrophe ought to be the paramount object of all endeavour."

"I am most anxious that in dealing with matters which every Member knows are extremely delicate matters, I should not use any phrase or expression which would cause offence to our friends and Allies on the Continent or across the Atlantic Ocean."

"To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often."

"The follies of Socialism are inexhaustible... Even among themselves they have twenty discordant factions who hate one another even more than they hate you and me. Their insincerity! Can you not feel a sense of disgust at the arrogant presumption of superiority of these people?.... Then when it comes to practice, down they fall with a wallop not only to the level of ordinary human beings but to a level which is even far below the average."

"Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent."

"Let them [Socialists] abandon the utter fallacy, the grotesque, erroneous, fatal blunder of believing that by limiting the enterprise of man, by riveting the shackles of a false equality... they will increase the well-being of the world."

"I have never taken the view which seems to give so much pleasure to morbid and misanthropic minds, a view which they have spread so widely through the United States, that Britain is "down and out," that the foundations of her commercial and industrial greatness have been sapped, that the stamina of her people is impaired, that her workmen are mutinous and lazy, that her employers are pleasure-loving and benighted, that her institutions are crumbling, and that her Empire is falling to pieces."

"I decline utterly to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the fire."

"Make your minds perfectly clear that if ever you let loose upon us again a general strike, we will loose upon you — another "British Gazette.""

"A sheep in sheep's clothing."

"What a man! I have lost my heart! … If I were Italian, I am sure I would have been with you entirely from the beginning of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passion of Leninism. … Your movement has rendered a service to the whole world. The greatest fear that ever tormented every Democratic or Socialist leader was that of being outbid or surpassed by some other leader more extreme than himself. It has been said that a continual movement to the Left, a kind of fatal landslide toward the abyss, has been the character of all revolutions. Italy has shown that there is a way to combat subversive forces."

"Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the masses of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honour and stability of stabilized society. She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of Bolshevism."

"Although trade is important, there are other and stronger bonds of Empire, and since the Conference of 1926 nothing but common interests and traditions have held the Empire together. But those are mighty ties, incomprehensible to Europeans, which have drawn millions of men from the far corners of the earth to the battlefields of France, and we must trust to them to continue to draw us together."

"Cultured people are merely the glittering scum which floats upon the deep river of production."

"The rescue of India from ages of barbarism, tyranny, and internecine war and its slow but ceaseless forward march to civilisation constitute upon the whole the finest achievement of our history."

"Dominion status can certainly not be attained by a community which brands and treats sixty millions of its members, fellow human beings, toiling at their side, as 'Untouchables', whose approach is an affront and whose very presence is pollution. Dominion status can certainly not be attained while India is a prey to fierce racial and religious dissensions and when the withdrawal of British protection would mean the immediate resumption of mediaeval wars. It cannot be attained while the political classes in India represent only an insignificant fraction of the three hundred and fifty millions for whose welfare we are responsible."

"Arabs would have sat in the dark forever had not the Zionist engineers harnessed the Jordan river for electrification. Now they swarm into Palestine in seeking the light. (1922)"

"The Great War through which we have passed differed from all ancient wars in the immense power of the combatants and their fearful agencies of destruction, and from all modern wars in the utter ruthlessness with which it was fought. ... Europe and large parts of Asia and Africa became one vast battlefield on which after years of struggle not armies but nations broke and ran. When all was over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves: and these were of doubtful utility."

"We may now picture this great Fleet, with its flotillas and cruisers, steaming slowly out of Portland Harbour, squadron by squadron, scores of gigantic castles of steel wending their way across the misty, shining sea, like giants bowed in anxious thought. We may picture them again as darkness fell, eighteen miles of warships running at high speed and in absolute blackness through the narrow Straits, bearing with them into the broad waters of the North the safeguard of considerable affairs....The king's ships were at sea."

"He was a cut flower in a vase; fair to see, yet bound to die, and to die very soon if the water was not constantly renewed."

"There is always a strong case for doing nothing, especially for doing nothing yourself."

"Eaten bread is soon forgotten. Dangers which are warded off by effective precautions and foresight are never even remembered."

"Mechanical not less than strategic conditions had combined to produce at this early period in the war a deadlock both on sea and land. The strongest fleet was paralysed in its offensive by the menace of the mine and the torpedo. The strongest army was arrested in its advance by the machine gun......The mechanical danger must be overcome by a mechanical remedy.....Something must be discovered which would render ships immune from the torpedo, and make it unnecessary for soldiers to bare their breasts to the machine-gun hail."

"Jellicoe was the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon."

"Is this the end? Is it to be merely a chapter in a cruel and senseless story? Will a new generation in their turn be immolated to square the black accounts of the Teuton and Gaul? Will our children bleed and gasp again in devastated lands? Or will there spring from the very fires of conflict that reconciliation of the three giant combatants, which would unite their genius and secure to each in safety and freedom a share in rebuilding the glory of Europe."

"An infected Russia, a plague-bearing Russia; a Russia of armed hordes not only smiting with bayonet and with cannon, but accompanied and preceded by swarms of typhus-bearing vermin which slew the bodies of men, and political doctrines which destroyed the health and even the souls of nations."

"Great Britain could have no other object but to use her whole influence and resources consistently over a long period of years to weave France and Germany so closely together economically, socially and morally, as to prevent the occasion of quarrels and make their causes die in a realization of mutual prosperity and interdependence."

"The choice was clearly open: crush them with vain and unstinted force, or try to give them what they want. These were the only alternatives, and though each had ardent advocates, most people were unprepared for either. Here indeed was the Irish spectre — horrid and inexorcisable."

"She shone for me like the Evening Star. I loved her dearly — but at a distance."

"Where my reason, imagination or interest were not engaged, I would not or I could not learn."

"Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence, which is a noble thing."

"No hour of life is lost that is spent in the saddle."

"Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which Prime Ministers have never yet been invested."

"Mr. Gladstone read Homer for fun, which I thought served him right."

"I then had one of the three or four long intimate conversations with him which are all I can boast."

"In retrospect these years form not only the least agreeable, but the only barren and unhappy period of my life. I was happy as a child with my toys in my nursery. I have been happier every year since I became a man. But this interlude of school makes a sombre grey patch upon the chart of my journey. It was an unending spell of worries that did not then seem petty, of toil uncheered by fruition; a time of discomfort, restriction and purposeless monotony. This train of thought must not lead me to exaggerate the character of my school days ... Harrow was a very good school ... Most of the boys were very happy ... I can only record the fact that, no doubt through my own shortcomings, I was an exception. ... I was on the whole considerably discouraged ... All my contemporaries and even younger boys seemed in every way better adapted to the conditions of our little world. They were far better both at the games and at the lessons. It is not pleasant to feel oneself so completely outclassed and left behind at the very beginning of the race."

"Certainly the prolonged education indispensable to the progress of Society is not natural to mankind. It cuts against the grain. A boy would like to follow his father in pursuit of food or prey. He would like to be doing serviceable things so far as his utmost strength allowed. He would like to be earning wages however small to help to keep up the home. He would like to have some leisure of his own to use or misuse as he pleased. He would ask little more than the right to work or starve. And then perhaps in the evenings a real love of learning would come to those who are worthy — and why try to stuff in those who are not? — and knowledge and thought would open the 'magic casements' of the mind."

"I had a feeling once about Mathematics, that I saw it all—Depth beyond depth was revealed to me—the Byss and the Abyss. I saw, as one might see the transit of Venus—or even the Lord Mayor's Show, a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly how it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable: and how the one step involved all the others. It was like politics. But it was after dinner and I let it go!"

"Although always prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it should be postponed."

"Come on now all you young men, all over the world. You are needed more than ever now to fill the gap of a generation shorn by the war. You have not an hour to lose. You must take your places in Life's fighting line. Twenty to twenty-five! These are the years! Don't be content with things as they are. 'The earth is yours and the fulness thereof.' Enter upon your inheritance, accept your responsibilities. Raise the glorious flags again, advance them upon the new enemies, who constantly gather upon the front of the human army, and have only to be assaulted to be overthrown. Don't take No for an answer. Never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere personal success or acceptance. You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her."

"I wonder whether any other generation has seen such astounding revolutions of data and values as those through which we have lived. Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent and vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure or taught to be sure was impossible, has happened."

"I have no doubt that the Romans planned the time-table of their days far better than we do. They rose before the sun at all seasons. Except in wartime we never see the dawn. Sometimes we see sunset. The message of sunset is sadness; the message of dawn is hope. The rest and the spell of sleep in the middle of the day refresh the human frame far more than a long night. We were not made by Nature to work, or even play, from eight o'clock in the morning till midnight. We throw a strain upon our system which is unfair and improvident. For every purpose of business or pleasure, mental or physical, we ought to break our days and our marches into two."

"I do think unpunctuality is a vile habit, and all my life I have tried to break myself of it."

"I now began for the first time to envy those young cubs at the university who had fine scholars to tell them what was what; professors who had devoted their lives to mastering and focusing ideas in every branch of learning; who were eager to distribute the treasures they had gathered before they were overtaken by the night. But now I pity undergraduates, when I see what frivolous lives many of them lead in the midst of precious fleeting opportunity. After all, a man's Life must be nailed to a cross either of Thought or Action. Without work there is no play."

"I accumulated in those years so fine a surplus in the Book of Observance that I have been drawing confidently upon it ever since."

"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more."

"I had been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who got drunk — and I would have liked to have the boozing scholars of the Universities wheeled into line and properly chastised for their squalid misuse of what I must ever regard as a gift of the gods."

"When we all got back to camp, our General communicated by heliograph through a distant mountain top with Sir at . Sir Bindon and our leading brigade had thenselves been heavily attacked the night before. They had lost hundreds of animals and twenty or thirty men, but otherwise were none the worse. Sir Bindon sent orders that we were to stay in the valley and lay it waste with fire and sword in vengeance. This accordingly we did, but with great precautions. We proceeded systematically, village by village, and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the great shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation. So long as the villages were in the plain, this was quite easy. The tribesmen sat on the mountains and sullen watched the destruction of their homes and means of livelihood. When however we had to attack the villas on the sides of the mountains they resisted fiercely, and we lost for every village two or three British officers and fifteen or twenty native soldiers. Whether it was worth it, I cannot tell. At any rate, at the end of a fortnight the valley was a desert, and honour was satisfied."

"They knew so much more about the controversy than I did, that my bold broad generalities about liberty, equality and fraternity got seriously knocked about. I entrenched myself around the slogan "No slavery under the Union Jack." Slavery they suggested might be right or wrong: the Union Jack was no doubt a respectable piece of bunting: but what was the moral connection between the two? I had the same difficulty in discovering a foundation for the assertions I so confidently made, as I have found in arguing with the people who contend that the sun is only a figment of our imagination."

"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. Antiquated War Offices, weak, incompetent, or arrogant Commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant Fortune, ugly surprises, awful miscalculations — all take their seats at the Council Board on the morrow of a declaration of war. Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance."

"We are bound to further every honest and practical step which the nations of Europe may make to reduce the barriers which divide them and to nourish their common interests and common welfare. We rejoice at every diminution of the internal tariffs and martial armaments of Europe. We see nothing but good and hope in a richer, freer, more contented European commonalty. But we have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed. And should European statesmen address us in the words which were used of old, 'Wouldest thou be spoken for to the king, or captain of the host?', we should reply, with the Shunammite woman: 'I dwell among mine own people.'"

"[T]he inexorable duty which has come upon you to use your political power to help our Island out of the rotten state which it has now fallen. When I think of the way in which we poured out blood and money to take Contalmaison or to hold Ypres, I cannot understand why it is we should now throw away our conquests and our inheritance with both hands, through sheer helplessness and pusillanimity. In this disastrous year we have written ourselves down as a second Naval Power, squandered our authority in Egypt, and brought India to a position when the miserable public take it as an open question whether we should not clear out of the country altogether. Currently with all this, we have so reduced our reputation abroad and among our own dominions, that as you said the other night, 'they all think we are down and out'. My only interest in politics is to see this position retrieved."

"The truth is that Gandhi-ism and all it stands for will, sooner or later, have to be grappled with, and finally crushed. It is no use trying to satisfy a tiger by feeding him with cat's-meat. The sooner this is realised, the less trouble and misfortune will there be for all concerned."

"For 30 years I have watched from a central position the manifestations of the will power of Great Britain, and I do not believe the people will consent to be edged, pushed, talked and cozened out of India. No nation of which I am aware, great or small, has ever voluntarily or tamely suffered such an overwhelming injury to its interests or such a harsh abrogation of its rights. After all, there are British rights and interests in India. Two centuries of effort and achievement, lives given on a hundred fields, far more lives given and consumed in faithful and devoted service to the Indian people themselves. All this has earned us rights of our own in India."

"I remember, when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities. But the exhibit on the programme which I most desired to see was the one described as "The Boneless Wonder." My parents judged that that spectacle would be too revolting and demoralising for my youthful eyes, and I have waited 50 years to see the boneless wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench."

"It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace, while he is still organising and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representatives of the King-Emperor. Such a spectacle can only increase the unrest in India and the danger to which white people there are exposed. It can only encourage all the forces which are hostile to British authority."

"Almost the only great real living popular chamber functioning in full power at the present time is the British House of Commons. What was the cradle of free institutions throughout the world is still their citadel. I am deeply anxious that its walls shall not be undermined by slow decay or overthrown by violent battering-rams. I believe that Parliamentary institutions are, upon the whole, the most tolerable form of government for men—and, of course, women—and I am animated solely by the desire to discover how the ancient institutions in our island can be given a new lease of life by being rendered capable of discharging effectually the duties they have claimed."

"The evils and dangers of which I speak are of slow growth, and their cure can only be gradual. Unless Great Britain is able by a united and well-instructed effort to grapple with her economic problems, and unless she is worthy to be the heart of her world-wide establishment, you here in this hall today will live long enough to lose not only your inheritance, but your livelihood. The continuance of our present confusion and disintegration will reduce us within a generation, and perhaps sooner, to the degree of States like Holland and Portugal, which nursed valiant races and held great possessions, but were stripped of them in the crush and competition of the world. That would be a melancholy end to all the old glories and recent triumphs."

"If Great Britain lost her Empire and India and her share in world trade and her sea power, she would be like a vast whale stranded in one your Scottish bays, which swam in upon the tide and then was left to choke and rot upon the sands. We should be like a great shop emporium in a district from which prosperity has for ever departed. We least of all peoples and races can afford to fail. Failure to us does not mean merely that we shall not improve. It means that we shall be ruined and frozen out."

"India is no more a political personality than Europe. India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the equator."

"Men and kings must be judged in the testing moments of their lives. Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because, as has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others. Courage, physical and moral, King Alfonso has proved on every occasion of personal danger or political stress. Many years ago in the face of a difficult situation Alfonso made the proud declaration, no easy boast in Spain, “I was born on the throne, I shall die on it.”"

"In the twinkling of an eye I found myself without an office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix."

"We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium."

"...live dangerously; take things as they come; dread naught, all will be well."

"We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty."

"His great creation of the "Little Man" has become as much a reality in the popular mind as any live subject of caricature. Strube's Little Man is very different from Poy's Mr. John Citizen; but there is this in common between them: they both exhibit trials and misfortunes descending ceaselessly upon a weak and battered being. What a gulf separates these characterizations of our national type from the bluff, strong, hale, and hearty John Bull of former times, with his thick stick and his square-topped bowler hat and his resolute, rugged face! The change is due to post-War mentality. The exhausted nation weighed down by taxation, harried by Socialists; its trade declining, its doles expanding; the trident of the sea already gone, and the sceptre in the East about to fall! For such situations the careworn face of Strube's Little Man and Poy's haggard paterfamilias are well-suited."

"That abject, squalid, shameless avowal... It is a very disquieting and disgusting symptom... My mind turns across the narrow waters of Channel and the North Sea, where great nations stand determined to defend their national glories or national existence with their lives. I think of Germany, with its splendid clear-eyed youths marching forward on all the roads of the Reich singing their ancient songs, demanding to be conscripted into an army; eagerly seeking the most terrible weapons of war; burning to suffer and die for their fatherland. I think of Italy, with her ardent Fascisti, her renowned Chief, and stern sense of national duty. I think of France, anxious, peace-loving, pacifist to the core, but armed to the teeth and determined to survive as a great nation in the world. One can almost feel the curl of contempt upon the lips of the manhood of all these people when they read this message sent out by Oxford University in the name of young England."

"[Fascism] is not a sign-post which would direct us here, for I firmly believe that our long experienced democracy will be able to preserve a parliamentary system of government with whatever modifications may be necessary from both extremes of arbitrary rule."

"I am strongly of opinion that we require to strengthen our armaments by air and upon the seas in order to make sure that we are still judges of our own fortunes, our own destinies and our own action... Not to have an adequate air force in the present state of the world is to compromise the foundations of national freedom and independence."

""Thank God for the French army." When we read about Germany, when we watch with surprise and distress the tumultuous insurgence of ferocity and war spirit, the pitiless ill-treatment of minorities, the denial of the normal protections of civilised society to large numbers of individuals solely on the ground of race—when we see that occurring in one of the most gifted, learned, scientific and formidable nations in the world, one cannot help feeling glad that the fierce passions that are raging in Germany have not found, as yet, any other outlet but upon themselves. It seems to me that, at a moment like this, to ask France to halve her army while Germany doubles hers...to ask France to halve her air force while the German air force remains whatever it is...such a proposal, it seems to me, is likely to be considered by the French Government at present, at any rate, as somewhat unseasonable."

"We know that he has, more than any other man, the gift of compressing the largest number of words into the smallest amount of thought."

"New discord has arisen in Europe of late years from the fact that Germany is not satisfied with the result of the late War. I have indicated several times that Germany got off lightly after the Great War. I know that that is not always a fashionable opinion, but the facts repudiate the idea that a Carthaginian peace was in fact imposed upon Germany. No division was made of the great masses of the German people. No portion of Germany inhabited by Germans was detached, except where there was the difficulty of disentangling the population of the Silesian border. No attempt was made to divide Germany as between the northern and southern portions which might well have tempted the conquerors at that time. No State was carved out of Germany. She underwent no serious territorial loss, except the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, which she herself had seized only 50 years before. The great mass of the Germans remained united after all that Europe had passed through, and they are more vehemently united to-day than ever before. You may talk of the War indemnity; what has happened there? I suppose that the Germans paid, in round terms, £1,000,000,000. But they had borrowed £2,000,000,000 at the same time, and there are no signs of their paying back."

"On the other hand, when we think of what would have happened to us, to France or to Belgium if the Germans had won; when we think of the terms which they exacted from Rumania, or of the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; when we remember that up to a few months of the end of the War German authorities refused to consider that Belgium could ever be liberated, but said that she should be kept in thrall for military purposes for ever, I do not think that we need break our hearts in deploring the treatment that Germany is receiving now. Germany is not satisfied; but...no concession which has been made has produced any very marked appearance of gratitude. Once it has been conceded it has seemed less valuable than when it was demanded."

"Historians have noticed, all down the centuries, one peculiarity of the English people which has cost them dear. We have always thrown away after a victory the greater part of the advantages we gained in the struggle. The worst difficulties from which we suffer do not come from without. They come from within. They do not come from the cottages of the wage-earners. They come from a peculiar type of brainy people always found in our country, who, if they add something to its culture, take much from its strength. Our difficulties come from the mood of unwarrantable self-abasement into which we have been cast by a powerful section of our own intellectuals. They come from the acceptance of defeatist doctrines by a large proportion of our politicians. But what have they to offer but a vague internationalism, a squalid materialism, and the promise of impossible Utopias?"

"Nothing can save England if she will not save herself. If we lose faith in ourselves, in our capacity to guide and govern, if we lose our will to live, then indeed our story is told. If, while on all sides foreign nations are every day asserting a more aggressive and militant nationalism by arms and trade, we remain paralysed by our own theoretical doctrines or plunged into the stupor of after-war exhaustion, then indeed all that the croakers predict will come true, and our ruin will be swift and final. Stripped of her Empire in the Orient, deprived of the sovereignty of the seas, loaded with debt and taxation, her commerce and carrying trade shut out by foreign tariffs and quotas, England would sink to the level of a fifth-rate Power, and nothing would remain of all her glories except a population much larger than this island can support."

"We must not despair, we must not for a moment pretend that we cannot face these things. Dangers come upon the world; other nations face them. When, in old days, the sea gave access to this island, it was a danger to this island, it made it the most invadable place at any point, but by taking proper measures our ancestors gained the command of the sea, and, consequently, what had been a means of inroad upon us became our sure shield and protection; and there is not the slightest reason why, with our ability and our resources, and our peaceful intentions, our desire only to live quietly here in our island, we should not raise up for ourselves a security in the air above us which will make us as free from serious molestation as did our control of blue water through bygone centuries."

"I dread the day when the means of threatening the heart of the British Empire should pass into the hands of the present rulers of Germany. I think we should be in a position which would be odious to every man who values freedom of action and independence, and also in a position of the utmost peril for our crowded, peaceful population, engaged in their daily toil. I dread that day, but it is not, perhaps, far distant. It is, perhaps, only a year, or perhaps 18 months, distant...There is still time for us to take the necessary measures, but what we want are the measures. We do not want this paragraph in this White Paper, we want the measures. It is no good writing that first paragraph and then producing £130,000. We want the measures to achieve parity."

"Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes: those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death."

"I marvel at the complacency of Ministers in the face of the frightful experiences through which we have all so newly passed. I look with wonder upon our thoughtless crowds disporting themselves in the summer sunshine, and upon this unfocused, unheeding House of Commons, which seems to have no higher function than to cheer a Minister. But what is happening across the narrow seas? A terrible process is astir. Germany is arming. That mighty race who fought and almost vanquished the whole world is on the march again. The whole nation is inspired with the idea of retrieving and avenging their defeat in the Great War. They have arisen from the pit of disaster in monstrous guise. ... And we are still pestering France to disarm, and we are still disarmed ourselves!"

"What is the dominant fact of the situation? Germany is arming...Germany is arming particularly in the air. ... it seems of the utmost importance, not only that we should lose no time in putting ourselves in an adequate position of defence but, that we should keep close and friendly relations with other great Powers of a friendly character who have not fallen into the error which has overtaken us of late years, of neglecting the essentials of our own security."

"At the present time we are the sixth air Power in the world. But every State is rapidly expanding its air force. They are all expanding, but much more rapidly than we are doing. It is certain, therefore, that..in 1936...we shall have fallen further behind other countries than we are now in air defence... If you extend your view over the [Government's] five-years' programme I believe it is also true to state that, having regard to the increases which are being made by other countries and which are projected, even if the whole programme is carried out, at the end of the period...we shall be worse off in 1939 relatively—it is relativity that counts in these matters—than we are now... Yet even for this tiny, timid, tentative, tardy increase of the Air Force, to which the Government have at length made up their mind, they are to be censured by the whole united forces of the Socialist and Liberal parties here and throughout the country."

"I am afraid that if you look intently at what is moving towards Great Britain, you will see that the only choice open is the old grim choice our forbears had to face, namely, whether we shall submit or whether we shall prepare. Whether we shall submit to the will of a stronger nation or whether we shall prepare to defend our rights, our liberties and indeed our lives."

"If England had not resisted German militarism, in my view the German hegemony of Europe would have been established and our island would have had to face a united Continental army. It is the same old story from the days of Marlborough and Napoleon."

"But what is this India Home Rule Bill? I will tell you. It is a gigantic quilt of jumbled crotchet work. There is no theme; there is no pattern; there is no agreement; there is no conviction; there is no simplicity; there is no courage. It is a monstrous monument of shame built by pygmies."

"The storm clouds are gathering over the European scene. Our defences have been neglected. Danger is in the air...yes, I say in the air. The mighty discontented nations are reaching out with the strong hands to regain what they have lost; nay, to gain a predominance which they have never had. Is this, then, the time to plunge our vast dependency of India into the melting-pot?"

"War arises from both sides feeling they have a hope of victory."

"If Hitler's] proposal means that we should come to an understanding with Germany to dominate Europe I think this would be contrary to the whole of our history. You know the old fable of the jackal who went hunting with the tiger and what happened after the hunt was over. Thus Elizabeth resisted Philip II of Spain. Thus William III and Marlborough resisted Louis XIV. Thus Pitt resisted Napoleon, and thus we all resisted William II of Germany. Only by taking this path and effort have we preserved ourselves and our liberties, and reached our present position. I see no reason myself to change from this traditional view."

"In the name of liberty you have done what liberty disowns. In the name of theoretical progress, you have opened the door to practical retrogression. In the name of appeasement and the popular will, you have prescribed a course of endless irritation. ... He has won his victory; he has won the victory for which he has fought hard, and long, and adroitly; but it is not a victory, in our opinion, for the interests of this country, nor a victory for the welfare of the peoples of India, and in the crashing cheers which no doubt will hail his majority to-night, we pray there may not mingle the knell of the British Empire in the East."

"Everyone can see the arguments against the English-speaking peoples becoming the policemen of the world."

"[In air power] so far from being half as strong again as Germany, so far from making up lee-way, we are already greatly inferior in numbers and falling further and further behind every month. ... No doubt it is not popular to say these things, but I am accustomed to abuse and I expect to have a great deal more of it before I have finished. Somebody has to state the truth. There ought to be a few members of the House of Commons who are in a sufficiently independent position to confront both Ministers and electors with unpalatable truths. We do not wish our ancient freedom and the decent tolerant civilisation we have preserved in this island to hang upon a rotten thread."

"Mr. Gandhi has gone very high in my esteem since he stood up for the untouchables ... Well, you have the opportunity now. I do not like the [Indian Home Rule] Bill but it is now on the Statute Book. I am not going to bother any more, but do not give us a chance to say we anticipated a breakdown...So make it a success. ... My test of improvement in the lot of the masses, morally as well as materially. I do not care whether you are more or less loyal to Great Britain ... Tell Mr. Gandhi to use the powers that are offered and make the thing a success."

"I am genuinely sympathetic towards India. I have got real fears about the future. India, I feel is a burden on us. We have got to maintain an army and for the sake of India we have to maintain Singapore and Near East strength. If India could look after herself we would be delighted. ... I would be only too delighted if the Reforms are a success. I have all along felt that there are fifty Indias. But you have got the thing now; make it a success and if you do I will advocate your getting much more."

"The whole of Germany is an armed camp...The industries of Germany are mobilised for war to an extent to which ours were not mobilised even a year after the Great War had begun. The whole population is being trained from childhood up to war. A mighty army is coming into being. Many submarines are already exercising in the Baltics. Great cannon, tanks, machine guns and poison gas are fast accumulating. The Germans are even able to be great exporters of munitions as well as to develop their own enormous magazines. The German air force is developing at a great speed, and in spite of ruthless loss of life. We have no speedy prospect of equalling the German air force or of overtaking Germany in the air, whatever we do in the near future."

"Germany is already well on her way to become, and must become incomparably, the most heavily armed nation in the world and the nation most completely ready for war. There is the dominant factor; there is the factor which dwarfs all others, the factor which we find affecting the movements of politics and diplomacy in every country throughout Europe...we cannot have any anxieties comparable to the anxiety caused by German re-armament. The House will pardon me if I continue to press that anxiety upon it."

"We cannot afford to see Nazidom in its present phase of cruelty and intolerance, with all its hatreds and all its gleaming weapons, paramount in Europe at the present time."

"One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations."

"We cannot tell whether Hitler will be the man who will once again let loose upon the world another war in which civilisation will irretrievably succumb, or whether he will go down in history as the man who restored honour and peace of mind to the Great Germanic nation."

"Hitherto, Hitler's triumphant career has been borne onwards, not only by a passionate love of Germany, but by currents of hatred so intense as to sear the souls of those who swim upon them."

"The twentieth century has witnessed with surprise, not merely the promulgation of these ferocious doctrines, but their enforcement with brutal vigour by the Government and by the populace. No past services, no proved patriotism, even wounds sustained in war, could procure immunity for persons whose only crime was that their parents had brought them into the world. Every kind of persecution, grave or petty, upon the world-famous scientists, writers, and composers at the top down to the wretched little Jewish children in the national schools, was practised, was glorified, and is still being practised and glorified."

"A free Press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that freemen prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny."

"While the Hindu elaborates his argument, the Moslem sharpens his sword. Between these two races and creeds, containing as they do so many gifted arid charming beings in all the glory of youth, there is no intermarriage. The gulf is impassable. If you took the antagonisms of France and Germany, and the antagonisms of Catholics and Protestants, and compounded them and multiplied them ten-fold, you would not equal the division which separates these two races intermingled by scores of millions in the cities and plains of India."

"There is a great danger that the Parliamentary nations and merciful, tolerant forces in the world will be knocked out quite soon by the heavily armed, unmoral dictatorships. But I believe there is still time to organise a European mass, and perhaps a world mass which would confront them, overawe them, and perhaps let their peoples loose upon them."

"It seems a mad business to confront these dictators without weapons or military force, and at the same time try to tame and cow the spirit of our people with peace films, anti-recruiting propaganda and resistance to defence measures. Unless the free and law-respecting nations are prepared to organise, arm and combine, they are going to be smashed up. This is going to happen quite soon. But I believe we still have a year to combine and marshal superior forces in defence of the League and its Covenant."

"I can only see one thing. I see it sharper and harsher day by day. Germany is arming more strenuously, more scientifically and upon a larger scale, than any nation has ever armed before... All this has gone into making the most destructive war weapons and war arrangements that have ever been known: and there are four or five millions of active, intelligent, valiant Germans engaged in these process, working, as General Goering has told us, night and day. Surely these are facts which ought to bulk as large in ordinary peaceful peoples' minds as horse racing, a prize fight, a murder trial or nineteen-twentieths of the current newspaper bill of fare. What is it all for? Certainly it is not all for fun. Something quite extraordinary is afoot. All the signals are set for danger. The red lights flash through the gloom. Let peaceful folk beware. It is a time to pay attention and to be well prepared."

"I certainly do not take the view that a war between England and Germany is inevitable. I fear very gravely however unless something happens to the Nazi regime in Germany there will be a devastating war in Europe, and it may come earlier than you expect. The only chance of stopping it is to have a union of nations, all well-armed and bound to defend each other, and thus confront the Nazi aggression with over-whelming force."

"You are also mistaken in supposing that I have an anti-German obsession. British policy for four hundred years has been to oppose the strongest power in Europe by weaving together a combination of other countries strong enough to face the bully. Sometimes it is Spain, sometimes the French monarchy, sometimes the French Empire, sometimes Germany. I have no doubt who it is now...It is thus through the centuries we have kept our liberties and maintained our life and power."

"If I read the future aright Hitler's government will confront Europe with a series of outrageous events and ever-growing military might. It is events which will show our dangers, though for some the lesson will come too late."

"It must be very painful to a man of Lord Hugh Cecil's natural benevolence and human charity to find so many of God's children wandering simultaneously so far astray ... In these circumstances I would venture to suggest to my noble friend, whose gifts and virtues I have all my life admired, that some further refinement is needed in the catholicity of his condemnations."

"[E]xcept for a few handfuls of ferocious romanticists, or sordid would-be profiteers, war spells nothing but toil, waste, sorrow and torment to the vast mass of ordinary folk in every land... No plan for stopping war at this present late hour is of any value unless it has behind it force, and the resolve to use that force... [S]afety will only come though a combination of pacific nations armed with overwhelming power, and capable of the same infinity of sacrifice, and indeed of the ruthlessness, which hitherto have been the attributes of the warrior mind. The scales of justice are vain without her sword. Peace in her present plight must have her constables. To bring the matter to an agate point, there must be a Grand Alliance of all the nations who wish for peace against the Potential Aggressor, whoever he may be. Let us, therefore, without delay make this Grand Alliance."

"We have pushed taxation of wealth to a point in Great Britain where in many cases the yield would be greater if the rate were less. The idea that prosperity can be wooed by chasing millionaires is one of the most common and most foolish of modern popular delusions."

"Through our own folly and refusal to face realities and deal with evil tendencies while they were yet controllable, we have allowed brutal and intolerant forces to gain almost unchallenged supremacy in Europe and have placed ourselves in a position of weakness and peril, the like of which our history does not record for two and a half centuries."

"I can well imagine some circles of smart society, some groups of wealthy financiers, and the elements in this country which are attracted by the idea of a Government strong enough to keep the working classes in order; people who hate democracy and freedom, I can well imagine such people accommodating themselves fairly easy to Nazi domination. But the Trade Unionists of Britain, the intellectuals of Socialism and Radicalism, they could no more bear it than the ordinary British Tory. It would be intolerable."

"I do not like to hear people talking of England, Germany and Italy forming up against European communism."

"How could we bear, nursed as we have been in a free atmosphere, to be gagged and muzzled; to have spies, eavesdroppers and delators at every corner; to have even private conversations caught up and used against us by the Secret Police and all their agents and creatures; to be arrested and interned without trial; or to be tried by political or Party courts for crimes hitherto unknown to civil law. How could we bear to be treated like schoolboys when we are grown-up men; to be turned out on parade by tens of thousands to march and cheer for this slogan or for that; to see philosophers, teachers and authors bullied and toiled to death in concentration camps; to be forced every hour to conceal the natural workings of the human intellect and the pulsations of the human heart? Why, I say that rather than submit to such oppression, there is no length we would not go to."

"We must recognise that we have a great treasure to guard; that the inheritance in our possession represents the prolonged achievement of the centuries; that there is not one of our simple uncounted rights today for which better men than we are have not died on the scaffold or the battlefield. We have not only a great treasure; we have a great cause. Are we taking every measure within our power to defend that cause?"

"The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is some one outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; some one strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human action."

"We live in a country where the people own the Government and not in a country where the Government owns the people. Thought is free, speech is free, religion is free, no one can say that the Press is not free. In short, we live in a liberal society, the direct product of the great advances in human dignity, stature and well-being which will ever be the glory of the nineteenth century."

"It will not benefit the world if we succeed in banishing the old-fashioned wars of nations only to clear the board for social and doctrinal wars of even greater ferocity and destructiveness. This, indeed, is a growing danger. We were told that the old wars of religion had ended, but that is not much comfort if the wars of various kinds of secular religions or non-God religions are to begin and are to make Europe the arena of their hideous conflict, and if all that makes life worth living to the mass of the people is to be destroyed in the process."

"Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened."

"I have heard it said that the Government had no mandate for rearmament until the General Election. Such a doctrine is wholly inadmissible. The responsibility of Ministers for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate."

"Anyone can see what the position is. The Government simply cannot make up their mind, or they cannot get the Prime Minister to make up his mind. So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent. So we go on preparing more months and years — precious, perhaps vital to the greatness of Britain — for the locusts to eat."

"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences."

"I am trying to marshal all the forces I can to prevent this coming war, and to strengthen Britain."

"All the left wing intelligentsia are coming to look to me for protection and I will give it wholeheartedly in return for their aid in the rearmament of Britain."

"Fascism and Communism... Polar opposites—no, polar the same!""

"[T]hey were gathered together on that platform with one object. They wanted to stop this war of which they had heard so much talk. They would like to stop it while time remained, for we had had enough of the last war not to want another. The seriousness and urgency of the danger was exemplified by the divergency of political opinion represented on the platform. We had reached a fateful milestone in human history."

"[The] apostles of various kinds of error presented themselves. They were those like Sir Oswald Mosley who were fascinated by the spectacle of brutal power. They would like to use it themselves. They grovelled to Nazi dictatorship in order that they could make people in their turn grovel to them... At the other end of the political scale were the Trotsky-ite Communists, furious fanatics whose sole aim was to throw the world into one supreme convulsion. Then there was Sir Stafford Cripps, who was in a class by himself. He wished British people to be conquered by the Nazis in order to urge them into becoming Bolsheviks. It seemed a long way round. (Laughter.) And not much enlightenment when they got to the end of their journey. Lastly, there were the absolute non-resisters like Canon Sheppard and Mr. Lansbury. They were pious men, but they would lead the country to ruin, even more surely than all the others."

"...the war between the Nazis and the Communists; the war of the non-God religions, waged with the weapons of the twentieth century. The most striking fact about the new religions was their similarity. They substituted the devil for God and hatred for love."

"If present dangers were to be averted there must be loyal aid from the whole masses of the people; there must be voluntary and spontaneous comradeship; and there must even be a measure of self-imposed discipline. ... was it not time that the free nations, great or small, here or across the Atlantic Ocean, should take measures necessary to place themselves in a state of security and in a state of adequate defence, not only for their own safety but also that they might hold aloft the beacon-lights of freedom which would carry their rays of encouragement to the thinker and toiler in every land?"

"Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because, as has been said, 'it is the quality which guarantees all others.'"

"The essence and foundation of House of Commons debating is formal conversation. The set speech, the harangue addressed to constituents, or to the wider public out of doors, has never succeeded much in our small wisely-built chamber. To do any good you have got to get down to grips with the subject and in human touch with the audience."

"Whatever one may think about democratic government, it is just as well to have practical experience of its rough and slatternly foundations. No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections."

"We desire to see the return of a liberal age where Parliaments will guard freedom, where science will open the banqueting halls to the millions, and where what Bismarck once called "practical Christianity" will mitigate suffering and misfortunes."

"It is a strange thing that certain parts of the world should now be wishing to revive the old religious war. There are those non-God religions Nazism and Communism . . . I repudiate both and will have nothing to do with either... They are as alike as two peas. Tweedledum and Tweedledee were violently contrasted compared with them. You leave out God and you substitute the devil."

"I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place. I do not admit it. I do not think the Red Indians had any right to say, 'The American Continent belongs to us and we are not going to have any of these European settlers coming in here.' They had not the right, nor had they the power."

"Many Japanese speak English. But they do not think our thoughts. They worship at other shrines; profess another creed; observe a different code. They can no more be moved by Christian pacifism than wolves by the bleating of sheep. We have to deal with a people whose values are in many respects altogether different from our own."

"I know that it is the Socialist idea that making profits is a vice, and that making large profits is something of which a man ought to be ashamed. I hold the other view. I consider that the real vice is making losses."

"I do not believe in a major war this year because the French army at present is as large as that of Germany and far more mature. But next year and the year after may carry these Dictator-ridden countries to the climax of their armament and of their domestic embarrassments. We shall certainly need to be ready then."

"The wars fanned the wings of science, and science brought to mankind a thousand blessings, a thousand problems and a thousand perils."

"You cannot expect English people to be attracted by the brutal intolerances of Nazidom... We certainly do not wish to pursue a policy inimical to the legitimate interests of Germany, but you must surely be aware that when the German Government speaks of friendship with England, what they mean is that we shall give them back their former Colonies, and also agree to their having a free hand so far as we are concerned in Central and Southern Europe. This means that they would devour Austria and Czecho-Slovakia as a preliminary to making a gigantic middle Europe-block. It would certainly not be in our interests to connive at such policies of aggression."

"No one in England has ever wished to prevent the fullest expression of Scottish or Welsh traditions and customs. Indeed, their manifestation is regarded with pleasure and pride by the English people. We have reaped great advantages from this tolerant mood."

"Three hundred years ago it would have seemed absurd to say that this black mineral, this sea-coal, which could be used as a substitute for wood to burn in one's grate, could be applied to revolutionize human affairs. Today we know that there is another source of energy a million times greater. We have not yet learned how to harness it or apply it, but it is there. Occasionally in complicated processes in the laboratory a scientist observes transmutations, re-arrangements in the core of the atom, which is known as the nucleus, which generate power at a rate hundreds of thousands of times greater than is produced when coal is burned and when, as the scientists put it, a carbon atom satisfied its affinity for an oxygen molecule. It can scarcely be doubted that a way to induce and control these effects can be found. The new fire is laid, but the particular kind of match is missing."

"The peace of Europe dwells under the shield of the French Army. But in a few years the German Army will be much larger than the French and increasingly its equal in maturity. The deadly years of our policy were 1934 and 1935. "The years that the locusts have eaten." I expect we shall experience the consequences of these years in the near future."

"I have to come to think myself in the last lap of life that one should always look back upon the history of the past, study it and meditate upon it. Thus one learns the main line of advance...it is wrong to be bound by the events and commitments of the last few years, unless these are sound and compatible with the main historic line. I am sure the right course is to know as much as possible about all that has happened in the world, and then to act entirely upon the merits from day to day. Of course, my ideal is narrow and limited. I want to see the British Empire preserved for a few more generations in its strength and splendour. Only the most prodigious exertions of British genius will achieve this result."

"Night and day the forges roar, the hammers descend, the hellish implements of slaughter pour out to multitudes of training troops. Statecraft is bankrupt. The unity of Christendom is a mockery. Nay, even the idea of Christianity is repudiated by a new paganism. No longer can the leading nations of the European family appeal to one another upon the New Testament. Grim war-gods from remote ages have stalked upon the scene. International good faith; the public law of Europe; the greatest good of the greatest number; the ideal of a fertile, tolerant, progressive, demilitarised, infinitely varied society, is shattered. Dictators ride to and fro on tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry."

"The story of the human race is war. Except for brief and precarious interludes, there has never been peace in the world; and before history began, murderous strife was universal and unending."

"[I]t is a horrible thing that a race of people should be attempted to be blotted out of the society in which they have been born, that from their earliest years little children should be segregated and that they should be exposed to scorn and odium. It is very painful. Moreover, it is not only in regard to Jews that there is intolerance. Religious opinions, Protestant and Catholic alike, are subject to a prejudice of which we fondly hoped and were brought up to believe, the nineteenth century had rid the world."

"On Christmas Day, 1914, the German soldiers on the Western Front ceased firing. They placed small Christmas trees on their trenches and declared that on this day there should be peace and goodwill among suffering men. Both sides came out of their trenches and met in the blasted No-Man's Land. They clasped each other's hands, they exchanged gifts and kind words. Together they buried the dead hitherto inaccessible and deprived of the rites which raise men above the brute. Let no man worthy of human stature banish this inspiration from his mind."

"The dictator Powers of Europe are striding on from strength to strength and from stroke to stroke, and the parliamentary democracies are retreating abashed and confused... Austria has been laid in thrall, and we do not know whether Czechoslovakia will not suffer a similar attack... It is because we have lost these opportunities of standing firm, of having strong united forces and a good heart, and a resolute desire to defend the right and afterwards to do generously as the result of strength; it is because we have lost these successive opportunities which have presented themselves, that, when our resources are less and the dangers greater, we have been brought to this pass. I predict that the day will come when at some point or other on some issue or other you will have to make a stand, and I pray God that when that day comes we may not find that through an unwise policy we are left to make that stand alone."

"For five years I have talked to the House on these matters – not with very great success. I have watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly, the stairway which leads to a dark gulf. It is a fine broad stairway at the beginning, but after a bit the carpet ends. A little farther on there are only flagstones, and a little farther on still these break beneath your feet. [ ... ] Look back upon the last five years – since, that is to say, Germany began to rearm in earnest and openly to seek revenge ... historians a thousand years hence will still be baffled by the mystery of our affairs. They will never understand how it was that a victorious nation, with everything in hand, suffered themselves to be brought low, and to cast away all that they had gained by measureless sacrifice and absolute victory – gone with the wind! Now the victors are the vanquished, and those who threw down their arms in the field and sued for an armistice are striding on to world mastery. That is the position – that is the terrible transformation that has taken place bit by bit."

"The shores of History are strewn with the wrecks of Empires."

"Everything is overshadowed by the impending trial of will-power which is developing in Europe. I think we shall have to choose in the next few weeks between war and shame, and I have very little doubt what the decision will be."

"Owing to the neglect of our defences and the mishandling of the German problem in the last five years, we seem to be very near the bleak choice between War and Shame. My feel­ing is that we shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in a lit­tle later on even more adverse terms than at present."

"The partition of Czechoslovakia under pressure from England and France amounts to the complete surrender of the Western Democracies to the Nazi threat of force. Such a collapse will bring peace or security neither to England nor to France. On the contrary, it will place these two nations in an ever weaker and more dangerous situation. ... It is not Czechoslovakia alone which is menaced, but also the freedom and the democracy of all nations. The belief that security can be obtained by throwing a small State to the wolves is a fatal delusion. The war potential of Germany will increase in a short time more rapidly than it will be possible for France and Great Britain to complete the measure necessary for their defence."

"It is the end of the British Empire."

"[W]e have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat, and that France has suffered even more than we have... The utmost my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been able to secure by all his immense exertions, by all the great efforts and mobilisation which took place in this country, and by all the anguish and strain through which we have passed in this country, the utmost he has been able to gain...for Czechoslovakia and in the matters which were in dispute has been that the German dictator, instead of snatching his victuals from the table, has been content to have them served to him course by course."

"All is over. Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness. She has suffered in every respect by her association with the Western democracies and with the League of Nations, of which she has always been an obedient servant."

"We in this country, as in other Liberal and democratic countries, have a perfect right to exalt the principle of self-determination, but it comes ill out of the mouths of those in totalitarian States who deny even the smallest element of toleration to every section and creed within their bounds."

"I venture to think that in future the Czechoslovak State cannot be maintained as an independent entity. You will find that in a period of time which may be measured by years, but may be measured only by months, Czechoslovakia will be engulfed in the Nazi régime... It is the most grievous consequence which we have yet experienced of what we have done and of what we have left undone in the last five years—five years of futile good intention, five years of eager search for the line of least resistance, five years of uninterrupted retreat of British power, five years of neglect of our air defences."

"We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude which has befallen Great Britain and France. Do not let us blind ourselves to that. It must now be accepted that all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will make the best terms they can with the triumphant Nazi Power. The system of alliances in Central Europe upon which France has relied for her safety has been swept away, and I can see no means by which it can be reconstituted... If the Nazi dictator should choose to look westward, as he may, bitterly will France and England regret the loss of that fine army of ancient Bohemia which was estimated last week to require not fewer than 30 German divisions for its destruction."

"Many people, no doubt, honestly believe that they are only giving away the interests of Czechoslovakia, whereas I fear we shall find that we have deeply compromised, and perhaps fatally endangered, the safety and even the independence of Great Britain and France... You have to consider the character of the Nazi movement and the rule which it implies. The Prime Minister desires to see cordial relations between this country and Germany. There is no difficulty at all in having cordial relations with the German people. Our hearts go out to them. But they have no power. You must have diplomatic and correct relations, but there can never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi Power, that Power which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onward course by a barbarous paganism, which vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, which derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses, as we have seen, with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force. That Power cannot ever be the trusted friend of the British democracy."

"What I find unendurable is the sense of our country falling into the power, into the orbit and influence of Nazi Germany, and of our existence becoming dependent upon their good will or pleasure. It is to prevent that that I have tried my best to urge the maintenance of every bulwark of defence—first the timely creation of an Air Force superior to anything within striking distance of our shores; secondly, the gathering together of the collective strength of many nations; and thirdly, the making of alliances and military conventions, all within the Covenant, in order to gather together forces at any rate to restrain the onward movement of this Power. It has all been in vain. Every position has been successively undermined and abandoned on specious and plausible excuses."

"I do not grudge our loyal, brave people, who were ready to do their duty no matter what the cost, who never flinched under the strain of last week—I do not grudge them the natural, spontaneous outburst of joy and relief when they learned that the hard ordeal would no longer be required of them at the moment; but they should know the truth. They should know that there has been gross neglect and deficiency in our defences; they should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road; they should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting." And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time."

"The stations of uncensored expression are closing down; the lights are going out; but there is still time for those to whom freedom and parliamentary government mean something, to consult together. Let me, then, speak in truth and earnestness while time remains."

"People say we ought not to allow ourselves to be drawn into a theoretical antagonism between Nazidom and democracy; but the antagonism is here now. It is this very conflict of spiritual and moral ideas which gives the free countries a great part of their strength. You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. On all sides they are guarded by masses of armed men, cannons, aeroplanes, fortifications, and the like — they boast and vaunt themselves before the world, yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts; words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home — all the more powerful because forbidden — terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words; they are afraid of the workings of the human mind. Cannons, airplanes, they can manufacture in large quantities; but how are they to quell the natural promptings of human nature, which after all these centuries of trial and progress has inherited a whole armoury of potent and indestructible knowledge?"

"I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations. I am sorry, however, that he has not been mellowed by the great success that has attended him. The whole world would rejoice to see the Hitler of peace and tolerance, and nothing would adorn his name in world history so much as acts of magnanimity and of mercy and of pity to the forlorn and friendless, to the weak and poor... Let this great man search his own heart and conscience before he accuses anyone of being a warmonger."

"Are we going to make a supreme additional effort to remain a great Power, or are we going to slide away into what seem to be easier, softer, less strenuous, less harassing courses, with all the tremendous renunciations which that decision implies? Is not this the moment when all should hear the deep, repeated strokes of the alarm bell, and when all should resolve that it shall be a call to action, and not the knell of our race and fame?"

"The Prime Minister said...that where I failed, for all my brilliant gifts, was in the faculty of judging. I will gladly submit my judgement about foreign affairs and national defence during the last five years, in comparison with his own... In February the Prime Minister said the tension in Europe had greatly relaxed. A few weeks later Nazi Germany seized Austria. I predicted that he would repeat this statement as soon as the shock of the rape of Austria passed away. He did so in the very same words at the end of July. By the middle of August Germany was mobilising...which...ended in the complete destruction and absorption of the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia... [I]n November...he told us that Europe was settling down to a more peaceful state. The words were hardly out of his mouth before the Nazi atrocities on the Jewish population resounded throughout the civilised world."

"In 1934 I warned Mr. Baldwin that the Germans had a secret Air Force and were rapidly overhauling ours. I gave definite figures and forecasts. Of course, it was all denied with all the weight of official authority. I was depicted a scaremonger. Less than six months after Mr. Baldwin had to come down to the House and admit he was wrong... He got more applause for making this mistake, which may prove fatal to the British Empire and to British freedom, than ordinary people would do after they rendered some great service which added to its security and power. Well, Mr. Chamberlain was, next to Mr. Baldwin, the most powerful Member of that Government. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He knew all the facts. His judgment failed just like that of Mr. Baldwin and we are suffering from the consequences today."

"To say that an arms race always leads to war seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse. A government resolved to attain ends detrimental to its neighbours, which does not shrink from the possibility of war, makes preparations for war, its neighbours take defensive action, and you say an arms race is beginning. But this is the symptom of the intention of one government to challenge or destroy its neighbours, not the cause of the conflict. The pace is set by the potential aggressor, and, failing collective action by the rest of the world to resist him, the alternatives are an arms race or surrender."

"War is horrible, but slavery is worse, and you may be sure that the British people would rather go down fighting than live in servitude."

"In the main, the theme is emerging of the growth of freedom and law, of the rights of the individual, of the subordination of the State to the fundamental and moral conceptions of an ever-comprehending community. Of these ideas the English-speaking peoples were the authors, then the trustees, and must now become the armed champions. Thus I condemn tyranny in whatever guise and from whatever quarter it presents itself. All this of course has a current application."

"You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war."

"Everyone can see how communism rots the soul of a nation. How it makes it abject in peace and proves it abominable in war."

"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."

"First, Poland has been again overrun by two of the great powers which held her in bondage for 150 years but were unable to quench the spirit of the Polish nation. The heroic defence of Warsaw shows that the soul of Poland is indestructible, and that she will rise again like a rock which may for a spell be submerged by a tidal wave but which remains a rock."

"The traditional British view is that character is what matters in a general. They like a solid, simple man, with no newfangled nonsense about him. He should be preternaturally silent. If by chance he thinks at all he should not let this leak out, otherwise confidence would be destroyed."

"The whole world is against Hitler and Hitlerism. Men of every race and clime feel that this monstrous apparition stands between them and the forward move which is their due, and for which the age is ripe. Even in Germany itself there are millions who stand aloof from the seething mass of criminality and corruption constituted by the Nazi Party machine. Let them take courage amid perplexities and perils, for it may well be that the final extinction of a baleful domination will pave the way to a broader solidarity of all the men in all the lands than we could ever have planned if we had not marched together through the fire."

"I never "worry" about action, but only about inaction."

"In the bitter and increasingly exacting conflict which lies before us we are resolved to keep nothing back, and not to be outstripped by any in service to the common cause. Let the great cities of Warsaw, of Prague, of Vienna banish despair even in the midst of their agony. Their liberation is sure. The day will come when the joybells will ring again throughout Europe, and when victorious nations, masters not only of their foes but of themselves, will plan and build in justice, in tradition, and in freedom a house of many mansions where there will be room for all."

"I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.' We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."

"I speak to you for the first time as Prime Minister, in a solemn hour of the life of our country, of our Empire, of our Allies, and, above all, of the cause of Freedom. ... I am sure I speak for all when I say we are ready to face it; to endure it; and to retaliate against it—to any extent that the unwritten laws of war permit. There will be many men and women in this Island who when the ordeal comes upon them, as come it will, will feel comfort, and even a pride, that they are sharing the perils of our lads at the Front—soldiers, sailors and airmen, God bless them—and are drawing away from them a part at least of the onslaught they have to bear. Is not this the appointed time for all to make the utmost exertions in their power?"

"We have differed and quarrelled in the past but now one bond unites us all—to wage war until victory is won, and never to surrender ourselves to servitude and shame, whatever the cost and the agony must be."

"Side by side ... the British and French peoples have advanced to rescue ... mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history. Behind them ... gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians -- upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall."

"I have thought carefully in these last days whether it was part of my duty to consider entering negotiations with That Man. But it was idle to think that, if we tried to make peace now, we should get better terms than if we fought it out. The Germans would demand our fleet—that would be called 'disarmament'—our naval bases, and much else. We should become a slave state, though a British Government which would be Hitler's puppet would be set up—under Mosley or some such person. And where should we be at the end of all that? On the other hand, we had immense reserves and advantages. And I am convinced that every man of you would rise up and tear me from my place if I were for one moment to contemplate parley or surrender. If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground."

"I believe we shall make them rue the day they try to invade our island. No such discussion can be permitted."

"No, bury them in caves and cellars. None must go. We are going to beat them."

"Every morn brought forth a noble chance, and every chance brought forth a noble knight."

"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old."

"Enterprises must be prepared, with specially-trained troops of the hunter class, who can develop a reign of terror down these coasts, first of all on the "butcher and bolt" policy; but later on, or perhaps as soon as we are organised, we could surprise Calais or Boulogne, kill and capture the Hun garrison, and hold the place until all preparations to reduce it by siege or heavy storm have been made, and then away. The passive resistance war, in which we have acquitted ourselves so well, must come to an end. I look to the Joint Chiefs of the Staff to propose me measures for a vigorous, enterprising and ceaseless offensive against the whole German-occupied coastline."

"The news from France is very bad, and I grieve for the gallant French people who have fallen into this terrible misfortune. Nothing will alter our feelings towards them or our faith that the genius of France will rise again. What has happened in France makes no difference to our actions and purpose. We have become the sole champions now in arms to defend the world cause. We shall do our best to be worthy of this high honour. We shall defend our Island home, and with the British Empire we shall fight on unconquerable until the curse of Hitler is lifted from the brows of mankind. We are sure that in the end all will come right."

"Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future."

"Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'"

"I certainly shd welcome any approach to Irish unity: but I have 40 years experience of its difficulties. I cd never be a party to the coercion of Ulster to join the Southern counties: but I am much in favour of their being persuaded. The key to this is de Valera showing some loyalty to Crown & Empire."

"Here in this strong City of Refuge which enshrines the title-deeds of human progress and is of deep consequence to Christian civilisation; here, girt about by the seas and oceans where the Navy reigns; shielded from above by the prowess and devotion of our airmen—we await undismayed the impending assault. Perhaps it will come tonight. Perhaps it will come next week. Perhaps it will never come. We must show ourselves equally capable of meeting a sudden violent shock or—what is perhaps a harder test—a prolonged vigil. But be the ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parley; we may show mercy—we shall ask for none."

"This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warrior; but let all strive without failing in faith or in duty, and the dark curse of Hitler will be lifted from our age."

"And now go and set Europe ablaze"

"The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day; but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power."

"Now that they have begun to molest the capital, I want you to hit them hard − and Berlin is the place to hit them."

"We cannot tell when they will try to come; we cannot be sure that in fact they will come at all; but no one should blind himself to the fact that a heavy full-scale invasion of this Island is being prepared with all the usual German thoroughness and method, and that it may be launched at any time now. ... Therefore, we must regard the next week or so as a very important week for us in our history. It ranks with the days of the Spanish Armada was approaching the Channel, and Drake was finishing his game of bowls; or when Nelson stood between us and Napoleon's Grand Army at Boulogne. We have read all about this in the history books; but what is happening now is on a far greater scale and of far more consequence to the life and future of the world and its civilization than these brave old days of the past. Every man and every woman will therefore prepare himself to do his duty, whatever it may be, with special pride and care."

"These cruel, wanton, indiscriminate bombings of London are, of course, a part of Hitler's invasion plans. He hopes, by killing large numbers of civilians, and women and children, that he will terrorise and cow the people of this mighty imperial city ... Little does he know the spirit of the British nation, or the tough fibre of the Londoners."

"This wicked man, the repository and embodiment of many forms of soul-destroying hatreds, this monstrous product of former wrongs and shame, has now resolved to try to break our famous Island race by a process of indiscriminate slaughter and destruction. What he has done is to kindle a fire in British hearts, here and all over the world, which will glow long after all traces of the conflagration he has caused in London have been removed. He has lighted a fire which will burn with a steady and consuming flame until the last vestiges of Nazi tyranny have been burnt out of Europe, and until the Old World—and the New—can join hands to rebuild the temples of man's freedom and man's honour, upon foundations which will not soon or easily be overthrown."

"We are waiting for the long-promised invasion. So are the fishes."

"Goodnight then: sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come. Brightly will it shine on the brave and true, kindly upon all who suffer for the cause, glorious upon the tombs of heroes. Thus will shine the dawn. Vive la France! Long live also the forward march of the common people in all the lands towards their just and true inheritance, and towards the broader and fuller age."

"We do not covet anything from any nation except their respect."

"Hitler, in one of his recent discourses, declared that the fight was between those who have been through the Adolf Hitler Schools and those who have been at Eton. Hitler has forgotten Harrow."

"When this war is won by this nation, as it surely will be, it must be one of our aims to work to establish a state of society where the advantage and privileges which hitherto have been enjoyed only by the few shall be far more widely shared by the many and the youth of the nation as a whole."

"The hour has come; kill the Hun."

"In order to win this war Hitler must destroy Great Britain. He may carry havoc into the Balkan States; he may tear great provinces out of Russia; he may march to the Caspian; he may march to the gates of India. All this will avail him nothing. It may spread his curse more widely throughout Europe and Asia, but it will not avert his doom. With every month that passes the many proud and once happy countries he is now holding down by brute force and vile intrigue are learning to hate the Prussian yoke and the Nazi name as nothing has ever been hated so fiercely and so widely among men before. And all the time, masters of the sea and air, the British Empire—nay, in a certain sense, the whole English-speaking world—will be on his track bearing with them the swords of justice."

"Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt: Put your confidence in us. ... We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job."

"I must point out ... that the British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst, and like to be told that they are very likely to get much worse in the future and must prepare themselves for further reverses."

"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons."

"No one has been a more consistent opponent of Communism than I have for the last twenty-five years. I will unsay no word that I have spoken about it. But all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding. ... I see the Russian soldiers standing on the threshold of their native land, guarding the fields which their fathers have tilled from time immemorial. I see them guarding their homes where mothers and wives pray—ah, yes, for there are times when all pray—for the safety of their loved ones, for the return of the bread-winner, of their champion, of their protector. I see the ten thousand villages of Russia where the means of existence is wrung so hardly from the soil, but where there are still primordial human joys, where maidens laugh and children play."

"I see advancing upon all this in hideous onslaught the Nazi war machine, with its clanking, heel-clicking, dandified Prussian officers, its crafty expert agents fresh from the cowing and tying down of a dozen countries. I see also the dull, drilled, docile, brutish masses of the Hun soldiery plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts. I see the German bombers and fighters in the sky, still smarting from many a British whipping, delighted to find what they believe is an easier and a safer prey."

"I have to make the declaration, but can you doubt what our policy will be? We have but one aim and one single, irrevocable purpose. We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime. From this nothing will turn us—nothing. We will never parley, we will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his gang. We shall fight him by land, we shall fight him by sea, we shall fight him in the air, until, with God's help, we have rid the earth of his shadow and liberated its peoples from his yoke. Any man or state who fights on against Nazidom will have our aid. Any man or state who marches with Hitler is our foe. That is our policy and that is our declaration. It follows therefore that we shall give whatever help we can to Russia and the Russian people."

"Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. Not content with having all Europe under his heel, or else terrorised into various forms of abject submission, he must now carry his work of butchery and desolation among the vast multitudes of Russia and of Asia. The terrible military machine — which we and the rest of the civilised world so foolishly, so supinely, so insensately allowed the Nazi gangsters to build up year by year from almost nothing — cannot stand idle lest it rust or fall to pieces. ... So now this bloodthirsty guttersnipe must launch his mechanized armies upon new fields of slaughter, pillage and devastation."

"We ask no favours of the enemy. We seek from them no compunction. On the contrary, if tonight the people of London were asked to cast their votes as to whether a convention should be entered into to stop the bombing of all cities, an overwhelming majority would cry, "No, we will mete out to the Germans the measure, and more than the measure, they have meted out to us." {applause} The people of London with one voice would say to Hitler: "You have committed every crime under the sun. Where you have been the least resisted there you have been the most brutal. It was you who began the indiscriminate bombing. We remember Warsaw! In the first few days of the war. We remember Rotterdam. We have been newly reminded of your habits by the hideous massacre in Belgrade. We know too well the bestial assaults you're making upon the Russian people, to whom our hearts go out in their valiant struggle! {cheers} We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will! You do your worst! — and we will do our best! {sustained cheering} Perhaps it may be our turn soon. Perhaps it may be our turn now.""

"The Russian Armies and all the peoples of the Russian Republic have rallied to the defence of their hearths and homes. ... The aggressor is surprised, startled, staggered. For the first time in his experience mass murder has become unprofitable. He retaliates by the most frightful cruelties. As his armies advance, whole districts are being exterminated. Scores of thousands—literally scores of thousands—of executions in cold blood are being perpetrated by the German police-troops upon the Russian patriots who defend their native soil. Since the Mongol invasions of Europe in the sixteenth century, there has never been methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale, or approaching such a scale. And this is but the beginning. Famine and pestilence have yet to follow in the bloody ruts of Hitler's tanks. We are in the presence of a crime without a name."

"Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

"We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated. Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer."

"We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy."

"When we consider the resources of the United States and the British Empire compared to those of Japan, when we remember those of China, which has so long and valiantly withstood invasion and when also we observe the Russian menace which hangs over Japan, it becomes still more difficult to reconcile Japanese action with prudence or even with sanity. What kind of a people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realise that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget? Members of the Senate and members of the House of Representatives, I turn for one moment more from the turmoil and convulsions of the present to the broader basis of the future. Here we are together facing a group of mighty foes who seek our ruin; here we are together defending all that to free men is dear. Twice in a single generation the catastrophe of world war has fallen upon us; twice in our lifetime has the long arm of fate reached across the ocean to bring the United States into the forefront of the battle. If we had kept together after the last War, if we had taken common measures for our safety, this renewal of the curse need never have fallen upon us. Do we not owe it to ourselves, to our children, to mankind tormented, to make sure that these catastrophes shall not engulf us for the third time?"

"'It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future. Still, I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the days to come the British and American peoples will for their own safety and for the good of all walk together side by side in majesty, in justice, and in peace."

"When I warned them that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, "In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken." Some chicken! Some neck!"

"Let me have the best solution worked out. Don't argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves."

"If Gandhi tries to start a really hostile movement against us in this crisis, I am of the opinion that he should be arrested, and that both British and United States opinion would support such a step. If he likes to starve himself to death, we cannot help that."

"It was an experience of great interest to me to meet Premier Stalin ... It is very fortunate for Russia in her agony to have this great rugged war chief at her head. He is a man of massive outstanding personality, suited to the sombre and stormy times in which his life has been cast; a man of inexhaustible courage and will-power and a man direct and even blunt in speech, which, having been brought up in the House of Commons, I do not mind at all, especially when I have something to say of my own. Above all, he is a man with that saving sense of humour which is of high importance to all men and all nations, but particularly to great men and great nations. Stalin also left upon me the impression of a deep, cool wisdom and a complete absence of illusions of any kind. I believe I made him feel that we were good and faithful comrades in this war – but that, after all, is a matter which deeds not words will prove."

"I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

"The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult."

"I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire."

"You might however consider whether you should not unfold as a background the great privilege of habeas corpus and trial by jury, which are the supreme protection invented by the English people for ordinary individuals against the state. The power of the Executive to cast a man in prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government, whether Nazi or Communist."

"The maxim Nothing avails but perfection may be spelt shorter: 'Paralysis.'"

"I am sure it would be sensible to restrict as much as possible the work of these gentlemen, who are capable of doing an immense amount of harm with what may very easily degenerate into charlatanry. The tightest hand should be kept over them, and they should not be allowed to quarter themselves in large numbers among Fighting Services at the public expense."

"I personally am very keen that a scheme for the amalgamation and extension of our present incomparable insurance system should have a leading place in our Four Years' Plan. I have been prominently connected with all these schemes of national compulsory organized thrift from the time when I brought Sir William Beveridge into the public service 35 years ago when I was creating the labour exchanges... I framed the first unemployment insurance scheme... [I]t fell to me, as Chancellor of the Exchequer 18 years ago, to lower the pensions age to 65 and to bring in the widows and orphans. The time is now ripe for another great advance."

"The best way to insure against unemployment is to have no unemployment. ... Idlers at the top make idlers at the bottom."

"It is absolutely certain we shall have to grow a larger proportion of our food at home. ... I hope to see a vigorous revival of healthy village life on the basis of these higher wages and of improved housing."

"We must establish on broad and solid foundations a National Health Service. Here let me say that there is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies. Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have."

"By its sudden collapse, ... the proud German army has once again proved the truth of the saying, 'The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet'."

"The price of greatness is responsibility."

"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."

"To achieve the extirpation of Nazi tyranny there are no lengths of violence to which we will not go."

"I have nothing to add to the reply which has already been sent."

"I hate nobody except Hitler — and that is professional."

"Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage"

"We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us."

"There are two main characteristics of the House of Commons which will command the approval and the support of reflective and experienced Members. They will, I have no doubt, sound odd to foreign ears. The first is that its shape should be oblong and not semi-circular. Here is a very potent factor in our political life. The semi-circular assembly, which appeals to political theorists, enables every individual or every group to move round the centre, adopting various shades of pink according as the weather changes. I am a convinced supporter of the party system in preference to the group system. I have sewn many earnest and ardent Parliaments destroyed by the group system. The party system is much favoured by the oblong form of Chamber. It is easy for an individual to move through those insensible gradations from Left to Right but the act of crossing the Floor is one which requires serious consideration. I am well informed on this matter, for I have accomplished that difficult process, not only once but twice."

"The essence of good House of Commons speaking is the conversational style, the facility for quick, informal interruptions and interchanges. Harangues from a rostrum would be a bad substitute for the conversational style in which so much of our business is done. But the conversational style requires a fairly small space, and there should be on great occasions a sense of crowd and urgency. There should be a sense of the importance of much that is said and a sense that great matters are being decided, there and then, by the House. ... It has a collective personality which enjoys the regard of the public, and which imposes itself upon the conduct not only of individual Members but of parties."

"The House of Commons has lifted our affairs above the mechanical sphere into the human sphere. It thrives on criticism, it is perfectly impervious to newspaper abuse or taunts from any quarter, and it is capable of digesting almost anything or almost any body of gentlemen, whatever be the views with which they arrive. There is no situation to which it cannot address itself with vigour and ingenuity. It is the citadel of British liberty; it is the foundation of our laws; its traditions and its privileges are as lively today as when it broke the arbitrary power of the Crown and substituted that Constitutional Monarchy under which we have enjoyed so many blessings."

"'In war-time,' I said, 'truth is so precious she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.'"

"When I make a statement of facts within my knowledge I expect it to be accepted."

"The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward. This is not a philosophical or political argument—any oculist will tell you this is true. The wider the span, the longer the continuity, the greater is the sense of duty in individual men and women, each contributing their brief life's work to the preservation and progress of the land in which they live, the society of which they are members, and the world of which they are the servants."

"The Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted."

"The discoveries of healing science must be the inheritance of all. That is clear. Disease must be attacked whether it occurs in the poorest or the richest man or woman, simply on the ground that it is the enemy; and it must be attacked just in the same way as the Government have adopted the policy outlined in the remarks of Lord Beaconsfield, health and the laws of health, and that is the course upon which we have embarked. Our policy is to create a national health service in order to ensure that everybody in the country, irrespective of means, age, sex, or occupation, shall have equal opportunities to benefit from the best and most up-to-date medical and allied services available."

"The object of presenting medals, stars, and ribbons is to give pride and pleasure to those who have deserved them. At the same time a distinction is something which everybody does not possess. If all have it it is of less value ... A medal glitters, but it also casts a shadow."

"I cannot, of course, commit myself to any particular details. Reports are coming in in rapid succession. So far the Commanders who are engaged report that everything is proceeding according to plan. And what a plan! This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever taken place. It involves tides, wind, waves, visibility, both from the air and the sea standpoint, and the combined employment of land, air and sea forces in the highest degree of intimacy and in contact with conditions which could not and cannot be fully foreseen. There are already hopes that actual tactical surprise has been attained, and we hope to furnish the enemy with a succession of surprises during the course of the fighting. The battle that has now begun will grow constantly in scale and in intensity for many weeks to come, and I shall not attempt to speculate upon its course. This I may say, however. Complete unity prevails throughout the Allied Armies. There is a brotherhood in arms between us and our friends of the United States. There is complete confidence in the supreme commander, General Eisenhower, and his lieutenants, and also in the commander of the Expeditionary Force, General Montgomery. The ardour and spirit of the troops, as I saw myself, embarking in these last few days was splendid to witness. Nothing that equipment, science or forethought could do has been neglected, and the whole process of opening this great new front will be pursued with the utmost resolution both by the commanders and by the United States and British Governments whom they serve."

"The outstanding feature has been the landings of the airborne troops, which were on a scale far larger than anything that has been seen so far in the world. These landings took place with extremely little loss and with great accuracy. Particular anxiety attached to them, because the conditions of light prevailing in the very limited period of the dawn-just before the dawn-the conditions of visibility made all the difference. Indeed, there might have been something happening at the last minute which would have prevented airborne troops from playing their part. A very great degree of risk had to be taken in respect of the weather. But General Eisenhower's courage is equal to all the necessary decisions that have to be taken in these extremely difficult and uncontrollable matters. The airborne troops are well established, and the landings and the follow-ups are all proceeding with much less loss-very much less-than we expected. Fighting is in progress at various points. We captured various bridges which were of importance, and which were not blown up. There is even fighting proceeding in the town of Caen, inland. But all this, although a very valuable first step-a vital and essential first step-gives no indication of what may be the course of the battle in the next days and weeks, because the enemy will now probably endeavour to concentrate on this area, and in that event heavy fighting will soon begin and will continue without end, as we can push troops in and he can bring other troops up. It is, therefore, a most serious time that we enter upon. Thank God, we enter upon it with our great Allies all in good heart and all in good friendship."

"There is no doubt that this is probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world, and it has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilised men in the name of a great State and one of the leading races of Europe. It is quite clear that all concerned in this crime who may fall into our hands, including the people who only obeyed orders by carrying out the butcheries, should be put to death after their association with the murders has been proved."

"I have left the obvious, essential fact till this point, namely, that it is the Russian Armies who have done the main work in tearing the guts out of the German army. In the air and on the oceans we could maintain our place, but there was no force in the world which could have been called into being, except after several more years, that would have been able to maul and break the German army unless it had been subjected to the terrible slaughter and manhandling that has fallen to it through the strength of the Russian Soviet Armies."

"I salute Marshal Stalin, the great champion, and I firmly believe that our 20 years' treaty with Russia will prove to be one of the most lasting and durable factors in preserving the peace and the good order and the progress of Europe."

"I don't like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible to get a pillar between me and the train. I don't like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second's action would end everything. A few drops of desperation."

"The Russians will sweep through your country and your people will be liquidated. You are on the verge of annihilation."

"A love of tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril; but the new view must come, the world must roll forward ... Let us have no fear of the future."

"I hope very much that the archway into the Chamber from the Inner Lobby—where the Bar used to be—which was smitten by the blast of the explosion, and has acquired an appearance of antiquity that might not have been achieved by the hand of time in centuries, will be preserved intact, as a monument of the ordeal which Westminster has passed through in the Great War, and as a reminder to those who will come centuries after us that they may look back from time to time upon their forbears who "kept the bridge In the brave days of old.""

"It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed."

"It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time."

"There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them."

"Personally, having lived through all these European disturbances and studied carefully their causes, I am of the opinion that if the Allies at the peace table at Versailles had not imagined that the sweeping away of long-established dynasties was a form of progress, and if they had allowed a Hohenzollern, a Wittelsbach, and a Habsburg to return to their thrones, there would have been no Hitler. To Germany, a symbolic point on which the loyalties of the military classes could centre would have been found, and a democratic basis of society might have been preserved by a crowned Weimar in contact with the victorious Allies."

"We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. The injury she has inflicted on Great Britain, the United States, and other countries, and her detestable cruelties, call for justice and retribution. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad. Advance, Britannia! Long live the cause of freedom! God save the King."

"We all of us made our mistakes, but the strength of the Parliamentary institution has been shown to enable it at the same moment to preserve all the title-deeds of democracy while waging war in the most stern and protracted form. I wish to give my hearty thanks to men of all Parties, to everyone in every part of the House wherever they sit, for the way in which the liveliness of Parliamentary institutions has been maintained under the fire of the enemy, and for the way in which we have been able to persevere—and we could have persevered much longer if need had been—till all the objectives which we set before us for the procuring of the unlimited and unconditional surrender of the enemy had been achieved."

"God bless you all. This is your victory! [crowd: "No—it is yours."] It is the victory of the cause of freedom in every land. In all our long history we have never seen a greater day than this. Everyone, man or woman, has done their best. Everyone has tried. Neither the long years, nor the dangers, nor the fierce attack of the enemy, have in any way weakened the independent resolve of the British nation. God bless you all."

"Socialism is, in its essence, an attack not only upon British enterprise, but upon the right of the ordinary man or woman to breathe freely without having a harsh, clumsy, tyrannical hand clapped across their mouths and nostrils. A Free Parliament—look at that—a Free Parliament is odious to the Socialist doctrinaire."

"No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance. And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of Civil Servants, no longer servants and no longer civil. And where would the ordinary simple folk—the common people, as they like to call them in America—where would they be, once this mighty organism had got them in its grip?"

"My friends, I must tell you that a Socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom. Although it is now put forward in the main by people who have a good grounding in the Liberalism and Radicalism of the early part of the century, there can be no doubt that Socialism is inseparably interwoven with Totalitarianism and the abject worship of the State. It is not alone that property, in all its forms, is struck at, but that liberty, in all its form, is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of Socialism."

"How is an ordinary citizen or subject of the King to stand up against this formidable machine, which, once it is in power, will prescribe for every one of them where they are to work; what they are to work at; where they may go and what they may say; what views they are to hold and within what limits they may express them; where their wives are to go to queue up for the State ration; and what education their children are to receive to mould their views of human liberty and conduct in the future?"

"I spoke of the melancholy financial position of Great Britain. Half our foreign investments had been spent in the common cause when we stood alone. There is a great external debt of three thousand million pounds. We should require time to get on our feet again. The President listened closely, attentively and sympathetically. He spoke of the immense debt the Allies owed to Britain for that period when she fought alone. "If you had gone like France," he added, "we might well be fighting the Germans on the American coast at the present time.""

"I am going to tell you something you must not tell to any human being. We have split the atom. The report of the great experiment has just come in. A bomb was let off in some wild spot in New Mexico. It was only a thirteen-pound bomb, but it made a crater half a mile across. People ten miles away lay with their feet towards the bomb; when it went off they rolled over and tried to look at the sky. But even with the darkest glasses it was impossible. It was the middle of the night, but it was as if seven suns had lit the earth; two hundred miles away the light could be seen. The bomb sent up smoke into the stratosphere...It is the Second Coming. The secret has been wrested from nature...Fire was the first discovery; this is the second."

"Peace with Germany and Japan on our terms will not bring much rest to you and me (if I am still responsible). As I observed last time, when the war of the giants is over, the war of the pygmies will begin."

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."

"The most dangerous moment of the War, and the one which caused me the greatest alarm, was when the Japanese Fleet was heading for Ceylon and the naval base there. The capture of Ceylon, the consequent control of the Indian Ocean, and the possibility at the same time of a German conquest of Egypt would have closed the ring and the future would have been black."

"The Dark Ages may return, the Stone Age may return on the gleaming wings of Science, and what might now shower immeasurable material blessings upon mankind, may even bring about its total destruction. Beware, I say; time may be short."

"Christopher Soames, Churchill's future son-in-law, remembered] Churchill showing him around Chartwell Farm [around 1946]. When they came to the piggery Churchill scratched one of the pigs and said: I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

"Meeting Roosevelt was like uncorking your first bottle of champagne."

"I think 'No Comment' is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again."

"The very first thing the President did was to show me the new Presidential Seal, which he had just redesigned. He explained, 'The seal has to go everywhere the President goes. It must be displayed upon the lectern when he speaks. The eagle used to face the arrows but I have re-designed it so that it now faces the olive branches ... what do you think?' I said, 'Mr. President, with the greatest respect, I would prefer the American eagle's neck to be on a swivel so that it could face the olive branches or the arrows, as the occasion might demand.'"

"When I was a young subaltern in the South African War, the water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable we had to put a bit of whiskey in it. By diligent effort I learned to like it."

"A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory.... From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."

"We must build a kind of United States of Europe."

"We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward cross the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past."

"Is there any need for further floods of agony? Is the only lesson of history to be that mankind is unteachable? Let there be justice, mercy and freedom. The people have only to will it, and all will achieve their hearts' desire."

"The salvation of the common people of every race and of every land from war or servitude must be established on solid foundations and must be guarded by the readiness of all men and women to die rather than submit to tyranny."

"There is less there than meets the eye."

"I gather, young man, that you wish to be a Member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is that, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic."

"It is with deep grief I watch the clattering down of the British Empire, with all its glories and all the services it has rendered to mankind. ... Many have defended Britain against her foes. None can defend her against herself."

"You may try to destroy wealth, and find that all you have done is to increase poverty."

"When I am abroad I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the Government of my country. I make up for lost time when I am at home."

"When I was younger I made it a rule never to take strong drink before lunch. It is now my rule never to do so before breakfast."

"All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: Freedom; Justice; Honour; Duty; Mercy; Hope."

"Democracy is not a caucus, obtaining a fixed term of office by promises, and then doing what it likes with the people. We hold that there ought to be a constant relationship between the rulers and the people. "Government of the people, by the people, for the people," still remains the sovereign definition of democracy."

"Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters."

"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."

"One foggy afternoon in November 1947 I was painting in my studio... when I suddenly felt an odd sensation. I turned round... and there, sitting in my red leather upright armchair, was my father. He looked just as I had seen him in his prime... [towards the end of their conversation] "Papa," I said, "in each of them about thirty million men were killed in battle. In the last one seven million were murdered in cold blood, mainly by the Germans. They made human slaughter-pens like the Chicago stockyards. Europe is a ruin. Many of her cities have been blown to pieces by bombs... Far gone are the days of Queen Victoria and a settled world order. But, having gone through so much, we do not despair."... He said: "Winston, you have told me a terrible tale. I would never have believed that such things could happen. I am glad I did not live to see them. As I listened to you unfolding these fearful facts you seemed to know a great deal about them. I never expected that you would develop so far and so fully. Of course you are too old now to think about such things, but when I hear you talk I really wonder you didn't go into politics. You might have done a lot to help..." He gave me a benignant smile. He then took the match to light his cigarette and struck it. There was a tiny flash. He vanished. The chair was empty..."

"When losses are made, under the present system those losses are borne by the individuals who sustained them and took the risk and judged things wrongly, whereas under State management all losses are quartered upon the taxpayers and the community as a whole. The elimination of the profit motive and of self-interest as a practical guide in the myriad transactions of daily life will restrict, paralyse and destroy British ingenuity, thrift, contrivance and good housekeeping at every stage in our life and production, and will reduce all our industries from a profit-making to a loss-making process."

"For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all Parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself."

"I am shocked by this wicked crime."

"We may indeed ask ourselves how it is that capitalism and free enterprise enable the United States not only to support its vast and varied life and needs, but also to supply these enormous sums to lighten the burden of others in distress."

"The Socialists dilate upon the National Insurance Scheme, Family Allowances, improved education, welfare foods, food subsidies, and so forth. They point to the benefits flowing to the people from these schemes and particularly to the housewives and children... All these schemes were devised and set in motion in days before the Socialists came to office. They all date from the National Coalition Government of which I was the head. I have worked at national insurance schemes almost all my life and am responsible for several of the largest measures ever passed. The main principles of the new Health Schemes were hammered out in the days of the Coalition Government, before the party and personal malignancy of Mr Bevan plunged health policy into its present confusion."

"The Family Allowance Act was passed by the Conservative Caretaker Government. School milk was started in 1934 by a Conservative Parliament. The idea of welfare foods was largely developed by Lord Woolton. The Education Act was the work of Mr Butler... These facts should be repeated on every occasion by those who wish the truths to be known."

"Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy."

"When I see the present Socialist Government denouncing capitalism in all its forms, mocking with derision and contempt the tremendous free enterprise capitalist system on which the mighty production of the United States is founded, I cannot help feeling that as a nation we are not acting honourably or even honestly."

"I think the day will come when it will be recognized without doubt, not only on one side of the House, but throughout the civilized world, that the strangling of Bolshevism at its birth would have been an untold blessing to the human race."

"If you make 10,000 regulations you destroy all respect for the law."

"The choice is between two ways of life: between individual liberty and State domination; between concentrations of ownership in the hands of the State and the extension of ownership over the widest number of individuals; between the dead hand of monopoly and the stimulus of competition; between a policy of increasing restraint and a policy of liberating energy and ingenuity; between a policy of leveling down and a policy of opportunity for all to rise upwards from a basic standard."

"Broadly speaking, short words are best, and the old words, when short, are best of all."

"The reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a convenience."

"I cannot conceive that Britain would be an ordinary member of a Federal Union limited to Europe in any period which can at present be foreseen. We should in my opinion favour and help forward all developments on the Continent which arise naturally from a removal of barriers, from the process of reconciliation, and blessed oblivion of the terrible past, and also from our common dangers in the future and present. Although a hard-and-fast concrete federal constitution for Europe is not within the scope of practical affairs, we should help, sponsor and aid in every possible way the movement towards European unity. We should seek steadfastly for means to become intimately associated with it."

"It excites world wonder in the Parliamentary countries that we should build a Chamber, starting afresh, which can only seat two-thirds of its Members. It is difficult to explain this to those who do not know our ways. They cannot easily be made to understand why we consider that the intensity, passion, intimacy, informality and spontaneity of our Debates constitute the personality of the House of Commons and endow it at once with its focus and its strength."

"The object of Parliament is to substitute argument for fisticuffs."

"Let us look back on the conduct of Mr. Attlee and his friends in the years before the war. The Labour Party denounced the Baldwin Government for "planning a vast and expensive rearmament programme"...Mr. Attlee said on November 10, 1935: "The National Government is preparing a great programme of rearmament which will endanger the peace of the world". Mr. Morrison, in the same month, said "the Government leaders are all urging a policy of rearmament, and Mr. Chamberlain is ready and anxious to spend millions of pounds on machines of destruction". I suppose those must have been the aeroplanes which saved us in the Battle of Britain. And, again: "Every vote for the Unionists would be a vote for an international race in arms, and a vote for that was a vote for war". Such was the language of the Socialist leaders in the years while Hitler's Germany was rearming night and day. ... And yet...at the election of 1945, the Labour Party gained great credit by denouncing the Chamberlain Government as guilty men for not having made larger and more timely arrangements."

"I look back with pride to the great measures of social reform—Unemployment Insurance, Labour Exchanges, Safety in the Coalmines, bringing Old Age Pensions down from seventy to sixty-five years of age, the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions—for which I have been responsible both as a Liberal and a Conservative Minister. I find comfort in the broad harmony of thought which prevails between the modern Tory democracy and the doctrines of the famous Liberal leaders of the past. I am sure that in accord with their speeches and writings, men like Asquith, Morley and Grey, whom I knew so well in my youth, would have regarded the establishment of a Socialist State and the enforcement of the collectivist theory as one of the worst evils that could befall Britain and her slowly-evolved, long-cherished way of life."

"The Chinese said of themselves several thousand years ago: "China is a sea that salts all the waters that flow into it." There's another Chinese saying about their country which is much more modern—it dates only from the fourth century. This is the saying: "The tail of China is large and will not be wagged." I like that one. The British democracy approves the principles of movable party heads and unwaggable national tails. It is due to the working of these important forces that I have the honour to be addressing you at this moment."

"But now let me return to my theme of the many changes that have taken place since I was last here. There is a jocular saying: 'To improve is to change; to be perfect is to have changed often.' I had to use that once or twice in my long career."

"[T]omorrow the proclamation of her sovereignty will command the loyalty of her native land and of all other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire. I, whose youth was passed in the august, unchallenged and tranquil glories of the Victorian Era, may well feel a thrill in invoking, once more, the prayer and the Anthem, GOD SAVE THE QUEEN."

"I am against the monopoly enjoyed by the BBC. For eleven years they kept me off the air. They prevented me from expressing views which have proved to be right. Their behaviour has been tyrannical. They are honeycombed with Socialists—probably with Communists."

"Last week I watched the Trooping the Colour and our young Queen riding at the head of her Guards... Certainly no one of British race could contemplate such a spectacle without pride. But no thinking man or woman could escape the terrible question: on what does it all stand? It does indeed seem hard that the traditions and triumphs of a thousand years should be challenged by the ebb and flow of markets and commercial and financial transactions...and that we have to watch from month to month the narrow margins upon which our solvency and consequently our reputation and influence depend. But fifty million islanders growing food for only thirty millions, and dependent for the rest upon their exertions, their skill and their genius, present a problem which has not been seen or at least recorded before. In all history there has never been a community so large, so complex, so sure of its way of life, posed at such dizzy eminence and on so precarious a foundation."

"Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught, but I shall not attempt to foreshadow the proposals which will be brought before the House tomorrow. Today it will be sufficient and appropriate to deal with the obvious difficulties and confusion of the situation as we found it on taking office."

"We in this small Island have to make a supreme effort to maintain our place and status, the place and status to which our undying genius entitles us."

"Nicholas Soames: "Is it true, grandpapa, that you are the greatest man in the world?" Churchill: "Yes I am. Now bugger off.""

"Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse."

"To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war."

"If I had been properly supported in 1919, I think we might have strangled Bolshevism in its cradle, but everybody turned up their hands and said, 'How shocking!'"

"I read with great interest all that you have written me about what is called Colonialism, namely: bringing forward backward races and opening up the jungles. I was brought up to feel proud of much that we had done. Certainly in India, with all its history, religion and ancient forms of despotic rule, Britain has a story to tell which will look quite well against the background of the coming hundred years... I am sceptical about universal suffrage for the Hottentots even if refined by proportional representation. The British and American Democracies were slowly and painfully forged and even they are not perfect yet."

"We have surmounted all the perils and endured all the agonies of the past. We shall provide against and thus prevail over the dangers and problems of the future, withhold no sacrifice, grudge no toil, seek no sordid gain, fear no foe. All will be well. We have, I believe, within us the life-strength and guiding light by which the tormented world around us may find the harbour of safety, after a storm-beaten voyage."

"For myself I am an optimist — it does not seem to be much use being anything else."

"I have lived my life in the House of Commons, having served there for 52 out of the last 54 years of this tumultuous and convulsive century. I have indeed seen all the ups and downs of fate and fortune there, but I have never ceased to love and honour the Mother of Parliaments, the model of the legislative assemblies of so many lands."

"I was very glad when Mr. Attlee described my speeches in the late war as expressing the will not only of Parliament but of the whole nation. I have never accepted what many people have kindly said—namely, that I inspired the nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless and it proved unconquerable. It fell to me to express it and if I found the right word you must remember that I have always earned my living by my pen, and by my tongue."

"It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion's heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar."

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile — hoping it will eat him last."

""Keep England White" is a good slogan."

"I have worked very hard with Nehru. I told him he should be the light of Asia, to show all those mil­lions how they can shine out, instead of accept­ing the dark­ness of Com­mu­nism."

"There is widespread belief throughout the free world that, but for American nuclear superiority, Europe would already have been reduced to satellite status and the Iron Curtain would have reached the Atlantic and the Channel. Unless a trustworthy and universal agreement upon disarmament, conventional and nuclear alike, can be reached and an effective system of inspection is established and is actually working, there is only one sane policy for the free world in the next few years. That is what we call defence through deterrents. This we have already adopted and proclaimed. These deterrents may at any time become the parents of disarmament, provided that they deter. To make our contribution to the deterrent we must ourselves possess the most up-to-date nuclear weapons, and the means of delivering them."

"I have a strong admiration for the Russian people—for their bravery, their many gifts, and their kindly nature. It is the Communist dictatorship and the declared ambition of the Communist Party and their proselytising activities that we are bound to resist, and that is what makes this great world cleavage."

"Hitherto, crowded countries...like the United Kingdom and Western Europe, have had this outstanding vulnerability to carry. But the hydrogen bomb, with its vast range of destruction and the even wider area of contamination, would be effective also against nations whose population hitherto has been so widely dispersed over large land areas as to make them feel that they were not in any danger at all. They, too, become highly vulnerable ... Here again we see the value of deterrents, immune against surprise and well understood by all persons on both sides—I repeat "on both sides"—who have the power to control events. That is why I have hoped for a long time for a top level conference where these matters could be put plainly and bluntly from one friendly visitor to the conference to another. Then it may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation."

"The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair."

"I think it is the most important subject facing this country, but I cannot get any of my ministers to take any notice."

"It remains for me to wish my colleagues all good fortune in the difficult, but hopeful, situation which you have to face. I trust that you will be enabled to further the progress already made in rebuilding the domestic stability and economic strength of the United Kingdom and in weaving still more closely the threads which bind together the countries of the Commonwealth or, as I still prefer to call it, the Empire."

"No, no. I stop in Victoria's reign. I could not write about the woe and ruin of the terrible twentieth century. We answered all the tests. But it was useless."

"Among our Socialist opponents there is great confusion. Some of them regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is—the strong and willing horse that pulls the whole cart along."

"We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glow-worm."

"I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."

"It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required."

"I am a sporting man. I always give them a fair chance to get away."

"We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out."

"In the course of my life I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet."

"Historians are apt to judge war ministers less by the victories achieved under their direction than by the political results which flowed from them. Judged by that standard, I am not sure that I shall be held to have done very well."

"Take away that pudding – it has no theme."

"[Magna Carta provided] "a system of checks and balances which would accord the monarchy its necessary strength, but would prevent its perversion by a tyrant or a fool.""

"This Treasury paper, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read."

"I want no criticism of America at my table. The Americans criticize themselves more than enough."

"My ability to persuade my wife to marry me [was] quite my most brilliant achievement ... Of course, it would have been impossible for any ordinary man to have got through what I had to go through in peace and war without the devoted aid of what we call, in England, one's better half."

"Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon."

"In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Good Will."

"Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of communism... As Fascism sprang from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world into more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their destruction."

"One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'."

"Their horse cavalry, of which they had twelve brigades, charged valiantly against the swarming tanks and armoured cars but could not harm them with their swords and lances."

"I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial."

"Those who are prone, by temperament and character, to seek sharp and clear-cut solutions of difficult and obscure problems, who are ready to fight whenever some challenge comes from a foreign power, have not always been right. On the other hand, those whose inclination is to bow their heads, to seek patiently and faithfully for peaceful compromise, are not always wrong. On the contrary, in the majority of instances they may be right, not only morally, but from a practical standpoint. How many wars have been averted by patience and persisting good will! Religion and virtue alike lend their sanctions to meekness and humility, not only between men but between nations. How many wars have been precipitated by firebrands! How many misunderstandings which led to wars could have been removed by temporizing! How often have countries fought cruel wars and then after a few years found themselves not only friends but allies!"

"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves."

"Baldwin, Stanley ... confesses putting party before country, 169-70; ..."

"When I look back on all these worries I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened."

"The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril."

"No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. I could not foretell the course of events. I do not pretend to have measured accurately the martial might of Japan, but now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! ... Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder."

"Some people did not like this ceremonious style. But after all when you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite."

"Silly people, and there are many, not only in enemy countries, might discount the force of the United States. Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They would never stand bloodletting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyse their war horizon to friend or foe. Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy, and talkative people. But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch."

"War is mainly a catalogue of blunders."

"This was one of the heaviest blows I can recall during the war....It was a bitter moment. Defeat is one thing; disgrace is another."

"A number of social problems arose. I had been told that neither smoking nor alcoholic beverages were allowed in the [Saudi] Royal Presence. As I was the host at luncheon I raised the matter at once, and said to the interpreter that if it was the religion of His Majesty [Ibn Saud] to deprive himself of smoking and alcohol I must point out that my rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them. The King graciously accepted the position. His own cup-bearer from Mecca offered me a glass of water from its sacred well, the most delicious I had ever tasted."

"Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein, we never had a defeat."

"I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied, "Verify your quotations.""

"Of course, when you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise."

"By noon it was clear that the Socialists would have a majority. At luncheon my wife said to me, 'It may well be a blessing in disguise.' I replied, 'At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised.'"

"Thus ended the great American Civil War, which upon the whole must be considered the noblest and least avoidable of all the great mass conflicts of which till then there was record."

"No one can understand history without continually relating the long periods which are constantly mentioned to the experiences of our own short lives. Five years is a lot. Twenty years is the horizon to most people. Fifty years is antiquity. To understand how the impact of destiny fell upon any generation of men one must first imagine their position and then apply the time-scale of our own lives."

"At this point the march of invention brought a new factor upon the scene. Iron was dug and forged. Men armed with iron entered Britain from the Continent and killed the men of bronze. At this point we can plainly recognise across the vanished millenniums a fellow-being. A biped capable of slaying another with iron is evidently to modern eyes a man and a brother."

"We see the crude and corrupt beginnings of a higher civilisation blotted out by the ferocious uprising of the native tribes. Still, it is the primary right of men to die and kill for the land they live in, and to punish with exceptional severity all members of their own race who have warmed their hands at the invaders' hearth."

"Apparently, as in so many ancient battles, the beaten side were the victims of misunderstanding and the fate of the day was decided against them before the bulk of the forces realised that a serious engagement had begun. Reserves descended from the hills too late to achieve victory, but in good time to be massacred in the rout."

"Like other systems in decay, the Roman Empire continued to function for several generations after its vitality was sapped. For nearly a hundred years our Island was one of the scenes of conflict between a dying civilisation and lusty, famishing barbarism."

"The cities are everywhere in decline. Trade, industry and agriculture bend under the weight of taxation."

"The contrast between the morals at the centre of power and those practiced by wide communities in many subject lands presented problems of ever growing unrest."

"And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre, for freedom, law, and honour, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they themselves be exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round. Let us then declare that King Arthur and his noble knights, guarding the Sacred Flame of Christianity and the theme of a world order, sustained by valour, physical strength, and good horses and armour, slaughtered innumerable hosts of foul barbarians and set decent folk an example for all time."

"The picture rises before us vivid and bright: the finely carved, dragon-shaped prow; the high, curving stern; the long row of shields, black and yellow alternately, ranged along the sides; the gleam of steel; the scent of murder."

"When we reflect upon the brutal vices of these salt-water bandits, pirates as shameful as any whom the sea has borne, or recoil from their villainous destruction and cruel deeds, we must also remember the discipline, the fortitude, the comradeship and martial virtues which made them at this period beyond all challenge the most formidable and daring race in the world."

"When the next year the raiders returned and landed near Jarrow they were stoutly attacked while harassed by bad weather. Many were killed. Their "king" was captured and put to a cruel death, and the fugitives carried so grim a tale back to Denmark that for forty years the English coasts were unravaged."

""872, Ivar, King of the Northmen of all Ireland and Britain, ended his life." He had conquered Mercia and East Anglia. He had captured the major stronghold of the kingdom of Strathclyde, Dumbarton. Laden with loot and seemingly invincible, he settled in Dublin and died there peacefully two years later. The pious chroniclers report that he "slept in Christ." Thus it may be that he had the best of both worlds."

"A group of pagan ruffians and pirates had gained possession of an effective military and naval machine, but they faced a mass of formidable veterans whom they had to feed and manage, and for whom they must provide killings. Such men make plans, and certainly their descent upon England was one of the most carefully considered and elaborately prepared villainies of that dark time."

"Without any coherent national organisation to repel from the land on which they had settled the ever-unknowable descents from the seas, the Saxons, now for four centuries entitled to be deemed the owners of the soil, very nearly succumbed completely to the Danish inroads. That they did not was due--as almost every critical turn of historic fortune has been due--to the sudden apparition in an era of confusion and decay of one of the great figures of history."

"It was Twelfth Night, and the Saxons, who in these days of torment refreshed and fortified themselves by celebrating the feasts of the Church, were off their guard, engaged in pious exercises, or perhaps even drunk. Down swept the ravaging foe. The whole army of Wessex, sole guarantee of England south of the Thames, was dashed into confusion. Many were killed."

"Civilisation had been restored to the Island. But now the political fabric which nurtured it was about to be overthrown. Hitherto strong men armed had kept the house. Now a child, a weakling, a vacillator, a faithless, feckless creature, succeeded to the warrior throne."

"We have seen that Alfred in his day had never hesitated to use money as well as arms. Ethelred used money instead of arms. He used it in ever-increasing quantities, with ever-diminishing returns ... There is the record of a final payment to the Vikings in 1012. This time forty-eight thousand pounds' weight of silver was extracted, and the oppressors enforce the collection by the sack of Canterbury, holding Archbishop Alphege to ransom, and finally killing him at Greenwich because he refused to coerce his flock to raise the money. The Chronicle states: "All these calamities fell upon us through evil counsel, because tribute was not offered to them at the right time, nor yet were they resisted; but, when they had done the most evil, then was peace made with them. And notwithstanding all this peace and tribute they went everywhere in companies, harried our wretched people, and slew them""

"It is vain to recount further the catalogue of miseries. In earlier ages such horrors remain unknown because unrecorded. Just enough flickering light plays upon this infernal scene to give us the sense of its utter desolation and hopeless wretchedness and cruelty."

"The lights of Saxon England were going out, and in the gathering darkness a gentle, grey-beard prophet foretold the end. When on his death-bed Edward spoke of a time of evil that was coming upon the land his inspired mutterings struck terror into the hearers."

"On September 28 the fleet hove in sight, and all came safely to anchor in Pevensey Bay. There was no opposition to the landing. The local "fyrd" had been called out this year four times already to watch the coast, and having, in true English style, come to the conclusion that the danger was past because it had not yet arrived had gone back to their homes."

"Someone once said that history is written by the victors. He probably was not the greatest of all victors, if only because his name has been utterly forgotten."

"William now directed his archers to shoot high into the air, so that the arrows would fall behind the shield-wall, and one of these pierced Harold in the right-eye, inflicting a mortal wound. He fell at the foot of the royal standard, unconquerable except by death, which does not count in honour. The hard-fought battle was now decided."

"Joan was a being so uplifted from the ordinary run of mankind that she finds no equal in a thousand years. She embodied the natural goodness and valour of the human race in unexampled perfection. Unconquerable courage, infinite compassion, the virtue of the simple, the wisdom of the just, shone forth in her. She glorifies as she freed the soil from which she sprang."

"Time after time, history ran over the luddites and romanticists, those who sought to restore the old and delay the new. And every time, history did it with faster, more reliable and more advanced vehicles."

"By an uncompleted process of terror, by an iniquitous land settlement, by the virtual proscription of the Catholic religion, by the bloody deeds already described, he cut new gulfs between the nations and the creeds. 'Hell or Connaught' were the terms he thrust upon the native inhabitants, and they for their part, across three hundred years, have used as their keenest expression of hatred 'The Curse of Cromwell on you.' ... Upon all of us there still lies 'the curse of Cromwell'."

"America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World War. If you hadn't entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these 'isms' wouldn't today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government — and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives."

"This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."

"It is always wise to look ahead – but difficult to look further than you can see."

"You are a small exclamation mark at the end of a very long and insignificant sentence in the book of history."

"Bessie Braddock: Winston, you are drunk, and what's more you are disgustingly drunk. Churchill: Bessie, my dear, you are ugly, and, what's more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly."

"Democracy means that if the doorbell rings in the early hours, it is likely to be the milkman."

"Hence, we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks."

"The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. Most people, sometime in their lives, stumble across truth. Most jump up, brush themselves off, and hurry on about their business, as if nothing happened."

"Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential."

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."

"Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind."

"Never let a good crisis go to waste."

"I am quite satisfied with my views of India. I don’t want them disturbed by any bloody Indian."

"The Balkans produce more history than they can consume (also reported in the form: The peoples of the Balkans produce more history than they can consume, and the weight of their past lies oppressively on their present.)"

"Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues and freebooters. All Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles."

"There is no such thing as a good tax."

"If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain."

"The fascists of the future will be called anti-fascists."

"There is nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse."

"An empty taxi arrived and out of it stepped Attlee."

"All this contains much that is obviously true, and much that is relevant; unfortunately, what is obviously true is not relevant, and what is relevant is not obviously true."

"You make a living by what you get; you make a life by what you give."

"The further backward you look, the further forward you can see."

"Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash."

"The heaviest cross I have to bear is the Cross of Lorraine."

"People often forget that in 1940 there was no guarantee that we were going to win."

"Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential."

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."

"I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself."

"A joke is a very serious thing."

"The idea that a nation can tax itself into prosperity is one of the cruelest delusions which has befuddled the human mind."

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."

"Lady Nancy Astor: If I were your wife I'd put poison in your coffee. Churchill: If I were your husband I'd drink it."

"George Bernard Shaw is said to have told W.S.C.: Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend—if you have one. W.S.C. to G.B.S.: Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second—if there is one."

"If you're going through hell, keep going."

"Americans Will Always Do the Right Thing — After Exhausting All the Alternatives."

"Gentlemen, We Have Run Out Of Money; Now We Have to Think"

"Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions"

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter"

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm"

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results"

"Germany's unforgivable crime before WW2 was its attempt to loosen its economy out of the world trade system and to build up an own exchange system from which the world-finance couldn't profit anymore."

"We have slaughtered the wrong pig."

"Having...announced his "Four Years Plan", Churchill was sincere enough in his commitment to social reform. If a Churchill Government had been elected in 1945 some form of National Health Service would have been introduced, along with comprehensive social insurance and policies to maintain full employment."

"Churchill's general conception of British history was also, in a sense, commonplace. It was a romantic Whig history: the story of the growth of liberty and representative institutions at home, in parallel with the rise of Britain as a great power overseas. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the Great Reform Act of 1832 were accompanied by Blenheim, Trafalgar and Waterloo. It was a story, besides, of great men: great parliamentarians like Hampden or Pitt, and great commanders like Cromwell or Nelson. But this was the point at which the national myth of Whig history merged into the family myth of Winston Churchill. Among the great men of history were Churchill's father, Lord Randolph, and his ancestor, John Churchill, the first duke of Marlborough. It was they who provided the link between Churchill's conceptions of British history, and his sense of personal destiny. The Glorious Revolution, and the rise of Britain as a great power, were exemplified for Churchill by the career of Marlborough. The rise of parliamentary democracy was exemplified by the career of Lord Randolph. Churchill came to see his own life as a re-enactment and continuation of theirs."

"Political pundits have a saying that a great leader needs three things: brains, heart, and guts, or its modern variant, balls. Churchill, for example, had all three. Now start doing your own sums: FDR surely had all three; Nixon had brains and guts, but not much heart. Reagan had a good facsimile of a heart, but not much of a brain..."

"I can say here and now, with no hesitation whatever, that if it had not been for him this nation would not have survived the year 1940, and would not have steeled itself to meet its tasks in the years afterwards."

"[T]he splendid leadership he gave this country and the Commonwealth from the moment he became Prime Minister in the Second World War—a leadership which not only saved the freedom and genius of Europe's most civilised peoples from eclipse, but also carried Britain triumphant with no more than a third of her former sacrifice of life through a Second World War half as long again as the First... Not one, in fact, of the great Englishmen who have possessed the priceless combination of political and military sense...has surpassed Churchill in the distinctive genius for statesmanship in peace and war on which the greatness of this little island has been built, namely, an infallible instinct for the balance of power indispensable to its security, alertness to any threatened disturbance of that balance however far ahead, and imaginative resource, when the balance has been disturbed, in righting it by the most effective and economical use of our always inadequate strength. It is due, I repeat, to this, the dominant element in his genius, that Western Europe is not at this moment a dependency of either Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia."

"[The War] at once raised issues which transcended all party divisions and, obliterating all the questions of the passing hour, linked up the England of to-day with the England that fought the Spanish Armada, that humbled Louis XIV and wore down Napoleon. In that new, that eternal England, he by natural right came into his own. He is to-day the spirit of old England incarnate, with its unshakeable self-confidence, its grim gaiety, its unfailing sense of humour, its underlying moral earnestness, its unflinching tenacity. Against that inner unity of spirit between leader and nation the ill-cemented moral fabric of Hitler's perversion of the German soul must be shattered in the end."

"We have at this moment a much better atmosphere, in which there is far less industrial tension than there was sometime back... I hold no brief for the present Minister of Munitions [Winston Churchill]. I believe he has his personal and political detractors—I am not concerned with them one way or the other—but in my opinion he has brought courage and a certain quality of imagination to the task of dealing with labour questions since he became Minister of Munitions. Because of that, the situation has perceptibly improved, and I hope he will go on in the same direction."

"The world depends on the United States to shape history. No person recognized this fact better than Winston Churchill, whose nation depended on American intervention in the Second World War. At the time, he wrote, "How heavily do the destinies of this generation hang upon the government and people of the United States... Will the United States throw their weight into the scales of peace and law and freedom while time remains, or will they remain spectators until the disaster has occurred; and then, with infinite cost and labor, build up what need not have been cast down?""

"I wish I knew as much about anything as that young man knows about everything."

"It must be a melancholy satisfaction to see how right you were... Let's hope it's not too late."

"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."

"One of these days I'll make a few casual remarks about Winston. Not a speech—no oratory—just a few words in passing. I've got it all ready. I am going to say that when Winston was born lots of fairies swooped down on his cradle gifts—imagination, eloquence, industry, ability, and then came a fairy who said "No one person has a right to so many gifts", picked him up and gave him such a shake and twist that with all these gifts he was denied judgment and wisdom. And that is why while we delight to listen to him in this House, we do not take his advice."

"Stalin's strategy at the end of World War II was to acquire a small "buffer zone between Russia and Germany, consisting of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania, and most of Germany. In an effort to garner public support in these nations, Stalin mounted a public-relations campaign around the upbeat theme "Maybe We Won't Have Your Whole Family Shot," and in 1945 Eastern Europe decided to join the Communist bloc by a vote of 28,932,084,164,504,029-0. Heartened by this mandate, Stalin immediately ordered construction work to begin on the Iron Curtain, which was given its name by Sir Winston Churchill, who, in a historic anecdote at a dinner party, said, "Madam, I may be drunk, but an iron curtain has descended upon BLEAAARRRGGGHHH.""

"The government took the threat of UFOs so seriously in the 1950s that UK intelligence chiefs met to discuss the issue, newly-released files show...he papers also include a wartime account claiming prime minister Winston Churchill ordered a UFO sighting be kept secret to prevent "mass panic"... the latest batch of UFO files released from the Ministry of Defence to the National Archives shows that, in 1957, the committee received reports detailing an average of one UFO sighting a week... The files also include an account of a wartime meeting attended by Winston Churchill in which, it is claimed, the prime minister was so concerned about a reported encounter between a UFO and RAF bombers, that he ordered it be kept secret for at least 50 years to prevent "mass panic". Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFO sightings for the MoD, said: "The interesting thing is that most of the UFO files from that period have been destroyed... But what happened is that a scientist whose grandfather was one of his [Churchill's] bodyguards, said look, Churchill and Eisenhower got together to cover up this phenomenal UFO sighting, that was witnessed by an RAF crew on their way back from a bombing raid...The reason apparently was because Churchill believed it would cause mass panic and it would shatter people's religious views."

"Right away Churchill jumped up and said: Our entire tragedy is that we have a weak government. The Baldwins are idiots, totally lacking in talent, etc. If England is to be dependent on them, she is lost. They are concerned only with deposing and crowning kings, while Germany is arming and growing stronger, and we are slipping lower and lower. But this situation will not last long. England will wake up and defeat Mussolini and Hitler, and then your hour will also come."

"[O]ne of the greatest Englishmen of our time."

"[Winston Churchill] does not talk the language of the 20th century but that of the 18th. He is still fighting Blenheim all over again. His only answer to a difficult situation is send a gun-boat."

"Lloyd George was a bigger man than Churchill, and one of the biggest things about Churchill was that he knew it."

"He stands out from his contemporaries as a great and resplendent figure with none to rival him in his many-sidedness... The historians will speak of him as one of the greatest of parliamentarians...they will speak of him as the statesman to whom the whole world looked for guidance when the very skies seemed about to fall; they will recount his mastery of the written and the spoken word; they will discuss every element in his many-sidedness; and the great figure who has dominated our age will take his destined place in the long and noble line of those who...have been clothed with a kind of immortality... Winston Churchill, it may be confidently said, will never be forgotten. He will be remembered beyond all other things as the man who rallied the forces of freedom all over the world when it was confronted by a "monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime"."

"Many of his speeches will live as examples of human speech at its highest and best, and they will be woven into the fabric of our own history and the history of the world. For many of these speeches made history before our very eyes. They changed the shape of events. They proclaimed the greatness of our past and the nature of our great traditions. They shed a clear light upon the path of duty, and they implanted in ordinary men and women the resolve to make the day of danger their finest hour. They appealed to the noblest and deepest feelings of mankind when discouragement and despair besieged their hearts, and brought triumph out of the jaws of defeat; and many of those speeches will remain a great possession for all time of the country whose interests they preserved and maintained. They will also remain as an undying memorial to the man who made them and became the greatest figure of his age."

"Among the many memorable things Churchill said was this: Talking of Dingra, he said that there had been much discussion in the Cabinet about him. Lloyd George had expressed to him his highest admiration of Dingra's attitude as a patriot, in which he (Churchill) shared. He will be remembered 2,000 years hence, as we remember Regulus and Caractacus and Plutarch's heroes, and Churchill quoted with admiration Dingra's last words as the finest ever made in the name of patriotism."

"Every man who's had to command troops in combat has had to look at the big picture. When Harry Truman made the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, he didn't do that assuming he wasn't going to be criticized for it. He was looking at ending the war and saving a million American lives. He provided vision for the nation in spite of the fact that many criticized him then and even more do now. And what about Winston Churchill? He let the Germans bomb the British city of Coventry to protect the fact that the Allies had broken the Germans' code. He allowed the Germans to bomb Coventry because he was looking strategically at ending the war. And he knew if he let it be known that he was reading the Germans' mail, they would immediately change their code. That's thinking strategically versus at the tactical situation. I think everybody who's ever commanded troops has had to look at circumstances strategically. And that amounts to having vision."

"[F]rom the prisoner's point of view—I am speaking from the prisoner's point of view today—when the Prime Minister [Winston Churchill] was Home Secretary he did more for the prisoners than any Home Secretary we have had in the last 50 years. The speech to which my hon. Friend referred was made when the Prime Minister was Home Secretary in the Liberal Government before the First World War. Anyone who has experienced prison conditions knows that the reforms which the right hon. Gentleman introduced in that period...made more difference to the conditions in prisons than any reforms which have been introduced by other Home Secretaries."

"Meetings between Roosevelt and the JCS were impromptu and usually convened to deal with a specific problem. The President would decide who would attend, presumably those whom he wanted for advice. The record shows that King was in the White House some thirty-two times during 1942, although there may have been other meetings that were not on the President's appointment calendar. The scheduled appointments then diminished for the remainder of the war: eight in 1943, nine in 1944, and one in 1945. In contrast, Churchill met with the British Chiefs of Staff almost daily."

"In the late 1930s, as Britain refused to adapt to the new realities of war, Winston Churchill observed, "The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.""

"I decided to keep the Rembrandt Peale portrait of George Washington that Dad and Bill Clinton had placed over the mantel. I added busts of Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, and Winston Churchill- a gift on loan from the British government courtesy of Prime Minister Tony Blair. I had told Tony that I admired Churchill's courage, principle, and sense of humor- all of which I thought were necessary for leadership."

"[I]t does seem true, almost a truism, that Churchill's famous phrases – 'blood, sweat, toil and tears', 'their finest hour', 'we shall never surrender' – did express something inarticulate, perhaps dormant but perhaps not, in the hearts and minds of his countrymen, of most classes. They achieved their effect by a heroic yet very simple expression of the will to resist ('we shall fight them in the hills') and by invoking the naïve sense of nationhood and history which most of his literate subjects shared with him... Churchill clearly achieved and retained a popularity far greater than – because different in kind from – that of any peacetime leader... He radiated his courage over the microphone as successfully as he pumped blood into the sclerotic arteries of the House of Commons... And, whatever their private opinions, all classes were clear that there nowhere was, nor ever had been, anyone quite like this man they were cheering. Such singularity, in such a high position, could only amount to greatness."

"The men were thrilled to see him. I've never seen such enthusiasm. It's not surprising—he has such presence—such personality—also the man in the street realizes that he has been right in everything he has said since 1933. Those in high places say he's finished—I don't believe it. He has a following in the country far bigger than those in Westminster think."

"Look, if Churchill hadn't done what he did to defeat the Nazis, you wouldn't be here, none of us would be here. What is more, we have to take a special interest in him because he, too, led a little island against a great enemy."

"The Prime Minister made an important and moving statement. I sat behind him...and he was eloquent, and oratorical, and used magnificent English; several Labour Members cried. He hinted that we might be obliged to fight alone, without France, and that England might well be invaded."

"Churchill's associations with Scott's Manchester was part of his education as a Liberal, and he emerged as not only an eloquent but also an effectual exponent of Scott's kind of progressivism... From his Manchester base Churchill became, almost at a bound, a Radical leader... When Churchill was beaten in the Manchester North West by-election, the Guardian mourned the party loss as less than the "irreparable" personal loss of "a rising and formative political force which we would gladly have kept for our special help and service"."

"Churchill showed himself formidably equipped to fulfil a role which Scott had always known he could not himself: that of inspirational leader, leading, moreover, in the direction which Scott had mapped out. At its zenith their relationship represented the fusing of such complementary elements as made progressive achievements possible. Nothing could have pleased Scott more than that in May 1909 the fate of the Budget should impel Churchill to come to Manchester to tread out the corn in his best fashion. Here was the right issue and the right man to rally Lancashire to it; and here was Scott, proud to play host to him – surely their finest hour? And throughout 1909 Scott gave what help he could in ensuring that Churchill's important speeches received full-dress treatment in the Guardian."

"You had Mr. Churchill on the radio explaining that we'd never surrender, and above you had the Spitfire, and you couldn't help thinking: Yes, we can win this thing."

"The little band that Churchill called into his confidence included...myself... All of us were obsessed with the German peril and the nakedness of our country to meet it, and Winston was galvanic in collecting the latest information to place before us. I have vivid recollections of his prophetic warnings couched in such terms of urgency that none of us could fail to realise that here was a patriot who was prepared to stake everything in rousing his countrymen to action... I can see the great man now pacing the floor of my drawing room...delivering short pungent sentences such as, "at this moment all through Germany the factories are lit up, the clanging of hammers goes on all night, and the only answering British sound is the snoring of 'X'!""

"Every day there are four or five columns in the Manchester Guardian consecrated to his honour."

"He is much more attractive than the Edens and other gentlemanly wishy-washies. He is a real tough and at the moment talking our language."

"He was quite magnificent. The man, and the only man we have, for this hour... As we separated several of us went up and spoke to him. He had risen from the long table and was standing in front of the fireplace. I patted him on the back and said: 'Well done, Prime Minister! You ought to get that cartoon of Low, showing us all rolling up our sleeves and falling in behind you, and frame it and stick it up there'. He answered with a broad grin, 'Yes, that was a good one, wasn't it?'"

"A British soldier once described Winston Spencer Churchill as "a pugnacious looking b[astard]." Others mistakenly regarded Churchill's plump figure as the affirmation of a jolly fat man. One historian has aptly described him as resembling a cherubic, jumbo-size baby with a cigar stuck in its mouth. There are hardly sufficient adjectives in the English language to describe the British wartime prime minister, but a descriptive (and contradictory) few will suffice. Churchill was brilliant, pampered, petulant, romantic, pragmatic, courageous, egotistical, eccentric, possessed of enormous perseverance, opinionated beyond measure, and impossibly demanding; furthermore, he drank too much, suffered from depression (his "black dog"), "waddled rather than walked," and by any criterion ought to have been too old to carry the enormous burden of a prolonged war that threatened Britain's very existence. His mood swings were legion and ranged from tears to jokes- on occasion at one and the same time. Eisenhower tells the tale of meetings during which "I've seen tears run over his chin." During one such encounter Eisenhower had just rejected as impossible something Churchill wanted done in Italy. "He painted a terrible picture if we didn't do it... He said, 'if that should happen I should have to go to His Majesty and lay down the mantle of my high office.' And here were tears running down. But within ten seconds he was telling a joke... The man could use pathos, humor, anecdote, history, anything to get his way." Warts and all, Winston Churchill nevertheless represented the indomitable spirit of a defiant nation under siege. His oratory was stirring, and like FDR's, it galvanized an entire nation. In 1939 when Lord Halifax suggested that Britain make peace with Hitler, Churchill not only declined but instead vowed to rescue "mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened the stained pages of history.""

"Winston Churchill was unlike anyone Eisenhower had ever met. Though he was a megalomaniac on a par with MacArthur, Churchill elicited a wholly contrary response from Eisenhower, whose aversion to big egos was built on a lifetime of experience with such men. With Churchill, Eisenhower found himself up against a powerful personality- with a penchant for the dramatic gesture- in whom were combined politician, statesman, warlord, and frustrated soldier would much rather have been on the battlefield commanding troops: The latter he had in common with Eisenhower."

"Winston Churchill, who worried about the "pan-Asian malaise" and the looming "shadow of Asiatic solidarity," was himself inordinately fond of the racial slurs that were guaranteed to alienate Asian peoples. His Chinese allies remained "little yellow men" to him, even as the same phrase became an everyday expression in discussions of the Japanese enemy."

"All my thoughts are with you on this day which is so essentially your day. It is you who have led, uplifted and inspired us through the worst days. Without you this day could not have been."

"A later call on President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, a guest at the White House, was no more than an informal chat. It had no military significance, but it was the first time I ever had a personal talk with either of these two men. Tobruk, in the African desert, had just fallen to the Germans and the whole Allied world was thrown into gloom. These two leaders, however, showed no signs of pessimism. It was gratifying to note that they were thinking of attack and victory, not of defense and defeat."

"An inspirational leader, he seemed to typify Britain's courage and perseverance in adversity and its conservatism in success... He was a great war leader and he is a great man."

"His vitality, his brainpower, his endurance, his wit, his eloquence, his industry, his application were superabundant, superhuman. The first and last impression left by the Colosseum concerns its size. So with Churchill: the man was huge. Then, also, for the bulk of the British adult population, the moment which must stand out most proudly in their collective memory was 1940. More deliberately than at any other time in its history the nation united in a good cause... That was their finest hour. Churchill was the prime organiser, the voice, the symbol and the historian of those great days... His precise virtue then was that he represented his countrymen in that crisis better than at any other moment in his career. He exemplified, in word and deed – more, in every inflection and gesture – the untiring, resplendent courage which the hour demanded... Rarely were the needs of a nation and the chief quality of its leader better matched than in 1940. Nothing can ever take that from him. No one in his senses will ever try."

"I have got a good recollection of Mr. Churchill when he was in the Colonial Office and somehow or other since then I have held the opinion that I can always rely on his sympathy and goodwill."

"He would often go into no-man's-land. It was a nerve-wracking experience to go with him. He would call out in his loud, gruff voice—far too loud it seemed to us—"You go that way, I will go this... Come here, I have found a gap in the German wire. Come over here at once!" He was like a baby elephant out in no-man's-land at night. He never fell when a shell went off; he never ducked when a bullet went past with its loud crack. He used to say, after watching me duck: "It's no damn use ducking; the bullet has gone a long way past you by now.""

"[Churchill] said, "You were very rude to me, you know." I told him, "Yes, but you were rude too." Then, with just a hint of a smile, he looked up and said blandly, "Yes, but I am a great man." There was no answer to that. He knew, as I and the rest of the world knew, that he was right."

"As early as 1919, Churchill, then a cabinet minister in Lloyd George's government, foresaw the potential for German-Soviet collaboration."

"Winston Churchill famously claimed that of all human qualities, courage was the most esteemed, because it guaranteed all others."

"Unfortunately, as he quickly discovered, the governor had fallen prey to the hazard of “Churchillian Drift,” attributing an aphorism of unknown origin to Winston Churchill."

"Finally, a word about British objectives. They were, as Churchill defined them, much simpler: to survive at all costs, even if this meant relinquishing leadership of the Anglo-American coalition to Washington, even if it meant weakening the British empire, even if it also meant collaborating with the Soviet Union, a regime the younger Churchill had hoped, in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, to crush. The British would attempt to influence the Americans as much as possible—they aspired to the role of Greeks, tutoring the new Romans—but under no circumstances would they get at odds with the Americans. Stalin's expectation of an independent Britain, capable of resisting the United States and even going to war with it, would have seemed strange indeed to those who actually shaped British wartime and postwar grand strategy."

"He ought to be the Minister of Supply if we are in for a crisis. His energy and fiery brain seem unimpaired with age. He is certainly not dismayed by our difficulties. He says that our rulers are now beginning to get frightened... He said that sometimes he couldn't sleep at night thinking of our dangers, how all this wonderful Empire which had been built up so slowly and so steadily might all be dissipated in a minute. He was just the stuff required in an emergency. The thing is to say when the emergency has arrived."

"I keep thinking of Winston Churchill down at Westerham, full of patriotism and ideas for saving the Empire. A man who knows that you must act to win. You cannot remain supine and allow yourself to be hit indefinitely. Winston must be chafing at the inaction. I keep thinking of him walking up and down the room."

"In Winston Churchill we have a man capable of keeping up the courage of the people. Thank God for that. I know no one else amongst our political leaders who can do it."

"[T]he upsurge of the national spirit was largely his own creation. The great qualities of the British race had seemed almost dormant until he had aroused them. The people then saw themselves as he portrayed them. They put their trust in him. They were ready to do anything that he asked, make any sacrifice that he demanded, and follow wherever he led."

"To the occupied nations in Europe he was already the living symbol of resistance and hope. Only if Britain was victorious could they regain their freedom, and they felt that if anyone could bring about that victory, it was Churchill. Travelling in Scandinavia and the Low Countries after the war, this was the sort of thing that I heard on all sides: "You in England had no idea what Churchill meant to us. We used to sit in dark cellars with the wireless turned on as low as possible, and while one of our number patrolling the streets would keep a look out for the Gestapo, we would strain our ears to catch his every word. His voice was the only ray of light in an otherwise completely dark and hopeless world.""

"I now put Churchill, with all his idiosyncrasies, his indulgences, his occasional childishness, but also his genius, his tenacity and his persistent ability, right or wrong, successful or unsuccessful, to be larger than life, as the greatest human being ever to occupy 10 Downing Street."

"He never over-claimed his part in 1940. Disaster had united rather than disrupted the people of Britain as he knew it would. Although as a nation we were alone, as individuals we were all in it together. He felt our temper exactly... But it was not to his eloquence, or even to his humour, alone that we responded; disaster had struck the scales from our eyes, and suddenly we saw the towering courage that had been Churchill's all his life. We all knew, in that instinctive way that tells true from false, that here was a man who would stand to the last; and in this confidence we could stand with him."

"Unlike modern military operations, whose names are chosen for their public relations value, operations in World War II were christened on the governing principle that the name should give no hint of the objective. To this, Winston Churchill added a second requirement: operations should not be given boastful or frivolous monikers. As he told Pug Ismay, "Intelligent thought will already supply an unlimited number of well-sounding names that do not suggest the character of the operation or disparage it in any way and do not enable some widow or mother to say that her son was killed in an operation called 'BUNNYHUG' or 'BALLYHOO'."

"I know I speak for all Americans, your fellow citizens, in extending warmest congratulations and affectionate best wishes on your 90th birthday. As you celebrate this milestone in a full and eventful life we remember with gratitude, and future generations will continue to do so, your magnificent eloquence, your unfailing courage and your great service to the cause of freedom and human dignity."

"Perhaps if the British people could speak, they would ask for peace. But since the official voice of England asks not for peace but for destruction, it is destruction we must provide."

"In the dark days and darker nights when England stood alone—and most men save Englishmen despaired of England's life—he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle."

"One day during the conference King lunched alone with Mr. Churchill and enjoyed the opportunity for an extended conversation. So convincingly did the Prime Minister speak that King, as he remarked afterward, kept his hand on his watch. Had this cherished personal belonging been asked of him, he might not have known how to refuse it! Although King was not in accord with the suggestions of operations in the eastern Mediterranean and an attack on the soft underbelly of Europe, he was in hearty agreement with Mr. Churchill's desire to clear the enemy out of North Africa so that Allied shipping might freely use the Mediterranean and avoid the long voyage around the Cape of Good Hope."

"In King's view, there could have been no finer comrades-in-arms for the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff than the Prime Minister and the British Chiefs of Staff. King both respected and enjoyed Mr. Churchill. The two men were similar in their entire frankness and their determination in pursuing given thoughts and courses of action. From time to time they collided, but basically they understood one another."

"I remember we passed by 10 Downing Street. That’s the place where the prime minister of England lives. And I remember that a few years ago a man lived there by the name of Winston Churchill. One day he stood up before the world and said, “I did not become his Majesty’s First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.” And I thought about the fact that a few weeks ago a man by the name of Anthony Eden lived there. And out of all of his knowledge of the Middle East, he decided to rise up and march his armies with the forces of Israel and France into Egypt. And there they confronted their doom, because they were revolting against world opinion. Egypt, a little country. Egypt, a country with no military power. They could have easily defeated Egypt. But they did not realize that they were fighting more than Egypt. They were attacking world opinion, they were fighting the whole Asian-African bloc, which is the bloc that now thinks and moves and determines the course of the history of the world."

"Take Winston Churchill into the Cabinet. Churchill is the only Englishman Hitler is afraid of. He does not take the PM or Lord Halifax seriously, but he placed Churchill in the same category as Roosevelt. The mere fact of giving him a leading ministerial post would convince Hitler that [you] really meant to stand up to him... Churchill's admission to the Cabinet would be the most effective measure. Otherwise trouble would start again very soon."

"In twenty-five years' knowledge of our [labour] movement I have known no leader to whom that faith has been given in greater measure or from a fuller heart."

"As I look at the Europe Hitler has devastated, I know very intimately that, as an Englishman of Jewish origin, I owe you the gift of life itself."

"While vague about the hereafter, Churchill always held that "man is spirit," and believed in a kind of spiritual connection with his forebears. On 24 January 1953, he told his private secretary, John Colville, that he would die on that date—the same date his father had died in 1895. Twelve years later Churchill lapsed into a coma on January 10th. Confidently, Colville assured The Queen's private secretary: "He won't die until the 24th." Unconscious, Churchill did just that."

"One question about The Dream that tantalized his family is whether the story was really fiction. When asked this question, Sir Winston Churchill would smile and say, "Not entirely.""

"It will take a great deal of patience to undo the harm that Churchill has done."

"1919: but two years later Mr. Winston Churchill was entrusted by our harassed Cabinet with the settlement of the Middle East; and in a few weeks, at his conference in Cairo, he made straight all the tangle, finding solutions fulfilling (I think) our promises [to the Arabs] in letter and spirit (where humanly possible) without sacrificing any interest of our Empire or any interest of the peoples concerned. So we were quit of the wartime Eastern adventure, with clean hands, but three years too late to earn the gratitude which peoples, if not states, can pay."

"You know the difference between a politician and a statesman? Here is the LeMay definition: a politician is a high-profile hooker looking for money to fund a campaign so that he can be in position to be owned by a political party, doing their bidding like a slave. Johnson fit that category. A statesman is a politician whose allegiance is only to their nation, and who, despite the feelings of others, does what he believes in his gut is in the best interest of his country, politics be damned. That even means doing something that may cost him his career, but he takes the moral high ground as he sees it, to do what must be done. That was Churchill. That's the difference. Ronald Reagan is a statesman, and make a note of it- we may not have any more in the future. They are a damned dying breed. That also applies to military commanders. You can have a charismatic, friendly, and amiable type of leader, but that is a difficult position to hold when you have to maintain discipline. It can be done, but it is hard. Then there is the hard-ass, no-holds-barred, get-it-fucking-done leader who pushes his men and expects ever-better results afterward. The easygoing leader may be liked more by his men, but the hard-ass will sure as shit have their attention, and if she shares the dangers with them, he will have their respect. Respect is everything."

"He would make a drum out of the skin of his own mother in order to sound his own praises."

"Only that giant among statesmen, our great Prime Minister, seemed convincing in his role as an apostle of arms and the Covenant. Of him at least men could feel that when he said arms he meant arms. The rich versatility of his nature and the varied phases of his career had equipped him to grasp hold of issues which to narrower men seemed incompatible. The Liberal in him could talk of the Covenant with propriety, the Tory in him could speak of arms with conviction. To quote a schoolboy's naïve but telling description of the Younger Pitt: "He had a broad mind with room in it for many thoughts.""

"The truth is that Churchill never was and never had been, in the true sense, a party man. He would fight the party battle con amore, when necessary. But behind these ephemeral struggles, he saw always the vision of the nation. He was proud of its great past and was determined that its future should be no less glorious. Some of the older Members of the party were surprised and even disturbed at his being given the high post of Chancellor of the Exchequer immediately after his return to the party fold... But as the Parliament proceeded, no one could withhold admiration for the wit, humour, ingenuity, and oratorical skill which he deployed. The Budget speeches were a work of art. None of us had heard anything of the kind—such mastery of language, such careful deployment of the arguments, such dexterous covering of any weak point... I am trying to picture the Churchill of 1924–9: unique, wayward, exciting, a man with a peculiar glamour of his own, that brought a sense of colour into our rather drab political life... But it is impossible to describe the effect of the continual flow of his talk. The arresting thoughts were invariably clothed in equally striking phraseology."

"We are also short of heroes today—or too aware of our leaders’ shortcomings—which may help to explain the cult of Winston Churchill, a cult which is perhaps even more pronounced in North America than it is in the United Kingdom. The British, after all, have had direct experience of Churchill in other roles than that of the great World War II leader. They are more likely to remember his long political career with its share of mistakes and failures. In North America, the Churchill who is remembered is largely the towering figure who fought on alone against the Axis and who helped craft the Allied victory, not the author of the disastrous Gallipoli landings in World War I or the ailing prime minister who stayed too long in office in the 1950s. President George W. Bush is, not surprisingly, fond of comparing himself to the first Churchill, not the second."

"I listened to him and couldn't help thinking: Of course, Churchill is a considerable man and a major statesman … but something of the small boy lives on in him: Iran is a toy he likes while India is a toy he dislikes."

"The next thing I was asked to do was to go up to Norwich and “rouse the town,” as they say. Winston Churchill was in the British cabinet and was going to make a speech there. Well, the English suffragists knew that the government was completely opposed to suffrage, and they conceived this plan to publicly ask all the cabinet members what they were going to do about votes for women. For that moment at least, the whole audience would turn to the subject of suffrage. We considered it an inexpensive way of advertising our cause. I thought it was a very successful method. (What happened at Norwich?) AP: I went to Norwich with one other young woman, who was as inexperienced as I was, and we had street meetings in the marketplace, where everyone assembled for several nights before Mr. Churchill’s speech. I don’t know whether we exactly “roused the town,” but by the time he arrived, I think Norwich was pretty well aware of what we were trying to do. The night he spoke, we had another meeting outside the hall. We were immediately arrested. You didn’t have to be a good speaker, because the minute you began, you were arrested."

"Winston (Churchill) believes in the maximum of injustice enforced with the maximum of brutality."

"His countrymen have come to feel that he is saying what they would like to say for themselves if they knew how."

"Stalin told how he had asked Lady Astor [in 1931] about politicians in England. '"Chamberlain," she said, "is the coming man." 'What about Winston?' '"Oh, he's finished," she replied.' Stalin had retorted: 'If your country is ever in trouble, he will come back.'"

"Many years on, historians will read this and your speeches in Arms and the Covenant. They will wonder but I doubt if they will decide what devil of pride, unbelief, unselfishness or sheer madness possessed the English people that they did not ride as one man, depose the blind guides... and call on you to lead them to security, justice and peace. There is a Polish proverb about the Poles themselves...'Wise is the Pole after the event'. The English electorate is growing more Polish daily."

"Churchill had the mind of an historian and the courage of a solider. First, Churchill could see the patterns of the past being repeated in the present, and second, he had no fear of risking political death by going against the polls or conventional wisdom."

"The man who rallied the nation was Churchill, a gifted and courageous man, but a patriot of the limited, traditional kind. In effect Churchill said simply, "We are fighting for England," and the people flocked to follow him... I personally have always admired him as a man and as a writer, little as I like his politics."

"[T]he political reminiscences which he has published...have always been a great deal above the average, in frankness as well as literary quality... Churchill's writings are more like those of a human being than of a public figure... Whether or not 1940 was anyone else's finest hour, it was certainly Churchill's... [O]ne has to admire in him not only his courage but also a certain largeness and geniality which comes out even in formal memoirs of this type... The British people have generally rejected his policies, but they have always had a liking for him, as one can see from the tone of the stories told about him... At the time of the Dunkirk evacuation...it was rumoured that what he actually said, when recording the speech for broadcast, was: "We will fight on the beaches, we will fight in the streets... We'll throw bottles at the b—s; it's about all we've got left"—but, of course the BBC's switch-censor pressed his thumb on the key at the right moment. One may assume that this story is untrue, but at the time it was felt that it ought to be true. It was a fitting tribute from ordinary people to the tough and humorous old man whom they would not accept as a peace-time leader but whom in the moment of disaster they felt to be representative of themselves."

"War not only has its own weapons, it has its own ethic, its own standard of right and wrong... Do whatever is necessary to win. This fact was emphasized in a recent statement by Winston S. Churchill, former first lord of the British admiralty: "When all is over, torture and cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian states had been able to deny themselves: and these were of doubtful utility.""

"He looked invincible, which he is. Tough, bulldogged, piercing. He made his way through the smoke, through the City workers all crying "Good old Winston" – "Give 'em socks" – "Good luck" – and the culminating cry of "Are we down-hearted?" to the heaven-rising response of "No-o-o-o-o" which echoed around the City, around the world indeed. It was magnificent, tremendous, stirring, dramatic."

"His violent disagreement with Neville Chamberlain did not spring solely from thwarted ambition or personal dislike. Such motives may have sharpened the phrases and honed his epigrams, but the long policy of appeasement, the weakening of Britain's world role, the acceptance of oppression and racialism were to Churchill a denial of England's historical destiny and, because a denial, bound to end in disaster."

"One of the reasons for the immense popularity of Churchill in 1940 was the not unfounded instinct of the common people that, but for him, their rulers would have betrayed them. There is a certain fallacy in attempting to decide what was Churchill's one crucial contribution to the survival of Britain. Great historical events are determined by a whole array of causes, each of which would be entitled in isolation to be regarded as crucial. But I feel sure that many people besides myself believe it was by being an immovable obstacle to compromise or surrender in 1940 that Churchill saved his country."

"There is a great longing for leadership and even those who are far apart from you in general politics realize that you are the one man who has combined full realization of the dangers of our military position with belief in collective international action against aggression. And if we fail again now, will there ever be another chance."

"It is fun to be in the same decade with you."

"[re Mulberry Harbours] You know that was Churchill’s idea. He has a hundred a day and about four of them are good."

"An analogous process I shall call Churchillian Drift ... Whereas quotations with an apothegmatic feel are normally ascribed to Shaw, those with a more grandiose or belligerent tone are, as if by osmosis, credited to Churchill."

"[H]e became the greatest leader in war this country has ever had."

"Even repeated by the announcer, it sent shivers (not of fear) down my spine. I think that one of the reasons why one is stirred by his Elizabethan phrases is that one feels the whole massive backing of power and resolve behind them, like a great fortress: they are never words for words' sake."

"Early in the afternoon [of 8 September 1940] I accompanied the Prime Minister on a tour of the East End, and then I saw the extraordinary spirit with which Londoners fought back... Although it was still early in the afternoon people were already coming in for the night, carrying their bedding and belongings, but they dropped them to the ground to cheer the Prime Minister. Putting his hat on the end of his stick he twirled it round and roared, "Are we downhearted?" and they shouted back, "No!" with astonishing gusto. "Hit 'em back, Winston!" the East Enders cried. "Hit 'em hard!" "Never fear," he answered in his most most bulldog way, "we'll hit back as soon as we can." Pessimists had predicted panic and bitterness in the East End, but I saw nothing of the kind. Smiles, cheers and grim determination showed already that "London could take it"."

"As we were leaving the House [of Commons] late tonight, he called me into the Chamber to take a last look round. All was darkness except a ring of faint light all around under the gallery. We could dimly see the table, but walls and roof were invisible. "Look at it", he said. "This little place is what makes the difference between us and Germany. It is in virtue of this that we shall muddle through to success & for lack of this Germany's brilliant efficiency leads her to final disaster. This little room is the shrine of the world's liberties.""

"[H]is ideas are to me reactionary, he is out of touch with modern social trends. But he has served his country with the highest distinction; in moments of peril he was undaunted; in majestic phrases, which linger in the memory of those who heard them, he crystallised the resolution of the whole nation."

"Sir Winston Churchill is the leader of the Conservative Party, but at the root of his many-sided nature there remains the essence of Liberalism. His tolerance, his sympathy with the oppressed and the underdog, his courage in withstanding clamour, his belief in the value of the individual and in self-government for communities sufficiently advanced to use it wisely, all derive from a heart and a head which made him in his early years of Ministerial office a Liberal statesman... Now that the ex-Liberal Minister has become leader of the Conservative Party, has he not carried into that body the reinvigorating spirit of English liberalism and so brought to fulfilment his father's notion that Toryism could be led into democratic channels? The content of national policy changes with time, but there is a profound sense in which Sir Winston Churchill, though a Conservative Prime Minister, is a Liberal still."

"In their native countries, Roosevelt and Churchill are regarded as examples of wise statesmen. But we, during our jail conversations, were astonished by their constant shortsightedness and even stupidity. How could they, retreating gradually from 1941 to 1945, leave Eastern Europe without any guarantees of independence? How could they abandon the large territories of Saxony and Thuringia in return for such a ridiculous toy as the four-zoned Berlin that, moreover, was later to become their Achilles' heel? And what kind of military or political purpose did they see in giving away hundreds of thousands of armed Soviet citizens (who were unwilling to surrender, whatever the terms) for Stalin to have them killed? It is said that by doing this, that they secured the imminent participation of Stalin in the war against Japan. Already armed with the Atomic bomb, they did pay for Stalin so that he wouldn’t refuse to occupy Manchuria to help Mao Zedong to gain power in China and Kim Il Sung, to get half of Korea!… Oh, misery of political calculation! When later Mikolajczyk was expelled, when the end of Beneš and Masaryk came, Berlin was blocked, Budapest was in flames and turned silent, when ruins fumed in Korea and when the conservatives fled from Suez – didn’t really some of those who had a better memory, recall for instance the episode of giving away the Cossacks?"

"In contrast to the ultimate realization that he was dealing with a formidable enemy in the east, Hitler clung to the end to his preconceived opinion that the troops of the Western countries were poor fighting material... His opinions on the Western statesmen had a similar bias. He considered Churchill, as he often stated during the situation conferences, an incompetent, alcoholic demagogue. And he asserted in all seriousness that Roosevelt was not a victim of infantile paralysis but of syphilitic paralysis and was therefore mentally unsound. These opinions, too, were indications, of his flight from reality in the last years of his life."

"Marshal Stalin proposed a toast to the health of the Prime Minister, whom he characterized as the bravest governmental figure in the world. He said that due in large measure to Mr. Churchill's courage and staunchness, England, when she stood alone, had divided the might of Hitlerite Germany at a time when the rest of Europe was falling flat on its face before Hitler. He said that Great Britain, under Mr. Churchill's leadership, had carried on the fight alone irrespective of existing or potential allies. The Marshal concluded that he knew of few examples in history where the courage of one man had been so important to the future history of the world. He drank a toast to Mr. Churchill, his fighting friend and a brave man."

"The great aristocrat, the beloved leader, the profound historian, the gifted painter, the superb politician, the lord of language, the orator, the wit—yes, and the dedicated bricklayer—behind all of them was a simple man of faith, steadfast in defeat, generous in victory, resigned in age, trusting in a loving providence, and committing his achievements and his triumphs to a higher power."

"Remember him, for he saved all of you: pudgy and not very large but somehow massive and indomitable; baby-faced, with snub nose, square chin, rheumy eyes on occasion given to tears; a thwarted actor's taste for clothes that would have looked ridiculous on a less splendid man. He wore the quaintest hats of anyone: tinted square bowlers; great flat sombreros squashed down on his head; naval officer's caps rendered just slightly comic by the huge cigar protruding beneath the peak. On grave and critical occasions he sported highly practical Teddy-bear suits few grown men would dare to wear in public. He fancied oil painting, at which he was good, writing, at which he was excellent, and oratory, at which he was magnificent."

"The saviour of his country."

"Anyone can run up an account of Churchill and find plenty of faults. They weigh not a feather in the balance. There has never been anyone like him, and that is all there is to it. He was the saviour of his country at the most critical moment in its history."

"Confidence in the Prime Minister stood at eighty-eight per cent in July [1940] ... There is no doubt that the British were united, nor is there the least doubt that they found in Churchill an exact expression of their own obstinacy, courage, and refusal to recognise the apparent logic of facts."

"As I saw and knew him his outstanding characteristics are his fearlessness, honesty, patriotism and his sense of destiny."

"He is a great man. He is, of course, our enemy and has always been the enemy of Communism, but he is an enemy one must respect, an enemy one likes to have."

"Winston sent me a peevish telegram to ask why Gandhi hadn't died yet! He has never answered my telegram about food."

"My dear Winston. That was worth 1,000 guns & the speeches of 1,000 years."

"Among a stream of visitors to the 9th Division in England, while it was preparing for D-Day in the early months of 1944, was Prime Minister Winston Churchill. When he arrived to address the assembled troops, he went at first not to the speaker's stand but behind a small outbuilding. He reappeared minutes later buttoning his fly, making sure no one missed the reason for the delay. The troops loved it."

"Tonight our nation mourns the loss of the greatest man any of us have known... It was his leadership...and that response which saved Britain and saved freedom... It was his courage, his humanity, the response he evoked in our people, that wrote in those wartime years, that imperishable chapter in our history, a chapter which will always bear the title he gave to one part of that chapter, "Our Finest Hour". For over-riding and sustaining those qualities which marked his years of leadership was his great sense of history—of, in his words, walking with destiny—thinking not so much perhaps of himself but of his country, of the Commonwealth."

"The book is a record of perspicacity and courage on your part. England owes you many apologies."

"On 30 January 1965, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's funeral took place. One of its most memorable moments was when cranes on the London docks dipped as his funeral barge went past. However, it later emerged that the dockworkers had originally refused to dip the cranes as they "didn't like" Churchill, and had to be paid extra to do it. While typically depicted as a national hero today, in fact Churchill was hated by many, especially working class people, hence why he lost the 1945 election. And despite being presented as an anti-fascist, Churchill actually supported fascism. He declared that Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was "a really great man", and wrote that he "whole-heartedly" supported Mussolini "from the start of the finish in [his] triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism", and supported Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), describing the independent African nation as not "civilised". Churchill also supported the military coup of general Francisco Franco and his fascist army in Spain, and wrote of his admiration for Adolf Hitler in Germany, with whom he also advocated appeasement until late in 1938, even after Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia. In his younger days Churchill also opposed the vote being given to women, or working class men. Famously, he was a virulent racist, who supported using poison gas on civilians, and he sent troops against striking British workers. During World War II he was also a key architect of the manufactured Bengal famine, which killed between two and four million people. This clip from Jeremy Paxman's documentary discusses Churchill's funeral and includes a former docker explaining why they didn't want to lower their cranes for him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DU1qV4_t3M"

"Winston Churchill led the life that many men would love to live. He survived 50 gunfights and drank 20,000 bottles of champagne. [...] And of course, by resisting Hitler, he saved Europe and perhaps the world."

"Following the pattern set by Julius Caesar in The Gallic War, Churchill wrote books to vindicate policy; but he may also have made policy with an eye toward writing books. If so, the implications are alarming. Did Churchill conceive bold operations, such as the disastrous 1915 Dardanelles offensive, because these would make exciting episodes in the text of his life? A. J. Balfour once joked that Winston had written an enormous book about himself and called it The World Crisis. Was there more truth in that joke than we have so far known?"

"He was the outlier of a new type: the first twentieth-century personality to be famous for being famous. If he toured Africa with 17 pieces of matched luggage, or got hit by a car crossing Fifth Avenue in New York, he wrote about it. His life became a forerunner of reality TV; in today's terms, he did everything to seek celebrity but release a sex tape. A great question of Churchill biography, therefore, is how this Paris Hilton of British politics became the second coming of King Arthur."

"What then is the moral of Churchill's life? He was the twentieth century's great man, but we must sharply circumscribe his greatness. Because he drew the sword from the stone in 1940, what he did before and after seems admirable. Through his steadfast stance, Churchill rallied the English to die with honor—therefore they deserved to win. Whoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whoever shall lose his life shall preserve it (Luke 17:33). Yet were it not for this one courageous triumph, we might now say of him: Never had one man done so little with so much."

"Coningsby (1844)"

"Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845)."

"Cathedral High Mass. Clouds of incense and one of Mozart's sublimest masses by an orchestra before which San Carlo might grow pale. The effect inconceivably grand. The host raised, and I flung myself on the ground."

"Head of Christ by Morales, exactly as in the description in the pseudo letter of the Roman Proconsul. Morales well entitled to his surname of Divino... [T]he auburn locks seem only prevented from growing over the countenance by the moiety of the star which forms the glory: everything which can even be conceived as necessary to the formation of a face of perfect beauty, but nothing earthly in the appearance. You could not mistake the head for an Apollo or an Adonis. The eyes, beaming with human beauty, are nevertheless bright with the effulgence of celestial light, and fixed upon no particular object. They seem looking on the world. The nose is exquisitely formed, and the flesh tints seem immortal."

"[I]n speaking of Italy, romance has omitted for once to exaggerate."

"Verona is full of pictures which have never been painted. Every step excites emotion and gives rise to unaffected reflection. In the course of a short stroll, you may pass by a Roman amphitheatre, still used, then the castle of some petty prince of the Middle Ages, and while you are contrasting the sublime elevation of antiquity with the heterogeneous palace of a Scaliger your eyes light on a gate of Oriental appearance and fantastic ornament... The illusion is perfect, the eye rests with pain on the passing citizens in their modern costumes; you look for black velvets and gold chains, white feathers and red stockings."

"Venice by moonlight is an enchanted city; the floods of silver light upon the moresco architecture, the perfect absence of all harsh sounds of carts and carriages, the never-ceasing music on the waters, produced an effect on the mind which cannot be experienced, I am sure, in any other city in the world."

"I declare that England, with all her imperfections, is worth all the world together, and I hope it is not misanthropy when I feel that I love lakes and mountains better than courts and cities, and trees better than men."

"I suppose, to use our national motto, something will turn up."

"The microcosm of a public school."

"The Services in war time are fit only for desperadoes but, in peace, are fit only for fools."

"Beware of endeavouring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed: these are fearful odds."

"I hate definitions."

"Fear makes us feel our humanity."

"There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour."

"Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of Action. We can not learn men from books."

"Variety is the mother of Enjoyment."

"There is moderation even in excess."

"In politics nothing is contemptible."

"Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter."

"I repeat that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people all springs, and all must exist."

"Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of Grief the blunder of a life."

"A man's fate is his own temper."

"A consistent man believes in Destiny — a capricious man in Chance."

"Like all great travellers I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen."

"The disappointment of manhood succeeds to the delusion of youth: let us hope that the heritage of old age is not despair."

"To govern men, you must either excel them in their accomplishments, or despise them."

"For a week I was in a scene equal to anything in the Arabian Nights—such processions, such dresses, such corteges of horsemen, such caravans of camels. Then the delight of being made much of by a man who was daily decapitating half the Province. Every morning we paid visits, attended reviews, and crammed ourselves with sweetmeats; every evening dancers and singers were sent to our quarters by the Vizier or some Pasha."

"I am quite a Turk, wear a turban, smoke a pipe six feet long, and squat on a divan. Mehemet Pasha told me that he did not think I was an Englishman because I walked so slow: in fact I find the habits of this calm and luxurious people entirely agree with my own preconceived opinions of propriety and enjoyment, and I detest the Greeks more than ever. You have no idea of the rich and various costume of the Levant. When I was presented to the Grand Vizier I made up such a costume from my heterogeneous wardrobe that the Turks, who are mad on the subject of dress, were utterly astounded."

"The life of this people greatly accords with my taste, which is naturally somewhat indolent and melancholy... To repose on voluptuous ottomans and smoke superb pipes, daily to indulge in the luxuries of a bath which requires half a dozen attendants for its perfection; to court the air in a carved caïque, by shores which are a perpetual scene; and to find no exertion greater than a canter on a barb; this is, I think, a far more sensible life than all the bustle of clubs, all the boring of drawing-rooms, and all the coarse vulgarity of our political controversies."

"I am neither Whig nor Tory. My politics are described by one word, and that word is ENGLAND."

"I shall withhold my support from every Ministry which will not originate some great measure to ameliorate the condition of the lower orders."

"Against that rapacious, tyrannical, and incapable faction, who, having knavishly obtained power by false pretences, sillily suppose that they will be permitted to retain it by half measures, and who, in the course of their brief but disastrous career, have contrived to shake every great interest of the Empire to its centre. Ireland in rebellion, the colonies in convulsion, our foreign relations in a state of such inextricable confusion, that we are told that war alone can sever the Gordian knot of complicated blunders; the farmer in doubt, the shipowner in despair, our merchants without trade, and our manufacturers without markets, the revenue declining, and the army increased, the wealthy hoarding their useless capital, and pauperism prostrate in our once-contented cottages. Englishmen, behold the unparalleled Empire raised by the heroic energies of your fathers; rouse yourselves in this hour of doubt and danger; rid yourselves of all that political jargon and factious slang of Whig and Tory—two names with one meaning, used only to delude you—and unite in forming a great national party which can alone save the country from impending destruction."

"I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few."

"I come forward as the supporter of that great interest which is the only solid basis of the social fabric, and, convinced that the sound prosperity of this country depends upon the protected industry of the farmer, I would resist that spirit of rash and experimental legislation which is fast hurrying this once glorious Empire to the agony of civil convulsion."

""What is care?" asked the Princess, with a smile. "It is a god", replied the Physician, "invisible, but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse — it takes away the appetite, and turns the hair grey"."

"I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best."

"Despair is the conclusion of fools."

"Success is the child of audacity."

"Though lions to their enemies they were lambs to their friends."

"Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage."

"I look upon the Whigs as an anti-national party... Believing that the policy of the party was such as must destroy the honour of the kingdom abroad and the happiness of the people at home, I considered it my duty to oppose the Whigs, to ensure their discomfiture, and, if possible, their destruction."

"Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon."

"The polity of England, which has established the most flourishing society of modern ages, and regulated the destinies of a nation which, for many centuries, has made a progressive advance in the acquisition of freedom, wealth, and glory, undoubtedly presents one of the most interesting subjects of speculation in political philosophy. Nor is it one that has been neglected; and illustrious foreigners have emulated our native authors in their treatises of the English Constitution."

"Busied with the tattle of valets and waiting-maids, you accidentally omitted in your Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe all notice of its most vast and most rising empire. This luckless production closed your literary career; you flung down your futile pen in incapable despair; and, your feeble intellect having failed in literature, your strong ambition took refuge in politics."

"Your aim is to reduce every thing to your own mean level—to degrade every thing to your malignant standard... In all your conduct it is not difficult to detect the workings of a mean and long mortified spirit suddenly invested with power,—the struggles of a strong ambition attempting, by a wanton exercise of authority, to revenge the disgrace of a feeble intellect."

"But, my Lord, how thunderstruck must be our visitor when he is told to recognise a Secretary of State in an infinitely small scarabæus;—yes, my Lord, when he learns, that you are the leader of the English House of Commons, our traveller may begin to comprehend how the Egyptians worshipped—AN INSECT."

"This man, O'Connell, is the hired instrument of the Papacy; as such, his mission is to destroy your Protestant Society, and, as such, he is a more terrible enemy to England than Napoleon, with all his inspiration. Your empire and your liberties are in more danger at this moment than when the army of invasion was encamped at Boulogne."

"Now we have a precise idea of the political character of O'Connell. And I have often marvelled when I have listened to those who have denounced his hypocrisy or admired his skill, when they have read of the triumphant demagogue humbling himself in the mud before a simple priest. There was no hypocrisy in this, no craft. The agent recognised his principal, the slave bowed before his lord; and when he pressed to his lips those sacred robes, reeking with whisky and redolent of incense, I doubt not that his soul was filled at the same time with unaffected awe and devout gratitude."

"These men cannot be conciliated. They are your foes, because they are the foes of England. They hate our free and fertile isle. They hate our order, our civilization, our enterprising industry, our sustained courage, our decorous liberty, our pure religion. This wild, reckless, indolent, uncertain, and superstitious race have no sympathy with the English character. Their fair ideal of human felicity is an alternation of clannish broils and coarse idolatry. Their history describes an unbroken circle of bigotry and blood. And now, forsooth, the cry is raised that they have been misgoverned! How many who sound this party Shibboleth have studied the history of Ireland? A savage population, under the influence of the Papacy, has, nevertheless, been so regulated, that they have contributed to the creation of a highly-civilized and Protestant empire. Why, is not that the paragon of political science? Could Machiavel teach more? My Lords, shall the delegates of these tribes, under the direction of the Roman priesthood, ride roughshod over our country—over England—haughty, and still imperial, England? Forbid it all the memory of your ancestors!"

"Though I sit down now, the time will come when you will hear me."

"[It appears to me that] the Society of Education, that school of philosophers, were, with all their vaunted intellect and learning, fast returning to the system of a barbarous age, the system of a paternal government. Wherever was found what was called a paternal government was found a state education. It had been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience was to commence tyranny in the nursery. There was a country in which education formed the only qualification for office. That was, therefore, a country which might be considered as a normal school and pattern society for the intended scheme of education. That country was China. These paternal governments were rather to be found in the east than in the west, and if the hon. Member for Waterford asked [me] for the most perfect programme of public education, if he asked [me] to point out a system at once the most profound and the most comprehensive, [I] must give him the system of education which obtained in Persia. Leaving China and Persia and coming to Europe, [I] found a perfect system of national education in Austria, the China of Europe, and under the paternal government of Prussia. The truth was, that wherever everything was left to the government the subject became a machine."

"Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke."

"The fool wonders, the wise man asks."

"Every man has a right to be conceited until he is successful."

"A dark horse, which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph."

"Then there was a maiden speech, so inaudible, that it was doubted whether, after all, the young orator really did lose his virginity."

"We are indeed a nation of shopkeepers."

"It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being."

"The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons."

"Teach us that wealth is not elegance; that profusion is not magnificence; and that splendour is not beauty. Teach us that taste is a talisman which can do greater wonders than the millions of the loanmonger. Teach us that to vie is not to rival, and to imitate not to invent. Teach us that pretension is a bore. Teach us that wit is excessively good-natured, and, like champagne, not only sparkles, but is sweet. Teach us the vulgarity of malignity. Teach us that envy spoils our complexions, and that anxiety destroys our figure."

"Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth."

"If a man be gloomy, let him keep to himself. No one has a right to go croaking about society, or, what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief."

"A man may speak very well in the House of Commons, and fail very completely in the House of Lords. There are two distinct styles requisite: I intend, in the course of my career, if I have time, to give a specimen of both."

"Nature is more powerful than education; time will develop everything."

"Never apologize for showing feeling, my friend. Remember that when you do so, you apologize for truth."

"With words we govern men."

"Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory."

"Amusement to an observing mind is study."

"The sense of existence is the greatest happiness."

"Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius."

"The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation."

"All is mystery; but he is a slave who will not struggle to penetrate the dark veil."

"When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken."

"Debt is the prolific mother of folly and of crime."

"What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens."

"The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end."

"Time is the great physician."

"Man is not a rational animal. He is only truly good or great when he acts from passion."

"Nature has given us two ears but only one mouth."

"I am not ashamed or afraid to say that I wish more sympathy had been shown on both sides towards the Chartists... I am not ashamed to say that I sympathise with millions of my fellow-subjects."

"I entirely agree with you, that an union between the Conservative party and the Radical masses offers the only means by which we can preserve the Empire. Their interests are identical; united they form the nation; and their division has only permitted a miserable minority, under the specious name of the People, to assail all rights of property and person. Since I first entered public life, now eight years ago, I have worked for no other object and no other end than to aid the formation of a national party."

"Free trade is not a principle; it is an expedient."

"[W]e have all heard how Mr. Cobden, who is a very eminent person, has said, in a very memorable speech, that England was the victim of the feudal system, and we have all heard how he has spoken of the barbarism of the feudal system, and of the barbarous relics of the feudal system. Now, if we have any relics of the feudal system, I regret that not more of it is remaining... Now, what is the fundamental principle of the feudal system, gentlemen? It is that the tenure of all property shall be the performance of its duties. Why, when the Conqueror carved out parts of the land, and introduced the feudal system, he said to the recipient, "You shall have that estate, but you shall do something for it: you shall feed the poor; you shall endow the Church; you shall defend the land in case of war; and you shall execute justice and maintain truth to the poor for nothing.""

"The principle of the feudal system, the principle which was practically operated upon, was the noblest principle, the grandest, the most magnificent and benevolent that was ever conceived by sage, or ever practised by patriot."

"Now, I want to ask the gentlemen who are members of the Anti-Corn-Law League, the gentlemen who are pressing on the Government of the country, on the present occasion, the total repeal and abolition of the Corn Laws... I want them to consider...how far the present law of succession and inheritance in land will survive—if that falls—if we recur to the Continental system of parcelling out landed estates—I want to know how long you can maintain the political system of the country. The estate of the Church which I mentioned; that estate of the poor to which I made allusion; those traditionary manners and associations which spring out of the land, which form the national character, which form part of the possession of the poor not to be despised, and which is one of the most important elements of political power—they will tell you "Let it go." My answer to that is, "If it goes, it is a revolution, a great, a destructive revolution." For these reasons, gentlemen, I believe in that respect, faithfully representing your sentiments, that I have always upheld that law which, I think, will uphold and maintain the preponderance of the agricultural interests of the country... I take the only broad and only safe line—namely, that what we ought to uphold is, the preponderance of the landed interest; that the preponderance of the landed interest has made England; that it is an immense element of political power and stability; that we should never have been able to undertake the great war in which we embarked in the memory of many present—that we could never have been able to conquer the greatest military genius the world ever saw, with the greatest means at his disposal, and to hurl him from his throne, if we had not had a territorial aristocracy to give stability to our constitution."

"And I mean to say this, that if we had not done that, if we had not had that territorial power, and that preponderance of the land-owner in our constitution, I do not see why Great Britain, probably very contented and very prosperous, should have been a greater power than Denmark or Sweden; but I for one am not prepared to sit under the power of a third-class if I can be a citizen of a first-class Empire. And I do not believe that any man who listens to me can differ with me upon that point. It is enough that you were born in Shropshire, that you are a portion of that ancient county, that you were born in a county full of historical recollections, a county that has taken the lead of all others in public affairs, a county where, as Lord Clarendon says, "the Cavaliers' blood lives.""

"I believe the landed interest should be the basis of our political and social system."

"I have still some confidence in the national character of Englishmen. I know well that before this, the country has experienced great vicissitudes... You have had the majesty of England brought to the block; you have had the Church, personified by Archbishop Laud, brought to the block; you have had the administration, in the person of Strafford, brought to the block—the king, the minister, and the archbishop. You have had the House of Lords voted a nuisance. You have had the House of Commons kicked out in an ignominious manner by a military officer. You have had the Church completely sequestrated. All this has happened in England. But before a quarter of a century passed over, you returned to your old laws, your old habits, your old traditions, your old convictions. In 16[5]8 Oliver Cromwell slept at Whitehall; in 168[5] Charles II followed his example. And shall I tell you the reason why, after circumstances so wonderful, though no historian has noticed it; though you saw every trace of the social system uprooted by the most prejudicial, grasping, and subtle enemies that were ever invented; though the vessel became a wreck, and the king, the Church, and the constitution were swept away, the nation returned to itself? Shall I tell you how it was that the nation returned to itself, and Old England, after the deluge, was seen rising above the waters? This was the reason—because during all that fearful revolution you never changed the tenure of your landed property. That, I think, gentlemen, proves my case; and if we have baffled a wit like Oliver Cromwell, let us not be staggered even before Mr. Cobden. The acres remained; the estates remained. The generations changed: the Puritan father died, and the Cavalier son came into his place, and, backed by that power and influence, the nation reverted to the ancient principles of the realm. And this, gentlemen, is the reason why you have seen an outcry raised against your Corn Laws. Your Corn Laws are merely the outwork of a great system fixed and established upon your territorial property, and the only object the Leaguers have in making themselves masters of the outwork is that they may easily overcome the citadel."

"That dense population in extreme distress inhabited an island where there was an established church which was not their church; and a territorial aristocracy, the richest of whom lived in distant capitals. Thus they had a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and, in addition, the weakest executive in the world. That was the Irish question."

"The noble lord in this case, as in so many others, first destroys his opponent, and then destroys his own position afterwards. The noble lord is the Prince Rupert of parliamentary discussion: his charge is resistless, but when he returns from the pursuit he always finds his camp in the possession of the enemy."

"There is no subject in which I have taken a deeper interest than the condition of the working classes. Long before what is called the 'condition of the people question' was discussed in the House of Commons, I had employed my pen on the subject. I had long been aware that there was something rotten in the core of our social system. I had seen that while immense fortunes were accumulating, while wealth was increasing to a superabundance, and while Great Britain was cited throughout Europe as the most prosperous nation in the world, the working classes, the creators of wealth, were steeped in the most abject poverty and gradually sinking into the deepest degradation."

"It is knowledge that influences and equalises the social condition of man; that gives to all, however different their political position, passions which are in common, and enjoyments which are universal."

"London owes everything to its press: it owes as much to its press as it does to its being the seat of government and the law."

"The press is not only free, it is powerful. That power is ours. It is the proudest that man can enjoy. It was not granted by monarchs, it was not gained for us by aristocracies ; but it sprang from the people, and, with an immortal instinct, it has always worked for the people."

"The right hon. Gentleman caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes. He has left them in the full enjoyment of their liberal position, and he is himself a strict conservative of their garments."

"There is no doubt a difference in the right hon. gentleman's demeanour as leader of the Opposition and as Minister of the Crown. But that's the old story; you must not contrast too strongly the hours of courtship with the years of possession. 'Tis very true that the right hon. gentleman's conduct is different. I remember him making his protection speeches. They were the best speeches I ever heard. It was a great thing to hear the right hon. gentleman say: "I would rather be the leader of the gentlemen of England than possess the confidence of Sovereigns". That was a grand thing. We don't hear much of "the gentlemen of England" now. But what of that? They have the pleasures of memory—the charms of reminiscence. They were his first love, and, though he may not kneel to them now as in the hour of passion, still they can recall the past; and nothing is more useless or unwise than these scenes of crimination and reproach, for we know that in all these cases, when the beloved object has ceased to charm, it is in vain to appeal to the feelings. You know that this is true. Every man almost has gone through it. My hon. gentleman does what he can to keep them quiet; he sometimes takes refuge in arrogant silence, and sometimes he treats them with haughty frigidity; and if they knew anything of human nature they would take the hint and shut their mouths. But they won't. And what then happens? What happens under all such circumstances? The right hon. gentleman, being compelled to interfere, sends down his valet, who says in the genteelest manner: "We can have no whining here". And that, sir, is exactly the case of the great agricultural interest—that beauty which everybody wooed and one deluded. There is a fatality in such charms, and we now seem to approach the catastrophe of her career. Protection appears to be in about the same condition that Protestantism was in 1828. The country will draw its moral. For my part, if we are to have free trade, I, who honour genius, prefer that such measures should be proposed by the hon. member for Stockport than by one who through skilful Parliamentary manoeuvres has tampered with the generous confidence of a great people and a great party. For myself, I care not what may be the result. Dissolve, if you please, the Parliament you have betrayed. For me there remains this at least—the opportunity of expressing thus publicly my belief that a Conservative Government is an organised hypocrisy."

"Protection is not a principle, but an expedient."

"Sir, it is very easy to complain of party Government, and there may be persons capable of forming an opinion on this subject who may entertain a deep objection to that Government, and know to what that objection leads. But there are others who shrug their shoulders, and talk in a slipshod style on this head, who, perhaps, are not exactly aware of what the objections lead to. These persons should understand, that if they object to party Government, they do, in fact, object to nothing more nor less than Parliamentary Government. A popular assembly without parties—500 isolated individuals—cannot stand five years against a Minister with an organized Government without becoming a servile Senate."

"Something has risen up in this country as fatal in the political world as it has been in the landed world of Ireland—we have a great Parliamentary middleman. It is well known what a middleman is; he is a man who bamboozles one party, and plunders the other, till, having obtained a position to which he is not entitled, he cries out, "Let us have no party questions, but fixity of tenure.""

"That is the fourth course, which in future I trust the right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Peel) will not forget. The right hon. Gentleman tells us to go back to precedents; with him a great measure is always founded on a small precedent. He traces the steam-engine always back to the tea-kettle. His precedents are generally tea-kettle precedents."

"Sir, very few people reach posterity. Who amongst us may arrive at that destination I presume not to vaticinate. Posterity is a most limited assembly. Those gentlemen who reach posterity are not much more numerous than the planets."

"Above all, maintain the line of demarcation between parties; for it is only by maintaining the independence of party that you can maintain the integrity of public men, and the power and influence of Parliament itself."

"First, without reference to England, looking at all countries, I say that it is the first duty of the Minister, and the first interest of the State, to maintain a balance between the two great branches of national industry; that is a principle which has been recognised by all great Ministers for the last two hundred years...Why we should maintain that balance between the two great branches of national industry, involves political considerations—social considerations, affecting the happiness, prosperity, and morality of the people, as well as the stability of the State. But I go further; I say that in England we are bound to do more—I repeat what I have repeated before, that in this country there are special reasons why we should not only maintain the balance between the two branches of our national industry, but why we should give a preponderance...to the agricultural branch; and the reason is, because in England we have a territorial Constitution. We have thrown upon the land the revenues of the Church, the administration of justice, and the estate of the poor; and this has been done, not to gratify the pride, or pamper the luxury of the proprietors of the land, but because, in a territorial Constitution, you, and those whom you have succeeded, have found the only security for self-government—the only barrier against that centralising system which has taken root in other countries."

"I say, then, assuming, as I have given you reason to assume, that the price of wheat, when this system is established, ranges in England at 35s. per quarter, and other grain in proportion, this is not a question of rent, but it is a question of displacing the labour of England that produces corn, in order, on an extensive and even universal scale, to permit the entrance into this country of foreign corn produced by foreign labour. Will that displaced labour find new employment? ... But what are the resources of this kind of industry to employ and support the people, supposing the great depression in agricultural produce occur which is feared—that this great revolution, as it has appropriately been called, takes place—that we cease to be an agricultural people—what are the resources that would furnish employment to two-thirds of the subverted agricultural population—in fact, from 3,500,000 to 4,000,000 of people? Assume that the workshop of the world principle is carried into effect—assume that the attempt is made to maintain your system, both financial and domestic, on the resources of the cotton trade—assume that, in spite of hostile tariffs, that already gigantic industry is doubled...you would only find increased employment for 300,000 of your population...What must be the consequence? I think we have pretty good grounds for anticipating social misery and political disaster."

"I have that confidence in the common sense, I will say the common spirit of our countrymen, that I believe they will not long endure this huckstering tyranny of the Treasury Bench—these political pedlars that bought their party in the cheapest market, and sold us in the dearest. I know, Sir, that there are many who believe that the time is gone by when one can appeal to those high and honest impulses that were once the mainstay and the main element of the English character. I know, Sir, that we appeal to a people debauched by public gambling—stimulated and encouraged by an inefficient and shortsighted Minister. I know that the public mind is polluted with economic fancies; a depraved desire that the rich may become richer without the interference of industry and toil. I know, Sir, that all confidence in public men is lost. But, Sir, I have faith in the primitive and enduring elements of the English character. It may be vain now, in the midnight of their intoxication, to tell them that there will be an awakening of bitterness; it may be idle now, in the spring-tide of their economic frenzy, to warn them that there may be an ebb of trouble. But the dark and inevitable hour will arrive. Then, when their spirit is softened by misfortune, they will recur to those principles that made England great, and which, in our belief, can alone keep England great. Then, too, perchance they may remember, not with unkindness, those who, betrayed and deserted, were neither ashamed nor afraid to struggle for the "good old cause"—the cause with which are associated principles the most popular, sentiments the most entirely national—the cause of labour—the cause of the people—the cause of England."

"He is so vain that he wants to figure in history as the settler of all the great questions; but a Parliamentary constitution is not favorable to such ambitions; things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools."

"All is race; there is no other truth."

"In the great struggle between popular principles and liberal opinions, which is the characteristic of our age, I hope ever to be found on the side of the people, and of the Institutions, of England. It is our Institutions that have made us free, and can alone keep us so; by the bulwark which they offer to the insidious encroachments of a convenient, yet enervating, system of centralisation, which, if left unchecked, will prove fatal to the national character."

"It is unnecessary for me to state that I shall support all those measures, the object of which is to elevate the moral and social condition of the Working Classes, by lessening their hours of toil—by improving their means of health—and by cultivating their intelligence. These are objects which, it is not unpleasing for me to remember, I endeavoured, in common with some of my friends, to advance, before they engaged the attention of Governments, or were supported by triumphant Parliamentary majorities."

"Liberal opinions are the opinions of those who would be free from certain constraints and regulations, from a certain dependence and duty which are deemed necessary for the general or popular welfare. Liberal opinions are very convenient opinions for the rich and powerful. They ensure enjoyment and are opposed to self-sacrifice. The holder of Liberal opinions, for example, maintains that the possession of land is to be considered in a commercial light and no other. He looks to the income which it will afford him. It is not a Liberal opinion that the holder of land should incur the duty of executing justice and maintaining truth among the multitude for nothing. That, gentleman, is a popular principle, a principle of government for the benefit of the people, not a Liberal opinion. A poor law is also founded upon a popular principle; Liberal opinions are entirely adverse to its enactments."

"As it is not the interest of the rich and the powerful to pursue popular principles of government, the wisdom of great men and the experience of ages have taken care that these principles should be cherished and perpetuated in the form of institutions. Thus, the majesty that guards the multitude is embodied in a throne; the faith that consoles them hovers round the altar of a national Church; the spirit of discussion which is the root of public liberty flourishes in the atmosphere of a free Parliament. But, instead of royalty, a gentleman of Liberal opinions would prefer that the supreme executive should be entrusted to a person of his own class, with the title of a President, and perhaps to have the chance of becoming President himself; instead of a national Church he prefers to choose and pay for his own minister of religion, if he has a wish for one; and although he is not adverse to the theory of representative government, provided the representation is absorbed by his own order, he encourages the real transaction of affairs to be conducted by paid commissioners and select committees. Against these opinions I have ever struggled; I believe that under them all national greatness must wither."

"The palace is not safe, when the cottage is not happy."

"I entirely differ with the Government as to the value of precedents. In this case, as in others, precedents are not mere dusty phrases, which do not substantially affect the question before us. A precedent embalms a principle."

"My objection to Liberalism is this—that it is the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind—namely, politics—of philosophical ideas instead of political principles."

"The hon. Gentleman has said, in a most extraordinary manner, that our security for peace at the present day is the desire of nations to keep at home. There is a great difference between nationality and race. Nationality is the principle of political independence. Race is the principle of physical analogy, and you have at this moment the principle of race—not at all of nationality—adopted by Germany, the very country to which the hon. Member for the West Riding referred."

"You cannot choose between party government and Parliamentary government. I say, you can have no Parliamentary government if you have no party government; and, therefore, when Gentlemen denounce party government, they strike at that scheme of government which, in my opinion, has made this country great, and which I hope will keep it great."

"The office of leader of the Conservative party in the H[ouse] of C[ommons], at the present day, is to uphold the aristocratic settlement of this country. That is the only question at stake, however manifold may be the forms wh[ich] it assumes in public discussion."

"But this principle of race is unfortunately one of the reasons why I fear war may always exist; because race implies difference, difference implies superiority, and superiority leads to predominance."

"But he has left us the legacy of heroes—the memory of his great name, and the inspiration of his great example."

"[T]he landed interest... have not forgotten that they have been held up to public odium and reprobation by triumphant demagogues. They have not forgotten that their noble industry, which in the old days was considered the invention of gods and the occupation of heroes, has been stigmatised and denounced as an incubus upon English enterprise. They have not forgotten that even the very empire that was created by the valour and the devotion of their fathers has been held up to public hatred, as a cumbersome and ensanguined machinery, only devised to pamper the luxury and feed the rapacity of our territorial houses... [I]t would be just as well if you recollected that the fathers of these men were the founders of your liberties; and that, before this time, their ancestors have bled for justice. Rely upon it that the blood of these men who refused to pay ship-money is not to be trifled with."

"Manners are easy," said Coningsby, "and life is hard."

"What Art was to the ancient world, Science is to the modern: the distinctive faculty. In the minds of men the useful has succeeded to the beautiful.. There are great truths to tell, if we had either the courage to announce them or the temper to receive them."

""So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes." (Sidonia speaking)"

"I rather like bad wine," said Mr. Mountchesney; "one gets so bored with good wine."

"To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge."

"Is it what you call civilization that makes England flourish? Is it the universal development of the faculties of man that has rendered an island, almost unknown to the ancients, the arbiter of the world? Clearly not. It is the inhabitants that have done this. It is an affair of race.... All is race, there is no other truth."

"Duty cannot exist without faith."

"A majority is always the best repartee."

"There is no index of character so sure as the voice."

"That fatal drollery called a representative government."

"The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven."

"He was fresh and full of faith that "something would turn up.""

"When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth."

"Everything comes if a man will only wait."

"We moralise among ruins."

"London is a modern Babylon."

"We should never lose an occasion. Opportunity is more powerful even than conquerors and prophets."

"Our morals differ in different counties, in different towns, in different streets, even in different Acts of Parliament. What is moral in London is immoral in Montacute; what is crime among the multitude is only vice among the few."

"Considering that all our institutions spring from the land—considering that the Throne, that the estates of the realm, that the great scheme of our judicial institutions, the inheritance of the poor, the sacred spires, as it were, of our ecclesiastical establishment, all have their origin in the same source; considering that, in fact, we have a territorial constitution, they always have been of opinion that it was the first duty of a British statesman to sustain the industry, the property, and the influence of our territorial population. It is for this reason they have ever been of opinion—an opinion strictly constitutional—that we should, in all our legislation which refers to or regulates the distribution of power, consult the preponderance of the landed interest. They thought so because they considered that preponderance the best security for order and liberty, and, in addition, the best security for that political stability which is a still rarer quality in the history of nations than order and freedom. These are opinions which I know are considered somewhat old-fashioned in the House of Commons, but which, I believe, have not yet forfeited their hold on the great majority of the people; and I humbly venture to share in and adhere to them."

"Why, I say, that to tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection; it is plunder, and I entirely disclaim it; but I ask you to protect the rights and interests of labour generally in the first place, by allowing no free imports from countries which meet you with countervailing duties; and, in the second place, with respect to agricultural produce, to compensate the soil for the burdens from which other classes are free by an equivalent duty. This is my view of what is called "protection.""

"I remember—the interruption of the hon. Gentleman reminds me of the words of a great writer, who said that "Grace was beauty in action." Sir, I say that justice is truth in action. Truth should animate an opposition, and I hope it does animate this opposition.;"

"Yes! I know what I have to face. I have to face a coalition. The combination may be successful. A coalition has before this been successful. But coalitions, although successful, have always found this, that their triumph has been brief. This too I know, that England does not love coalitions."

"The movement of the middle classes for the abolition of slavery was virtuous, but it was not wise. It was an ignorant movement. It showed a want of knowledge both of the laws of commerce and the stipulations of treaties; and it has alike ruined the colonies and aggravated the slave trade...The history of the abolition of slavery by the English and its consequences, would be a narrative of ignorance, injustice, blundering, waste, and havoc, not easily paralleled in the history of mankind."

"The Jews represent the Semitic principle; all that is spiritual in our nature. They are the trustees of tradition, and the conservators of the religious element. They are a living and the most striking evidence of the falsity of that pernicious doctrine of modern times, the natural equality of man. The political equality of a particular race is a matter of municipal arrangement and depends entirely on political considerations and circumstances; but the natural equality of man now in vogue, and taking the form of cosmopolitan fraternity, is a principle which, were it possible to act on it, would deteriorate the great races and destroy all the genius of the world. What would be the consequence on the great Anglo-Saxon republic, for example, were its citizens to secede from their sound principle of reserve, and mingle with their negro and coloured populations? In the course of time they would become so deteriorated that their states would probably be reconquered and regained by the aborigines whom they have expelled and who would then be their superiors."

"But existing society has chosen to persecute this race which should furnish its choice allies, and what have been the consequences? They may be traced in the last outbreak of the destructive principle in Europe. An insurrection takes place against tradition and aristocracy, against religion and property. Destruction of the Semitic principle, extirpation of the Jewish religion, whether in the Mosaic or in the Christian form, the natural equality of man and the abrogation of property, are proclaimed by the secret societies who form provisional governments, and men of Jewish race are found at the head of every one of them. The people of God co-operate with atheists; the most skilful accumulators of property ally themselves with communists; the peculiar and chosen race touch the hand of all the scum and low castes of Europe! And all this because they wish to destroy that ungrateful Christendom which owes to them even its name, and whose tyranny they can no longer endure."

"England is the only important European community that is still governed by traditionary influences, and amid the shameless wreck of nations she alone has maintained her honour, her liberty, her order, her authority, and her wealth... But it is said that it is contrary to the spirit of the age that a great nation like England, a community of enlightened millions long accustomed to public liberty, should be governed by an aristocracy. It is not true that England is governed by an aristocracy in the common acceptation of the term. England is governed by an aristocratic principle. The aristocracy of England absorbs all aristocracies, and receives every man in every order and every class who defers to the principle of our society, which is to aspire and to excel."

"He Lord George Bentinck] dwelt much on the vicissitudes which must attend all merely foreign trade, which, though it should be encouraged, ought not to be solely relied on, as was the fashion of this day. Looking upon war as occasionally inevitable, he thought a commercial system based upon the presumption of perpetual peace to be full of ruin. His policy was essentially imperial and not cosmopolitan."

"In the great contention between the patriotic and the cosmopolitan principle which has hardly begun and on the issue of which the fate of this island as a powerful community depends, Lord George Bentinck appeared to be produced to represent the traditionary influences of our country in their most captivating form."

"This is the third time that, in the course of six years, during which I have had the lead of the Opposition in the House of Commons, I have stormed the Treasury Benches: twice, fruitlessly, the third time with a tin kettle to my tail which rendered the race hopeless. You cannot, therefore, be surprised, that I am a little wearied of these barren victories, which like Alma, Inkerman, and Balaclava, may be glorious but are certainly nothing more."

"I say that there are two systems of policy to apply to the management of what is commonly called the Eastern question, but which resolves itself into the geographical question, namely, the possession of that site which commands the empire of the world—the city of Constantinople. There is that school of opinions which I call British opinions, advocated by the noble Lord the Leader of this House (Lord J. Russell) and the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Viscount Palmerston), who believe in the vitality of Turkey, that it may remain an independent and even a progressive country, and form a powerful and sufficient barrier against the encroachment of Russia. There is the other school, which I call the school of Russian polities, that believes that Turkey is exhausted; that all we can do is, by gradually enfranchising the Christian population, to prevent, when its fall takes place, perfect anarchy, and contemplates the possibility of Russia occupying the Bosphorus."

"It is the initial letters of the four points of the compass that make the word "news," and he must understand that news is that which collies from the North, East, West and South, and if it comes from only one point of the compass, then it is a class publication, and not news."

"I for one protest against taking Nena Sahib as a model for the conduct of the British soldier. I protest against meeting atrocities with atrocities. (Hear, hear.) I have heard things said and seen things written of late which would make me almost suppose that the religious opinions of the people of England had undergone some sudden change, and that instead of bowing before the name of Jesus we were preparing to revive the worship of Moloch. (Hear, hear.) I cannot believe that it is our duty to indulge in such a spirit. I think that what has happened in India is a great Providential lesson, by which we may profit; and if we meet it like brave and inquiring men we may assert our dominion and establish for the future in India a Government which may prove at once lasting and honourable to this country. (Hear, hear.) I hope that the clergy of our church, on the occasion that is impending, will seize the opportunity afforded them, while they support the spirit of the people by the consciousness of the Divine assistance, to impress at the same time on the national mind that this a Christian country, and that the character of a Christian warrior is not only to be brave but to be charitable. (Hear, hear.)"

"Finality, Sir, is not the language of politics."

"This shows how much easier it is to be critical than to be correct."

"It is fourteen years ago since yourself, then the leader of the country gentlemen...appealed to me to assist you at a moment of apparently overwhelming disaster. I ultimately agreed to do so...because, from my earliest years, my sympathies had been with the landed interest of England."

"A wise Government, allying itself with religion, would, as it were, consecrate society and sanctify the State. But how is this to be done? It is the problem of modern politics which has always most embarrassed statesmen. No solution of the difficulty can be found in salaried priesthoods and complicated concordats. But by the side of the State in England there has gradually arisen a majestic corporation wealthy, powerful, independent with the sanctity of a long tradition, yet sympathising with authority, and full of conciliation, even deference, to the civil power. Broadly and deeply planted in the land, mixed up with all our manners and customs, one of the main guarantees of our local government, and therefore one of the prime securities of our common liberties, the Church of England is part of our history, part of our life, part of England itself."

"He seems to think that posterity is a pack-horse, always ready to be loaded."

"To build up a community, not upon Liberal opinions, which any man may fashion to his fancy, but upon popular principles, which assert equal rights, civil and religious; to uphold the institutions of the country because they are the embodiment of the wants and wishes of the nation, and protect us alike from individual tyranny and popular outrage; equally to resist democracy and oligarchy; and favour that principle of free aristocracy which is the only basis and security for constitutional government; to be vigilant to guard and prompt to vindicate the honour of the country, but to hold aloof from that turbulent diplomacy which only distracts the mind of a people from internal improvement; to lighten taxation; frugally but wisely to administer the public treasure; to favour popular education, because it is the best guarantee for public order; to defend local government; and to be as jealous of the rights of the working man as of the prerogatives of the Crown and the privileges of the Senate—these were once the principles which regulated Tory statesmen, and I for one have no wish that the Tory party should ever be in power unless they practise them."

"The English people are, without exception, the most enthusiastic people in the world. There are more excitable races. The French, the Italians, are much more excitable; but for deep and fervid feeling, there is no race in the world at all equal to the English. And what is the subject, of all others, upon which the English people have been most enthusiastic? Religion. The notes on the gamut of their feeling are few, but they are deep. Industry, Liberty, Religion, form the solemn scale. Industry, Liberty, Religion — that is the history of England."

"Before the civil war commenced, the United States of America were colonies, and we should not forget that such communities do not cease to be colonies because they are independent."

"Professors and rhetoricians find a system for every contingency and a principle for every chance; but you are not going, I hope, to leave the destinies of the British empire to prigs and pedants. The statesmen who construct, and the warriors who achieve, are only influenced by the instinct of power, and animated by the love of country. Those are the feelings and those the methods which form empires."

"The Tory party is only in its proper position when it represents popular principles. Then it is truly irresistible. Then it can uphold the throne and the altar, the majesty of the empire, the liberty of the nation, and the rights of the multitude. There is nothing mean, petty, or exclusive, about the real character of Toryism. It necessarily depends upon enlarged sympathies and noble aspirations, because it is essentially national."

"At present the peace of the world has been preserved, not by statesmen, but by capitalists."

"[I]f ever it be the lot of myself or any public men with whom I have the honour to act to carry on important negotiations on behalf of this country, as the noble lord and his colleagues have done, I trust that we least shall not carry them on in such a manner that it will be our duty to come to Parliament to announce to the country that we have no allies, and then declare that England can never act alone. Sir, those are words which ought never to have escaped the lips of a British minister. They are sentiments which ought never to have occurred even to his heart. I repudiate, I reject them. I remember there was a time when England, with not a tithe of her present resources, inspired by a patriotic cause, triumphantly encountered a world in arms. And, Sir, I believe now, if the occasion were fitting, if her independence or her honour were assailed, or her empire endangered, I believe that England would rise in the magnificence of her might, and struggle triumphantly for those objects for which men live and nations flourish. But I, for one, will never consent to go to war to extricate ministers from the consequences of their own mistakes."

"Never take anything for granted."

"The characteristic of the present age is a craving credulity."

"[T]he French Revolution, which has not yet ended, and which is certainly the greatest event that has happened in the history of man. Only the fall of the Roman Empire can be compared to it... Look at the Europe of the present day and the Europe of a century ago. It is not the same Europe. Its very form is changed."

"What is the question now placed before society with the glib assurance the most astounding? That question is this—Is man an ape or an angel? My lord, I am on the side of the angels."

"The democracy of America must not be confounded with the democracies of old Europe. It is not the scum of turbulent cities, nor is it a mere section of an excited middle class speculating in shares and calling it progress. It is a territorial democracy, if I may use that epithet without offending hon. Gentlemen opposite. Aristotle, who has taught us most of the wise things we know, never said a wiser thing than that the cultivators of the soil are the class least inclined to sedition and to violent courses."

"There are rare instances when the sympathy of a nation approaches those tenderer feelings which are generally supposed to be peculiar to the individual, and to be the happy privilege of private life, and this is one. Under any circumstances we should have bewailed the catastrophe at Washington; under any circumstances we should have shuddered at the means by which it was accomplished. But in the character of the victim, and even in the accessories of his last moments, there is something so homely and innocent, that it takes the question, as it were, out of all the pomp of history and the ceremonial of diplomacy; it touches the heart of nations, and appeals to the domestic sentiment of mankind. Whatever the various and varying opinions in this House, and in the country generally, on the policy of the late President of the United States, all must agree that in one of the severest trials which ever tested the moral qualities of man he fulfilled his duty with simplicity and strength... When such crimes are perpetrated the public mind is apt to fall into gloom and perplexity, for it is ignorant alike of the causes and the consequences of such deeds. But it is one of our duties to reassure them under unreasoning panic and despondency. Assassination has never changed the history of the world. I will not refer to the remote past, though an accident has made the most memorable instance of antiquity at this moment fresh in the minds and memory of all around me. But even the costly sacrifice of a Caesar did not propitiate the inexorable destiny of his country."

"You have...an ancient, powerful, richly-endowed Church and perfect religious liberty. You have unbroken order and complete freedom. You have landed estates as large as the Romans, combined with commercial enterprise such as Carthage and Venice united never equalled. And you must remember that this peculiar country, with these strong contrasts, is not governed by force; it is not governed by standing armies; it is governed by a most singular series of traditionary influences, which generation after generation cherishes and preserves because they know that they embalm customs and represent law. And, with this, what have you done? You have created the greatest Empire of modern time. You have amassed a capital of fabulous amount. You have devised and sustained a system of credit still more marvellous. And, above all, you have established and maintained a scheme so vast and complicated, of labour and industry, that the history of the world offers no parallel to it... If you destroy that state of society, remember this—England cannot begin again."

"Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time."

"Ignorance never settles a question."

"Individuals may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation."

"For what is the Tory party unless it represents national feeling? If it does not represent national feeling, Toryism is nothing. It does not depend upon hereditary coteries of exclusive nobles. It does not attempt power by attracting to itself the spurious force which may accidentally arise from advocating cosmopolitan principles or talking cosmopolitan jargon. The Tory party is nothing unless it represent and uphold the institutions of the country."

"I had to prepare the mind of the country, and to educate...our party... I had to prepare the mind of Parliament and the country on this question of Reform."

"In a progressive country change is constant; and the great question is, not whether you should resist change which is inevitable, but whether that change should be carried out in deference to the manners, the customs, the laws, the traditions of the people, or in deference to abstract principles and arbitrary and general doctrines. The one is a national system; the other...is a philosophic system."

"I have always looked upon the interests of the labouring classes as essentially the most conservative interests of the country. The rights of labour have been to me always as sacred as the rights of property, and I have always thought that those who were most interested in the stability and even in the glory of a State are the great mass of the population, happy to enjoy the privileges of freemen under good laws, and proud at the same time of the country which confers on its inhabitants a name of honour and of glorious reputation in every quarter of the globe."

"I see before me the statue of a celebrated minister, who said that confidence was a plant of slow growth. But I believe, however gradual may be the growth of confidence, that of credit requires still more time to arrive at maturity."

"None are so interested in maintaining the institutions of the country as the working classes. The rich and the powerful will not find much difficulty under any circumstances in maintaining their rights, but the privileges of the people can only be defended and secured by popular institutions."

"Now, what is meant by the union between Church and State? ... I understand by it that authority is to be not merely political; that Government is to be not merely an affair of force, but is to recognize its responsibility to the Divine Power. Sir, we have discarded the divine right of Kings, and properly discarded it, because the divine right of Kings led to the abuse of supernatural power by individuals; but an intelligent age will never discard the divine right of Government. If Government is not divine, it is nothing. It is a mere affair of the police-office, of the tax-gatherer, of the guard-room."

"Over this land he guided cavalry and infantry, and—what is perhaps the most remarkable part of the expedition—he led the elephants of Asia, bearing the artillery of Europe, over African passes which might have startled the trapper and appalled the hunter of the Alps. When he arrived at the base of this critical rendezvous, he encountered no inglorious foe; and if the manly qualities of the Abyssinians sank before the resources of our warlike science, our troops, even after that combat, had to scale a mountain fortress, of which the intrinsic strength was such that it may be fairly said it would have been impregnable to the whole world had it been defended by the man by whom it was assailed. But all these obstacles and all these difficulties and dangers were overcome by Sir Robert Napier, and that came to pass, which ten years ago, not one of us could have imagined even in his dreams, and which must, under all the circumstances, be an event of peculiar interest to an Englishman—the standard of St. George was hoisted on the mountains of Rasselas."

"This is to be observed of the Bishop of London, that, though apparently of a spirit somewhat austere, there is in his idiosyncrasy a strange fund of enthusiasm, a quality which ought never to be possessed by an Archbishop of Canterbury, or a Prime Minister of England. The Bishop of London sympathies with everything that is earnest; but what is earnest is not always true; on the contrary error is often more earnest than truth."

"There can be no economy where there is no efficiency."

"Nobody is forgotten, when it is convenient to remember him."

"I have no doubt that the distinguished men who negotiated that Treaty, as the representatives of the great Liberal party, were influenced in the course they took by the traditions of English policy. They negotiated that Treaty for the general advantage of Europe, but with a clear appreciation of the importance of its provisions to England. It had always been held by the Government of this country that it was for the interest of England that the countries on the European Coast extending from Dunkirk and Ostend to the islands of the North Sea should be possessed by free and flourishing communities, practising the arts of peace, enjoying the rights of liberty, and following those pursuits of commerce which tend to the civilization of man, and should not be in the possession of a great military Power, one of the principles of whose existence necessarily must be to aim at a preponderating influence in Europe."

"They [the novels] recognised imagination in the government of nations as a quality not less important than reason. They trusted much to a popular sentiment, which rested on an heroic tradition and was sustained by the high spirit of a free aristocracy. Their economic principles were not unsound, but they looked upon the health and knowledge of the multitude as not the least precious part of the wealth of nations. In asserting the doctrine of race, they were entirely opposed to the equality of man, and similar abstract dogmas, which have destroyed ancient society without creating a satisfactory substitute. Resting on popular sympathies and popular privileges, they held that no society could be durable unless it was built upon the principles of loyalty and religious reverence. The writer and those who acted with him looked, then, upon the Anglican Church as a main machinery by one which these results might be realised. There were few great things left in England, and the Church was one."

"[L]ittle more than a year after the publication of CONINGSBY, the secession of DR. NEWMAN dealt a blow to the Church of England under which it still reels. That extraordinary event has been "apologised" for, but has never been explained. It was a mistake and a misfortune. The tradition of the Anglican Church was powerful. Resting on the Church of Jerusalem, modified by the divine school of Galilee, it would have found that rock of truth which Providence, by the instrumentality of the Semitic race, had promised to St. Peter. Instead of that, the seceders sought refuge in mediæval superstitions, which are generally only the embodiments of pagan ceremonies and creeds."

"I think the author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children."

"This war represents the German Revolution, a greater political event than the French Revolution of last century — I don't say a greater, or as great, a social event. What its social consequences may be are in the future. Not a single principle in the management of our foreign affairs, accepted by all statesmen for guidance up to six months ago, any longer exists. There is not a diplomatic tradition which has not been swept away. You have a new world, new influences at work, new and unknown objects and dangers with which to cope... The balance of power has been entirely destroyed, and the country which suffers most, and feels the effects of this great change most, is England."

"The right hon. Gentleman persuaded the people of England that with regard to Irish politics he was in possession of the philosopher's stone. Well, Sir, he has been returned to this House with an immense majority, with the object of securing the tranquillity and content of Ireland. Has anything been grudged him? Time, labour, devotion—whatever has been demanded has been accorded, whatever has been proposed has been carried. Under his influence and at his instance we have legalized confiscation, consecrated sacrilege, and condoned high treason; we have destroyed churches, we have shaken property to its foundation, and we have emptied gaols; and now he cannot govern a county without coming to a Parliamentary Committee! The right hon. Gentleman, after all his heroic exploits, and at the head of his great majority, is making Government ridiculous."

"That is an apology, not an explanation; and apologies only account for that which they do not alter."

"Without publicity there can be no public spirit, and without public spirit every nation must decay."

"Gentlemen, the programme of the Conservative party is to maintain the Constitution of the country."

"Since the settlement of [the] Constitution, now nearly two centuries ago, England has never experienced a revolution, though there is no country in which there has been so continuous and such considerable change. How is this? Because the wisdom of your forefathers placed the prize of supreme power without the sphere of human passions. Whatever the struggle of parties, whatever the strife of factions, whatever the excitement and exaltation of the public mind, there has always been something in this country round which all classes and parties could rally, representing the majesty of the law, the administration of justice, and involving, at the same time, the security for every man's rights and the fountain of honour."

"Gentlemen, I am a party man. I believe that, without party, Parliamentary government is impossible. I look upon Parliamentary government as the noblest government in the world, and certainly the one most suited to England."

"Gentlemen, the influence of the Crown is not confined merely to political affairs. England is a domestic country. Here the home is revered and the hearth is sacred. The nation is represented by a family—the Royal Family; and if that family is educated with a sense of responsibility and a sentiment of public duty, it is difficult to exaggerate the salutary influence they may exercise over a nation. It is not merely an influence upon manners; it is not merely that they are a model for refinement and for good taste—they affect the heart as well as the intelligence of the people, and in the hour of public adversity, or in the anxious conjuncture of public affairs, the nation rallies round the Family and the Throne, and its spirit is animated and sustained by the expression of public affection."

"I confess I am inclined to believe that an English gentleman—born to business, managing his own estate, administering the affairs of his county, mixing with all classes of his fellow-men, now in the hunting field, now in the railway direction, unaffected, un-ostentatious, proud of his ancestors, if they have contributed to the greatness of our common country—is, on the whole, more likely to form a senator agreeable to the English opinion and English taste than any substitute that has yet been produced."

"Religious education is demanded by the nation generally and by the instincts of human nature."

"You were invaded; you were pillaged and you were conquered; yet amid all these disgraces and vicissitudes there was gradually formed that English race which has brought about a very different state of affairs. Instead of being invaded, your land is proverbially the only "inviolate land"—"the inviolate land of the sage and free." Instead of being plundered, you have attracted to your shores all the capital of the world. Instead of being conquered, your flag floats on many waters, and your standard waves in either zone. It may be said that these achievements are due to the race that inhabited the land, and not to its institutions. Gentlemen, in political institutions are the embodied experiences of a race. You have established a society of classes which give vigour and variety to life. But no class possesses a single exclusive privilege, and all are equal before the law. You possess a real aristocracy, open to all who deserve to enter it. You have not merely a middle class, but a hierarchy of middle classes, in which every degree of wealth, refinement, industry, energy, and enterprise is duly represented."

"And now, gentlemen, what is the condition of the great body of the people? In the first place, gentlemen, they have for centuries been in the full enjoyment of that which no other country in Europe has ever completely attained—complete rights of personal freedom."

"Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man."

"I beg to express my opinion that an agricultural labourer has as much right to combine for the bettering of his condition as a manufacturing labourer or worker in metals. If the causes of his combination are natural—that is to say, if they arise from his own feelings and from the necessities of his own condition, the combination will end in results mutually beneficial to employers and employed."

"Pure air, pure water, the inspection of unhealthy habitations, the adulteration of food, these and many kindred matters may be legitimately dealt with by the Legislature... After all, the first consideration of a minister should be the health of the people."

"Her Majesty's new ministers proceeded in their career like a body of men under the influence of some delirious drug. Not satiated with the spoliation and anarchy of Ireland, they began to attack every institution and every interest, every class and calling in the country... As time advanced it was not difficult to perceive that extravagance was being substituted for energy by the Government. The unnatural stimulus was subsiding. Their paroxysms ended in prostration. Some took refuge in melancholy, and their eminent chief alternated between a menace and a sigh. As I sat opposite the Treasury Bench the ministers reminded me of one of those marine landscapes not very unusual on the coasts of South America. You behold a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame flickers on a single pallid crest. But the situation is still dangerous. There are occasional earthquakes, and ever and anon the dark rumbling of the sea."

"The very phrase "foreign affairs" makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern."

"I acknowledge that the policy of England with respect to Europe should be a policy of reserve, but proud reserve; and in answer to those statesmen—those mistaken statesmen who have intimated the decay of the power of England and the decline of its resources, I express here my confident conviction that there never was a moment in our history when the power of England was so great and her resources so vast and inexhaustible."

"[I]t is not merely our fleets and armies, our powerful artillery, our accumulated capital, and our unlimited credit on which I so much depend, as upon that unbroken spirit of her people, which I believe was never prouder of the Imperial country to which they belong. Gentlemen, it is to that spirit that I above all things trust."

"Gentlemen, the Tory party, unless it is a national party, is nothing."

"Gentlemen, a body of public men...seized the helm of affairs in a manner the honour of which I do not for a moment question, but they introduced a new system into our political life. Influenced in a great degree by the philosophy and the politics of the Continent, they endeavoured to substitute cosmopolitan for national principles; and they baptized the new scheme of politics with the plausible name of "Liberalism"... [T]he tone and tendency of Liberalism cannot be long concealed. It is to attack the institutions of the country under the name of Reform, and to make war on the manners and customs of the people of this country under the pretext of Progress. During the forty years that have elapsed since the commencement of this new system...the real state of affairs has been this: the attempt of one party to establish in this country cosmopolitan ideas, and the efforts of another...to recur to and resume those national principles to which they attribute the greatness and glory of the country."

"I have always been of opinion that the Tory party has three great objects. The first is to maintain the institutions of the country—not from any sentiment of political superstition, but because we believe that they embody the principles upon which a community like England can alone safely rest. The principles of liberty, of order, of law, and of religion ought not to be entrusted to individual opinion or to the caprice and passion of multitudes, but should be embodied in a form of permanence and power. We associate with the Monarchy the ideas which it represents—the majesty of law, the administration of justice, the fountain of mercy and of honour. We know that in the Estates of the Realm and the privileges they enjoy, is the best security for public liberty and good government. We believe that a national profession of faith can only be maintained by an Established Church, and that no society is safe unless there is a public recognition of the Providential government of the world, and of the future responsibility of man."

"The assault of Liberalism upon the House of Lords has been mainly occasioned by the prejudice of Liberalism against the land laws of this country. But in my opinion, and in the opinion of wiser men than myself, and of men in other countries beside this, the liberty of England depends much upon the landed tenure of England—upon the fact that there is a class which can alike defy despots and mobs, around which the people may always rally, and which must be patriotic from its intimate connection with the soil. Well, gentlemen, so far as these institutions of the country—the Monarchy and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal—are concerned, I think we may fairly say, without exaggeration, that public opinion is in favour of those institutions, the maintenance of which is one of the principal tenets of the Tory party, and the existence of which has been unceasingly criticised for forty years by the Liberal party."

"The most distinguishing feature, or, at least, one of the most distinguishing features, of the great change effected in 1832 was that those who effected it at once abolished all the franchises as ancient as those of the Baronage of England; and, while they abolished them, they offered and proposed no substitute. The discontent upon the subject of representation which afterwards more or less pervaded our society dates from that period, and that discontent, all will admit, has ceased. It was terminated by the Act of Parliamentary Reform of 1867-8. That Act was founded on a confidence that the great body of the people of this country were "Conservative"... I use the word in its purest and loftiest sense. I mean that the people of England, and especially the working classes of England, are proud of belonging to a great country, and wish to maintain its greatness—that they are proud of belonging to an Imperial country, and are resolved to maintain, if they can, their empire—that they believe, on the whole, that the greatness and the empire of England are to be attributed to the ancient institutions of this country."

"There are people who may be, or who at least affect to be, working men, and who, no doubt, have a certain influence with a certain portion of the metropolitan working classes, who talk Jacobinism... I say with confidence that the great body of the working class of England utterly repudiate such sentiments. They have no sympathy with them. They are English to the core. They repudiate cosmopolitan principles. They adhere to national principles. They are for maintaining the greatness of the kingdom and the empire, and they are proud of being subjects of our Sovereign and members of such an Empire. Well, then, as regards the political institutions of this country, the maintenance of which is one of the chief tenets of the Tory party, so far as I can read public opinion, the feeling of the nation is in accordance with the Tory party."

"Gentlemen, there is another and second great object of the Tory party. If the first is to maintain the institutions of the country, the second is, in my opinion, to uphold the Empire of England. If you look to the history of this country since the advent of Liberalism—forty years ago—you will find that there has been no effort so continuous, so subtle, supported by so much energy, and carried on with so much ability and acumen, as the attempts of Liberalism to effect the disintegration of the Empire of England."

"Gentlemen, another great object of the Tory party, and one not inferior to the maintenance of the Empire, or the upholding of our institutions, is the elevation of the condition of the people... It must be obvious to all who consider the condition of the multitude with a desire to improve and elevate it, that no important step can be gained unless you can effect some reduction of their hours of labour and humanise their toil. The great problem is to be able to achieve such results without violating those principles of economic truth upon which the prosperity of all States depends."

"[T]he health of the people was the most important question for a statesman... It involves the state of the dwellings of the people, the moral consequences of which are not less considerable than the physical. It involves their enjoyment of some of the chief elements of nature—air, light, and water. It involves the regulation of their industry, the inspection of their toil. It involves the purity of their provisions, and it touches upon all the means by which you may wean them from habits of excess and of brutality. Now, what is the feeling upon these subjects of the Liberal party—that Liberal party who opposed the Tory party when, even in their weakness, they advocated a diminution of the toil of the people, and introduced and supported those Factory Laws, the principles of which they extended, in the brief period when they possessed power, to every other trade in the country? What is the opinion of the great Liberal party—the party that seeks to substitute cosmopolitan for national principles in the government of this country—on this subject? Why, the views which I expressed in the great capital of the county of Lancaster have been held up to derision by the Liberal Press. A leading member...denounced them the other day as the "policy of sewage." Well, it may be the "policy of sewage" to a Liberal member of Parliament. But to one of the labouring multitude of England, who has found fever always to be one of the inmates of his household—who has, year after year, seen stricken down the children of his loins, on whose sympathy and material support he has looked with hope and confidence, it is not a "policy of sewage," but a question of life and death."

"[T]he time is at hand...when England will have to decide between national and cosmopolitan principles. The issue is not a mean one. It is whether you will be content to be a comfortable England, modelled and moulded upon Continental principles and meeting in due course an inevitable fate, or whether you will be a great country,—an Imperial country—a country where your sons, when they rise, rise to paramount positions, and obtain not merely the esteem of their countrymen, but command the respect of the world."

"You have nothing to trust to but your own energy and the sublime instinct of an ancient people. You must act as if everything depended on your individual efforts. The secret of success is constancy of purpose. Go to your homes, and teach there these truths, which will soon be imprinted on the conscience of the land. Make each man feel how much rests on his own exertions... Act in this spirit, and you will succeed. You will maintain your country in its present position. But you will do more than that, you will deliver to your posterity a land of liberty, of prosperity, of power, and of glory."

"A University should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning."

"You have despoiled Churches. You have threatened every corporation and endowment in the country. You have examined into everybody's affairs. You have criticized every profession and vexed every trade. No one is certain of his property, and nobody knows what duties he may have to perform tomorrow. This is the policy of confiscation as compared with that of concurrent endowment."

"For nearly five years the present Ministers have harassed every trade, worried every profession, and assailed or menaced every class, institution, and species of property in the country. Occasionally they have varied this state of civil warfare by perpetrating some job which outraged public opinion, or by stumbling into mistakes which have been always discreditable, and sometimes ruinous. All this they call a policy, and seem quite proud of it; but the country has, I think, made up its mind to close this career of plundering and blundering."

"King Louis Philippe once said to me that he attributed the great success of the British nation in political life to their talking politics after dinner."

"[A]s I have been challenged and pressed so closely by Mr. Gladstone upon this subject, I will venture to say that I do not believe you can have economical government in a country in where the Chief Minister piques himself upon disregarding the interests of the country abroad... [T]he most economical Government we ever had in England was the Government of the Duke of Wellington. Why was that Government so economical? Because the Duke of Wellington paid the greatest possible attention of any Minister who ever ruled in this country to the interests and business of England abroad. (Hear, hear.) He attended to them so successfully and so sedulously that during his administration we were not involved in expensive wars; we did not get into difficulties in which we were obliged to have recourse to expensive arbitration...and I repeat it was essentially by his attention to foreign affairs, and by his knowledge of foreign affairs...that he was able to make his an economical Government and had not to appeal, as has been our custom of late, for increased armaments. (Hear, hear.) Now, Mr. Gladstone's view of economy, or, rather, the view of his party and of the school he represents, is of another kind. He says, "The English people do not care for their affairs abroad—I do not much care for them myself—but I must have economy (laughter); I must discharge dockyard workmen; I must reduce clerks; I must sell the Queen's stores (laughter); I must starve the Queen's services; I must sell the accumulations of timber in the dockyards and arsenals; I must sell all the anchors belonging to the Navy (laughter); I must sell"—we were selling them off last year—"half the ships of Her Majesty's Navy." (Cheers and laughter.) ... Now, gentlemen, that is the economy of which Mr. Gladstone is so proud."

"Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends."

"Whether we should have one Imperial Parliament and one Local Parliament, or whether we must have, as has just been suggested—and it will probably be the solution of many difficulties, although it will lead to greater ones—one Imperial and three Local Parliaments; one thing is quite clear—that we should end in having co-ordinate and competing authorities, and that we should find officers of State acting on policies totally distinct, and bringing about a course of affairs hostile to each other."

"I must say there is to me nothing more extraordinary than the determination of the Irish people to proclaim to the world that they are a conquered race. I have been always surprised that a people gifted with so much genius, so much sentiment, such winning qualities should be—I am sure they will pardon me saying it; my remark is an abstract and not a personal one—should be so deficient in self-respect. I deny that the Irish people are conquered as they are proud to tell us; I deny that they have any ground for that pride... I deny that the Irish are an ancient nation that have been conquered more than all ancient nations have been. I deny that the Irish have been conquered more than, or even as often, as the English. You never hear of an Englishman going about and boasting of his subjection. He boasts sometimes of having come over with William the Conqueror or rather of his ancestors having done so. The Irish have been conquered by the Normans and so have we, and in modern times I will not deny that Oliver Cromwell conquered Ireland, but it was after he had conquered England. William III could not have succeeded in conquering Ireland if he had not previously conquered England."

"I am opposed to it because I wish to see united at an important crisis of the world—a crisis that perhaps is nearer arriving than some of us suppose—because I wish to see a united people welded in one great nationality, and because I feel that if we sanction this policy—if we do not cleanse the Parliamentary bosom of all this "perilous stuff"—we shall bring about the disintegration of the Kingdom and the destruction of the Empire."

"I have always felt that the best security for civilisation is the dwelling, and that upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends more than anything else the improvement of mankind. Such dwellings are the nursery of all domestic virtues, and without a becoming home the exercise of those virtues is impossible."

"It is vital to your Majesty's authority and power at this critical moment, that the Canal should belong to England."

"It is just settled: you have it, Madam. The French government has been out-generaled."

"Nothing is more disgusting, than the habit of our officers speaking always of the inhabitants of India—many of them descended from the great races—as "niggers". It is ignorant, & brutal,—& surely most mischievous."

"It is only by the amplification of titles that you can often touch and satisfy the imagination of nations; and that is an element which Governments must not despise."

"I am dead: dead, but in the Elysian fields."

"What may be the fate of the Eastern part of Europe it would be arrogant for me to speculate upon... But I am sure that as long as England is ruled by English Parties who understand the principles on which our Empire is founded, and who are resolved to maintain that Empire, our influence in that part of the world can never be looked upon with indifference... The present is a state of affairs which requires the most vigilant examination and the most careful management. But those who suppose that England ever would uphold, or at this moment particularly is upholding, Turkey from blind superstition and from a want of sympathy with the highest aspirations of humanity are deceived. What our duty is at this critical moment is to maintain the Empire of England. Nor will we ever agree to any step, though it may obtain for a moment comparative quiet and a false prosperity, that hazards the existence of that Empire."

"The danger at such a moment is that designing politicians may take advantage of such sublime sentiments and may apply them for the furtherance of their sinister ends. I do not think there is any language which can denounce too strongly conduct of this description. He who at such a moment would avail himself of such a commanding sentiment in order to obtain his own individual ends, suggesting a course which he may know to be injurious to the interests of the country, and not favourable to the welfare of mankind, is a man whose conduct no language can too strongly condemn. He outrages the principle of patriotism, which is the soul of free communities. He does more—he influences in the most injurious manner the common welfare of humanity. Such conduct, if it be pursued by any man at this moment, ought to be indignantly reprobated by the people of England; for, in the general havoc and ruin which it may bring about, it may, I think, be fairly described as worse than any of those Bulgarian atrocities which now occupy attention."

"What I see in the amendment is not an assertion of great principles, which no man honours more than myself. What is at the bottom of it is rather that principle of peace at any price which a certain party in this country upholds. It is that dangerous dogma which I believe animates the ranks before me at this moment, although many of them may be unconscious of it. That deleterious doctrine haunts the people of this country in every form. Sometimes it is a committee; sometimes it is a letter; sometimes it is an amendment to the Address; sometimes it is a proposition to stop the supplies. That doctrine has done more mischief than any I can well recall that have been afloat this century. It has occasioned more wars than the most ruthless conquerors. It has disturbed and nearly destroyed that political equilibrium so necessary to the liberties of nations and the welfare of the world. It has dimmed occasionally for a moment even the majesty of England. And, my lords, to-night you have an opportunity, which I trust you will not lose, of branding these opinions, these deleterious dogmas, with the reprobation of the Peers of England."

"It has been said that the people of this country are deeply interested in the humanitarian and philanthropic considerations involved in [the Eastern Question]. All must appreciate such feelings. But I am mistaken if there be not a yet deeper sentiment on the part of the people of this country, one with which I cannot doubt your lordships will ever sympathise, and that is—the determination to maintain the Empire of England."

"The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend."

"What, then, was that policy? It was a policy of conditional neutrality. Under the circumstances of the case we did not believe that it was for the honour or interest of England or Turkey that we should take any part in the impending contest; but while we enforced the neutrality which we prepared to observe, we declared at the same time that that neutrality must cease if British interests were assailed or menaced. Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own, have denounced this policy as a selfish policy. My Lord Mayor, it is as selfish as patriotism."

"His views on all subjects are original, but there is no strain, no effort at paradox. He talks as Montaigne writes. When he heard about Cyprus, he said: "You have done a wise thing. This is progress. It will be popular; a nation likes progress." His idea of progress was evidently seizing something. He said he looked upon our relinquishment of the Ionian Isles as the first sign of our decadence. Cyprus put us all right again."

"We have brought a peace, and we trust we have brought a peace with honour, and I trust that that will now be followed by the prosperity of the country."

"Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace, but a peace, I hope, with honour which may satisfy our Sovereign, and tend to the welfare of the country."

"Which do you believe most likely to enter an insane convention, a body of English gentlemen honoured by the favour of their Sovereign and the confidence of their fellow-subjects, managing your affairs for five years, I hope with prudence, and not altogether without success, or a sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself?"

"A series of congratulatory regrets."

"[T]he government of the world is carried on by Sovereigns and statesmen, and not by anonymous paragraph writers, or by the harebrained chatter of irresponsible frivolity."

"We have been informed lately that ours will be the lot of Genoa, and Venice, and Holland. But...there is a great difference between the condition of England and those... We have during ages of prosperity created a nation of 34 millions—a nation who are enjoying, and have long enjoyed, the two greatest blessings of civil life—justice and liberty... [A] nation of that character is more calculated to create empires than to give them up, and I feel confident if England is true to herself; if the English people prove themselves worthy of their ancestors; if they possess still the courage and the determination of their forefathers, their honour will never be tarnished and their power will never diminish."

"A very remarkable people the Zulus: they defeat our generals, they convert our bishops, they have settled the fate of a great European dynasty."

"No one, I think, can deny that the depression of the agricultural interest is excessive. Though I can recall periods of suffering, none of them have ever equalled the present in its instances... [N]or is it open to doubt that foreign competition has exercised a most injurious influence on the agricultural interests of the country. The country, however, was perfectly warned that if we made a great revolution in our industrial system, that was one of the consequences that would accrue. I may mention that the great result of the returns we possess is this, that the immense importations of foreign agricultural produce have been vastly in excess of what the increased demands of our population actually require, and that is why the low prices are maintained... That is to a great degree the cause of this depression."

"It cannot be denied that a state of great national prosperity is quite consistent and compatible with legislation in favour of the protection of native industry. That proposition, years ago, was denied; but with the experience we have had of France and the United States of America—the two most flourishing communities probably in existence—it is now incontestable. Well, my lords, many years ago—nearly 40—this country, which no one can say for a moment did not flourish with the old system of protection, deemed it necessary to revise the principles upon which its commerce was conducted...The scheme that was adopted was this—that we were to fight hostile tariffs with free imports. I was among those who looked upon that policy with fear. I believed it to be one very perilous."

"[R]eciprocity is barter. I always understood that barter was the last effort of civilization that it was exactly that state of human exchange that separated civilization from savagery; and if reciprocity is only barter, I fear that would hardly help us out of our difficulty... [W]hen he taunts me with his quotation of some musty phrases of mine 40 years ago, I must remind him that we had elements then on which treaties of reciprocity could be negotiated. At that time, although the great changes of Sir Robert Peel had taken place, there were 168 articles in the tariff which were materials by which you could have negotiated, if that was a wise and desirable policy, commercial treaties of reciprocity. What is the number you now have in the tariff? Twenty-two. Those who talk of negotiating treaties of reciprocity...have they the materials for negotiating treaties of reciprocity? You have lost the opportunity. I do not want to enter into the argument at the present moment; but England cannot pursue that policy."

"In assuming that peace will be maintained, I assume also that no Great Power would shrink from its responsibilities. If there be a country, for example, one of the most extensive and wealthiest of empires in the world—if that country, from a perverse interpretation of its insular geographical position, turns an indifferent ear to the feelings and the fortunes of Continental Europe, such a course would, I believe, only end in its becoming an object of general plunder. So long as the power and advice of England are felt in the councils of Europe, peace, I believe, will be maintained, and maintained for a long period. Without their presence, war, as has happened before, and too frequently of late, seems to me to be inevitable. I speak on this subject with confidence to the citizens of London, because I know that they are men who are not ashamed of the Empire which their ancestors created; because I know that they are not ashamed of the noblest of human sentiments, now decried by philosophers—the sentiment of patriotism; because I know they will not be beguiled into believing that in maintaining their Empire they may forfeit their liberties. One of the greatest of Romans, when asked what were his politics, replied, Imperium et Libertas. That would not make a bad programme for a British Ministry. It is one from which Her Majesty's advisers do not shrink."

"The divine right of kings may have been a plea for feeble tyrants; but the divine right of government is the keystone of human progress, and without it governments sink into police, and a nation is degraded into a mob."

"London is a roost for every bird."

"The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians."

"The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble."

"When a man fell into his anecdotage, it was a sign for him to retire."

"Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine- tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing."

"I have always thought that every woman should marry, and no man."

"You know who critics are?— the men who have failed in literature and art."

"My idea of an agreeable person," said Hugo Bohun, "is a person who agrees with me."

"Had it not been for you, I should have remained what I was when we first met, a prejudiced, narrow-minded being, with contracted sympathies and false knowledge, wasting my life on obsolete trifles, and utterly insensible to the privilege of living in this wondrous age of change and progress."

"Action may not always bring happiness but there is no happiness without action."

"[A] danger, in its ultimate results scarcely less disastrous than pestilence and famine...distracts that country [Ireland]. A portion of its population is attempting to sever the constitutional tie which unites it to Great Britain in that bond which has favoured the power and prosperity of both. It is to be hoped that all men of light and leading will resist this destructive doctrine. The strength of this nation depends on the unity of feeling which should pervade the United Kingdom and its widespread dependencies."

"[T]here are some who challenge the expediency of the Imperial character of this realm. Having attempted, and failed, to enfeeble our colonies by their policy of decomposition, they may, perhaps, now recognize in the disintegration of the United Kingdom a mode which will not only accomplish, but precipitate their purpose. The immediate dissolution of Parliament will afford an opportunity to the nation to decide upon a course which will materially influence its fortunes and shape its destiny. Rarely in this century has there been an occasion more critical. The power of England and the peace of Europe will largely depend on the verdict of the country."

"Her Majesty's present Ministers have hitherto been enabled to secure that peace, so necessary to the welfare of all the civilized countries, and so peculiarly the interest of our own. But this ineffable blessing cannot be obtained by the passive principle of non-interference. Peace rests on the presence, not to say the ascendancy, of England in the Councils of Europe... May [the election] return to Westminster a Parliament not unworthy of the power of England and resolved to maintain it!"

"Bradlaugh makes the most noise, but the Irish Evictions Bill is much the most serious thing... If the Eviction Act passes, there will not be many more seasons. It is a revolutionary age and the chances are, that even you and I may live to see the final extinction of the great London Season, which was the wonder and admiration of our youth."

"Here everything is dark. A series of storms has destroyed all our hopes which were full of promise. A plentiful hay harvest drowned and the finest wheat the farmers have had for years all laid. It is a scene of ravage, of havoc like a conquered country. It is the last drop in the bitter cup which the landed interest will have to swallow... As for politics, Gladstone will be as fatal to the aristocracy as the weather; and if he were younger the Crown would not be safe."

"The present state of affairs makes me tremble. Old England seems to be tumbling to pieces. I believe that if Constantinople were occupied by a foreign Power to-morrow, we should not stir a foot. Could we? With Ireland in revolution, S. Africa in rebellion, and the Radicals and Jacobins in England so intent on the destruction of the landed interest which is the backbone of the State, that no one will spare any energies to external dangers and disgraces. I never thought that in my time it could come to this!"

"I receive letters every day asking me to write a manifesto and make a speech; that I am the only man who could do so with effect; and all that. Why should I? I warned the country about Ireland before the General Election and told them to be vigilant, or there would be something happen there, "worse even than famine or pestilence". It has happened. And there have been elections since the Irish Revolution in England, Wales and Scotland, and they have supported the policy of imbecility and treason that has brought about all this disaster."

"Now I must tell that nothing will induce me to support the 3 F's—three fiddlesticks. During a long parliamentary life, and long before I was in Parliament, I have been profoundly convinced, that the greatness and character of this country depended on our landed tenure. All the rest, I look upon, and have ever looked upon, as "leather and prunella". I fear the pass is sold ... I have formally, and even solemnly, warned the house in wh[ich] I now sit, that the landed system of this country would be attacked and invaded by the revolutionary party."

"My Lords, the key of India is not Merv, or Herat, or Candahar. The key of India is London. The majesty of sovereignty, the spirit and vigour of your Parliaments, the inexhaustible resources of a free, an ingenious, and a determined people—these are the keys of India."

"It is a very difficult country to move, Mr. Hyndman, a very difficult country indeed, and one in which there is more disappointment to be looked for than success."

"I don't wish to go down to posterity talking bad grammar."

"Nothing is going on, but everybody is afraid of something."

"Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius."

"His Christianity was muscular."

""But they deserve their wealth," he added, "nobody grudges it to them. I declare when I was eating that truffle, I felt a glow about my heart that, if it were not indigestion, I think must have been gratitude; though that is an article I had not believed in."

"I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfilment."

"The more you are talked about the less powerful you are."

"As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information."

"An insular country, subject to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen."

"The Athanasian Creed is the most splendid ecclesiastical lyric ever poured forth by the genius of man."

"There is no education like adversity."

"Without tact you can learn nothing."

"As for our majority... one is enough."

"The world is a wheel, and it will all come round right."

"Real politics are the possession and distribution of power."

"As for that," said Waldenshare, "sensible men are all of the same religion." "Pray, what is that?" inquired the Prince. "Sensible men never tell."

"There is no gambling like politics."

"If you are not very clever, you should be conciliatory."

"The sweet simplicity of the three per cents."

"You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public men."

"Miss Sands told me that Queen Victoria, who was latterly éprise with Disraeli, one day asked him what was his real religion. "Madam," he replied, "I am the blank page between the Old Testament and the New.""

"We are the children of the gods, and are never more the slaves of circumstance than when we deem ourselves their masters. What may next happen in the dazzling farce of life, the Fates only know."

"Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones."

"He told Lord Esher that, in talking with the Queen, he observed a simple rule: "I never deny; I never contradict; I sometimes forget.""

"If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune; and if anybody pulled him out, that, I suppose, would be a calamity."

"No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married."

"He has not a single redeeming defect."

"Where knowledge ends, religion begins."

"Everyone likes flattery, and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel."

"The young Prince Leopold has the nose of a fairytale prince who has been enchanted by an evil witch."

"There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics."

"Diligence is the mother of good fortune."

"If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change."

"Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it: he that fears otherwise, gives advantage to the danger."

"Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit."

"Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning."

"Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most."

"The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation."

"They that touch pitch will be defiled."

"John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich: "Foote, I have often wondered what catastrophe would bring you to your end; but I think, that you must either die of the pox, or the halter." Samuel Foote: "My lord, that will depend upon one of two contingencies; -- whether I embrace your lordship's mistress, or your lordship's principles.""

"Under this roof are the heads of the family of Rothschild a name famous in every capital of Europe and every division of the globe. If you like, we shall divide the United States into two parts, one for you, James, and one for you, Lionel. Napoleon will do exactly and all that I shall advise him to do; and to Bismark will be suggested such an intoxicating programme as to make him our abject slave."

"The more extensive an author's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do."

"Candour is the brightest gem of criticism."

"Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm."

"Mediocrity can talk; but it is for genius to observe."

"Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation."

"The art of governing mankind by deceiving them."

"The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation."

"Whenever we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize."

"He was quite remarkable enough to fill a volume of Éloge. Someone wrote to me yesterday that no Jew for 1800 years has played so great a part in the world. That would be no Jew since St. Paul; and it is very startling."

"Toryism, as we know it, was illuminated, expounded, and made a gospel for a large portion of this country by the genius of Benjamin Disraeli. Most of us who have worked for our great party have founded our beliefs on, and derived our inspiration from that statesman."

"Der alte Jude, das ist der Mann!"

"Time and time again the stories we read about Disraeli's demeanour, dress and conversation remind us not so much of the grave sedate bourgeois England that he was destined to govern as of the England which flourished ten years after his death – the England of the Yellow Book and Oscar Wilde. Wilde acknowledged his debt. It was no accident that he chose the title of Dorian Gray for one of his most extravagant books, and his own famous epigrams might well, without incongruity, have appeared in the pages of a Disraeli novel."

"Disraeli added certain features peculiarly his own to the pattern with which he was to stamp the Conservative party, and these enhanced the contrast with Gladstonian liberalism: belief in empire; adoption of a tough, "no nonsense", foreign policy; assertion of Britain's...greatness in the world. Disraeli was unsympathetic to all forms of nationalism except English nationalism – this was quite compatible with being most unEnglish himself – and he saw no reason, whether in Ireland or the Balkans or elsewhere, to allow what he considered English interests to be overridden by the supposedly higher moral law that encourages the emancipation of nations "rightly struggling to be free". ... His attitude decisively orientated the Conservative party for many years to come, and the tradition which he started was probably a bigger electoral asset in winning working-class support during the last quarter of the century than anything else."

"Where Disraeli excelled was in the art of presentation. He was an impresario and an actor manager. He was a superb parliamentarian, one of the half dozen greatest in our history. He knew how much depends upon impression, style, colour; and how small a part is played in politics by logic, cool reason, calm appraisal of alternatives. This is why politicians appreciate him."

"Disraeli was in many ways a very "unVictorian" figure... [His] scepticism makes Disraeli a less "dated" figure than almost any contemporary politician. Morally and intellectually Gladstone was his superior... But he was, far more than Disraeli, a man of his times. It is hard to imagine him living in any other period, whereas it is quite easy to envisage Disraeli living either today or in the era of Lord North. It is this timelessness that gives his best novels their lasting fascination, and makes his wit as good now as it was a hundred years ago. There is a champagne-like sparkle about him which has scarcely been equalled and never surpassed among statesmen."

"Now, Mr. Disraeli is a man who does what may be called the conjuring for his party. He is what, amongst a tribe of Red Indians, would be called "the mystery man." He invents phrases for them... Mr. Disraeli is a man of brains, of genius, of great capacity for action, of a wonderful tenacity of purpose, and of a rare courage. He would have been a statesman if his powers had been directed by any noble principle or idea."

"Disraeli has been possessed by a devouring ambition, not to preach and act the truth, but to distinguish himself. "We come here for fame!" he said to me many years ago, and he has distinguished himself, but on a low field, and with no results which can be looked back upon with satisfaction."

"Benjamin Disraeli was a great man. Alone among statesmen of his generation he perceived the fallacy of the Manchester School and of the departure in national policy which it had initiated. The immediate interests of the factory owner, the worker and the investor might be served by a free trade policy. But in the long run he knew that the policy must leave the nation at the mercy of world-wide forces beyond its control."

"The idea of private wealth not based on the fulfilment of social duty was repugnant to him because it was contrary to nature. The vice of the laissez-faire economists was that they regarded capital as an economic commodity divorced from political and social activity. They treated its use as a purely private affair. Disraeli saw capital not as a commodity of value but as political and social power: as something to be used as a trust. He therefore wished to see its possession permanently associated with social obligations. The ownership of land was capable of giving such association. That of stocks and shares was not. In all this Disraeli was a Socialist before Socialism became a political force."

"He was deeply imbued with the spirit of England’s history and institutions... At the back of Disraeli’s mind lay always certain ancient English ideals—the one Tudor and the other medieval—of a united nation and of a continuing community composed of men and women possessing inalienable privileges and rights secured by a stronger tenure than that of their own lives. His conception of society was essentially religious and humane—an ordered hierarchy based on a universal recognition of human needs and rights. He wished to restore dignity, romance and personal influence to the throne, responsibility to the nobility and gentry, moral authority to the Church, above all, status, pride of craft and security to the peasant and worker."

"What strikes me most singular in you is, that you are fonder of Power than of Fame."

"[T]his was the anniversary of the death of one of the most remarkable of English statesmen, who passed away amid the genuine sorrow of untold thousands. It had been his duty and his privilege to act with Lord Beaconsfield ... and he wished Lord Beaconsfield could be recalled from his grave now to lend his counsel and the experience of his long life to a country harassed and vexed and storm-tossed as ours was now. Lord Beaconsfield's great quality was a genuine and ardent love of his country, love of its greatness, and jealously for its ancient honour. In him there was no preference for foreign practices and cosmopolitan ideas."

"The great European figures of the later nineteenth century were Disraeli and Bismarck, who strove to weld together the "two nations" into one through the agencies of the social service state, popular education and imperialism, refuted the taunt that "the worker has no country", and paved the way for "national labour", "national socialism" and even "national communism"."

"I think I could not offer a greater offence to my Conservative friends here or anywhere than to tell them that they are not a progressive party. They may not have agreed to the demand for revolutionary changes in the past, but they have been in a special sense—and it cannot be denied by any fair critic—the great apostles of social reform. And who was their teacher? Who was their leader? It was Mr. Disraeli, who laid the seeds of his doctrine in his great novel Sybil. Though he found his party slow to educate, they made such progress under his guidance, and under the subsequent guidance of Lord Randolph Churchill and others, that they have now arrived at a position in which they may fairly claim that it is to their efforts and to their legislation that the great social reforms now impressed upon the Statute-book of this country are due."

"Lord Beaconsfield was the great enemy of Mr. Gladstone, and everybody called him 'Dizzy.' However, this time [1880] 'Dizzy' had been thoroughly beaten by Mr. Gladstone, so we were all flung out into Opposition and the country began to be ruined very rapidly. Everyone said it was 'going to the dogs.' And then on top of all this Lord Beaconsfield got very ill. He had a long illness; and as he was also very old, it killed him. I followed his illness from day to day with great anxiety, because everyone said what a loss he would be to his country and how no one else could stop Mr. Gladstone from working his wicked will upon us all. I was always sure Lord Beaconsfield was going to die, and at last the day came when all the people I saw went about with very sad faces because, as they said, a great and splendid Statesman, who loved our country and defied the Russians, had died of a broken heart because of the ingratitude with which he had been treated by the Radicals."

"Lady Augusta Stanley, who is an authority on Court matters, told me that Dizzy writes daily letters to the Queen in his best novel style, telling her every scrap of political news dressed up to serve his own purpose, and every scrap of social gossip cooked to amuse her. She declares that she has never had such letters in her life, which is probably true, and that she never before knew everything!"

"Walk with Pender... His own friends, strong Liberals up to the present date...believe that Gladstone, half out of ambition and half out of sentimental sympathy, is ready to throw all the influence of the state into the scale against the employer. But while they dislike Gladstone, they are equally suspicious and afraid of Disraeli: they think him the enemy of the capitalist class."

"He has an odd dislike of middle-class men, though they are the strength of our party."

"Earlier in the century, according to Disraeli, the Conservative Party had been severed from its philosophical roots and withered. Successive Liberal ministries...had borrowed "cosmopolitan" principles to justify an assault upon the venerable institutions. Now, however, the people were weary of alien doctrines and reckless legislation, and Conservatives were poised to embark upon restoration, because they had reconstituted themselves as a national party able to nourish the patriotic sentiments of propertied and working classes alike... Disraeli now added a vision, calculated to appeal to all classes, of a Britain sitting astride an empire, which, though threatened by the anti-colonial policies of Liberal governments, might become an even richer source of national pride and greatness."

"...a man who is never beaten. Every reverse, every defeat is to him only an admonition to wait and catch his opportunity of retrieving his position."

"The downfall of Beaconsfieldism is like the vanishing of some vast magnificent castle in an Italian romance."

"In death he remains as he was in life. All show with no substance."

"I who...thought his doctrines false, but the man more false than his doctrine; who believe that he demoralised public opinion, bargained with diseased appetites, stimulated passions, prejudices, and selfish desires, that they might maintain his influence; that he weakened the Crown by approving its unconstitutional leanings, and the Constitution by offering any price for democratic popularity,—who, privately, deem him the worst and most immoral minister since Castlereagh."

"Mr. G. seemed to attribute much or most of the cross-fighting and personal running in Parliament to the infection of Disraeli's character and career. He said he felt most deeply the dreadful mischief he had done to his party and politics generally... In past times the Tory Party had principles by which it would and did stand for bad and for good. All this Dizzy destroyed."

"I never knew a greater master, in writing, in speaking, and in conversation, of censure and of eulogy. His long habit of sparkling literary composition, his facility in dealing with epigram, metaphor, antithesis, and even alliteration, gave him a singular power of coining and applying phrases which at once laid hold of the popular mind, and attached praise or blame to actions of the contending Parties in the State. Lord Beaconsfield had certainly the power of appealing in his policy, in his character, and in his career, to the imagination of his countrymen and of foreigners, a power which was not extinguished even by death."

"The last phase of principled politics in England came with the appearance of Benjamin Disraeli. He learned to think inductively from his profound father Isaac Disraeli, and moulded his political scepticism on the principles of Bolingbroke. Disraeli failed because his insight into politics coincided with the hey-day of laisser-faire. The transitory economic advantages of that system brooked no criticism while they lasted, Disraeli laboured after a precautionary unity that was not for the moment an economic necessity. In the Conservatism of Sir Robert Peel, he found a middle-class and short-sighted policy. The Conservative party was in much the same state as it is to-day, appealing to moderate opinion because it was entirely noncommittal through a confusion of values. It tried to apply Tory standards to Liberal conditions and inevitably sacrificed the standards to the conditions. The ruling classes had lain fallow since the Napoleonic wars, and principles of government were laid aside heedless of the future. Disraeli looked on the growing City of London as a Whig creation, and he understood Protection as Bismarck did, and later Joseph Chamberlain, from a national and not a manufacturers' point of view. To Disraeli the items that figured on a balance sheet were only important so far as they fostered the character of the people. He legalised the Trade Unions and one can fairly surmise that he recognised in Socialism an exhibition of the unled forces of revolting Toryism. It is doubtful if in August, 1930, he would have called a Government national that was opposed to those forces. Disraeli would have co-ordinated industry even in those days on a national and static basis. He was sixty years before his time in attempting to achieve unity in modern industrialism. In comparison with Mr. Baldwin it is important to remember that Disraeli's theory of the two nations might have rendered a great service to political concord, if later Conservatives had not taken to appealing to middle-class opinion."

"Lord O. Russell said that the impression which Lord Beaconsfield made at Berlin was extraordinarily great, and that it was impossible to overrate the extreme ability with which he conducted much of the Congress business. The other representatives were evidently afraid of him, and of all the marked men assembled there, no one was regarded with so much curiosity or treated with so much deference."

"For an earlier period, Disraeli would surely be the locus classicus. But it would be hard to say that Disraeli was ever pursuing an intellectual agenda, or that his purposes were fully realized in his political undertakings. He had unusually sharp political instincts, both about what was possible and what was necessary: about how much change was needed if you wished to keep the important things as they were. In this respect Disraeli is the living embodiment of the Edmund Burke–Thomas Macaulay version of English history: a story in which the country serially and successfully undertakes minor adjustments in order to avoid major transformations across the centuries. But of course, it all depends what you mean by "minor" and "major." Disraeli was responsible for the 1867 Second Reform Act which added a million voters to the election rolls. Even if we assume that this too was a calculated release of the political safety valve—a move meant to head off popular demands for more radical reform—it still bespeaks a political intelligence beyond the norm. Disraeli, the first conservative politician to grasp the possibilities of mass electoral support and appreciate that democracy need not undermine the core powers of a ruling elite, was also unusual among his mid-Victorian contemporaries in appreciating at an early stage how much Britain would need to change if it were to remain a world power."

""The landed interest of England" was, to the day of his death, the object of his devotion; and on it he constantly maintained that the greatness of England had been reared. Hence his opinions on Free Trade and Protection."

"Lord Beaconsfield was one of the three great Tory Ministers of the last hundred years ... The other two are Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Pitt ... Pitt virtually put an end to the quarrel between the King and the aristocracy, and reconciled the Tory doctrine of Monarchy with the Whig doctrine of Parliament. Peel accommodated Toryism to the new régime established by the Reform Bill, and his name will always be identified with the progress of middle-class reform. Lord Beaconsfield carried Toryism into the next stage, and made it the business of his life to close up the gap in our social system which, during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, had, as he thought, gradually been widening, and to reconcile the working classes to the Throne, the Church, and the Aristocracy."

"He never adopted with any heartiness the new régime which was established by the Reform Bill of 1832. Of ancient and illustrious descent, he could sympathise with a genuine aristocracy. A self-made man...he could sympathise with labour. But with the great "middle man"—the great middle class so long regarded as the backbone of English life—his sympathies, I suspect, were small. Herein, I think, lies the key to his entire policy... [H]e said in 1839, speaking of the throne of Louis Philippe, "I have no faith in a middle-class monarchy". He saw that the old aristocratic régime, with all its external anomalies, and all the fictions which he satirized, represented fixed principles and contained large elements of power. He believed the same of a great popular monarchy based on the love and loyalty of the people, such as he believed the monarchy of the Tudors to have been. But he evidently did not believe in the stability of institutions founded only on a compromise and appealing only to the selfish instincts of capitalists."

"He was an aristocrat of aristocrats. He had no notion of allowing political power to be divorced from the principle of birth and property. He always spoke of the country gentlemen of England as the natural leaders of the rural population. Both in his speeches and in his writings he loved to dwell on the advantages of what he called "a territorial constitution." And perhaps he did not always make sufficient allowance for the inroads which had been made in it during the fifty years that followed the first Reform Bill. Such, at least, is the impression which his language on the subject has left upon my own mind. His sarcasms at the expense of the English aristocracy were limited to a very small section of them, though often mistaken for contempt of aristocracy in general. There could not be a greater error. He believed himself to possess a pedigree compared with which the pedigrees of the oldest families in Christendom were as things of yesterday."

"I still retain a vivid recollection of his appearance, his black curly hair, his affected manner, and his somewhat fantastic dress... He excited my wonder—perhaps my admiration—by his extraordinary and foppish dress. He wore waistcoats of the most gorgeous colours and the most fantastic patterns, with much gold embroidery, velvet pantaloons, and shoes adorned with red rosettes."

"The novelist who has not been revived is Disraeli. Yet, though he is not one of the great novelists, he is so alive and intelligent as to deserve permanent currency, at any rate in the trilogy Coningsby, Sybil and Tancred: his own interests as expressed in these books—the interests of a supremely intelligent politician who has a sociologist's understanding of civilization and its movement in his time—are so mature."

"Few democratic political parties can have so systemically and ruthlessly called into question the integrity, the devotion to the institutions of the country, and the patriotism of its opponents. In illustrating this argument it is appropriate to begin with Disraeli's Crystal Palace speech in 1872, one of the most important public speeches ever made by a Conservative leader. He argued...that it was the threefold purpose of the Conservative Party "to maintain the institutions of the country..., to uphold the empire of England..., [and] to elevate the condition of the people." It is with the enunciation of the second Conservative purpose that the party took its first long step to becoming the party of empire and indeed of imperialism... In the years that immediately followed Disraeli's pre-emption of the Empire as a uniquely Conservative cause, an increasingly strident note creeps into party literature whenever reference is made to the Liberals' attitude on imperial and foreign issues."

"The Congress of Berlin was in a way a fitting climax to the career of the Prime Minister. From the beginning of the Eastern crisis he had fought for his image of the greatness of Britain... [H]is sense of country was as strong and deep as perhaps any feelings he had. The enthusiasm and affection with which he was received in England upon his return from Berlin was a partial recognition of this. If he and Salisbury had not exactly brought back peace with honour they had secured peace with prestige. It marked the end of a period of fifteen years during which the policy and position of England were too often marked by self-effacement, embarrassment, and ignominy. For many, a bracing assertion of national strength and purpose was welcome nectar after so long a drought. In so far as this assertion was the work of any single individual, it was the contribution of Beaconsfield."

"'Why is Gladstone like a telescope?' was a riddle which had a great vogue in Tory circles. 'Because Disraeli draws him out, looks through him, and shuts him up.'"

"He was a great statesman. Look at his vision of democracy, his Reform Bill, his views on the American Civil War. And look at his courage! His speech vindicating the Jews—Lord John Russell sat opposite during its delivery, and turned to his neighbours on the Front Bench and said, "What courage! There is not a man on the Tory benches around him but doesn't disapprove of every word he says.""

"It is very difficult to say what Lord Beaconsfield's real view of politics was, but my own impression is that he was deeply attached to the traditions of government by aristocracy, the romantic side of which appealed to his imagination and nature. At heart I think he feared the eventual triumph of a sort of mob rule, the coming of which it was ever his object to delay. Undoubtedly in his last years he was extremely pessimistic as to the future, having, rightly or wrongly, no particular confidence in the political sagacity of an English democracy, the judgment of which he thought could be easily swayed by unprincipled and specious agitators."

"My approach is probably that of a Disraeli conservative—a strong foreign policy, strong adherence to basic values that the nation believes in, and to conserving those values and not being destructive of them, but combined with reform—reform that will work, not reform that destroys."

"No spectacle is more extraordinary than the power which Disraeli acquired after being laughed down by everyone; acquired, and wields still, so many years after his death. I think that his most potent philtre lay in his flattery. He flattered his Sovereign, his party, and the nation itself, with all the florid eloquence and subtle suggestion of which he was so admirable a master."

"Of all our Prime Ministers, Disraeli is unique in having founded a political faith... Disraeli, dead now seventy-two years, still gives inspiration to a great political movement, and evokes an affectionate veneration which grows rather than diminishes with the lapse of time... [T]hose who had scarcely known him, or to whom he was solely a character of history, found in his writings – the novels, the speeches, the essays, especially those of his earlier and middle years – a deposit of pure instruction and delight; and a hitherto hidden consistency and connection of principles and practice, reflection and act, came to light. Like Joshua, he appeared as both prophet and captain... [T]wo characteristics of Disraeli which are specifically Jewish do help to account for the lasting importance of his thought. They are characteristics exemplified in Sidonia, the nearest approach to self-portraiture in Disraeli's novels. They are intellectual aloofness, and a belief in the significance of race... "Race," says Sidonia to Coningsby, the idealised young Englishman, "is everything," and he proceeds to dilate upon the parallel between the Jewish and English "races", guided along the path of their respective destinies by instinct... It all sounds to us fanciful and rather Hitlerian, but only if we fail to see that the desire to produce a parallel between Britain and Judah had led Disraeli to say "race" where we should say "nation", and, incidentally, that "race" has overtones for us which it had not for our grandfathers. "Instinct", too, is the word we should use; for biology and anthropology have given us new categories of thought and language. Disraeli claimed to be "on the side of the angels"; but when he talked about "relying on the instincts of the race", he was actually dealing in the ideas of evolution."

"In each of the two novels, Coningsby and Sybil, two other themes are interwoven with the main allegory of a nation reunited and a working class elevated. They are themes that were never far away from Disraeli's political thinking; and in later novels...they were to form the main themes. They are race and the Church... In words such as those lies perhaps the one political mission to which that kaleidoscopic and enigmatical character Benjamin Disraeli genuinely felt himself called: to teach the English their nationhood... Disraeli sounds the authentic Tory note of faith in instinct – not instinct disembodied and abstract but the national instinct of a homogeneous people. "Tell them," says Disraeli as Prime Minister in a Punch cartoon when asked what answer to give to enquirers who want to know Conservative policy, "tell them that we shall rely upon the sublime instincts of an ancient people.""

"Here's the man who rode the race, who took the time, who kept the time, and who did the trick!"

"Zeal for the greatness of England was the passion of his life... [T]he people of this country recognized the force with which this desire dominated his actions, and they repaid it by an affection and reverence which did not depend upon, nor had any concern with, their opinion as to the particular policy pursued. My Lords, this was his great title to their attachment—that above all things he wished to see England united, powerful, and great."

"One of Disraeli's main legacies to the party was reclaiming its position as the patriotic "party of empire"... Disraeli...saw an opportunity after Palmerston's death to champion the Empire and bolster Britain's prestige, and he squeezed every last drop out of the opportunity... Sensing a growing public demand for patriotism, Disraeli used his speeches at Manchester and Crystal Palace in 1872 to mark out a bold imperial vision for his party. Disraeli's commitment to the Empire continued in office after 1874. The following year, he took the audacious step of purchasing nearly half of the Suez Canal Company shares... In 1876, Disraeli cemented his warm relationship with Victoria, his "Faerie Queen", by bestowing on her the title "Empress of India". Gladstone denounced the gesture as distinctly "un-English", but it instantaneously raised the status of the monarchy and India became the "jewel in the crown" of the Empire."

"Disraeli's substantial achievement at Manchester [in 1872] was to blend advantageously the old doctrines of constitutional Conservatism with new emphases on social reform and empire... [T]here was an even more significant body of opinion bewildered and resentful at the eclipse of Britain as a European power and very much in need of comfort and reassurance. Without actually using words as revealing as "consolation" or "compensation", Disraeli went as near as made no difference to offering empire to the "national" public for precisely such a purpose... Disraeli proceeded [at Crystal Palace in 1872] to analyse the "three great objects" of "the Tory party, or as I will venture to call it, the National party". These were to maintain the institutions of the country, to uphold the empire, and to elevate the condition of the people."

"They say, and say truly enough, What an actor the man is!—and yet the ultimate impression is of absolute sincerity and unreserve. Grant Duff will have it that he is an alien. What's England to him or he to England? There is just where they are wrong. Whig or Radical or Tory don't matter much perhaps; but this mightier Venice—this Imperial Republic on which the sun never sets—that vision fascinates him, or I am much mistaken. England is the Israel of his imagination, and he will be the Imperial Minister before he dies—if he gets the chance."

"Disraeli, in his youth, laid down the principles on which the England of his time ought to have been based, and his comparative failure to convince his contemporaries...left his country the richer by a supreme instance of political genius and the poorer by its slums, its wasted physique, and its industrial unrest and class hatred. If a Providence could have made Disraeli a dictator in the early 'thirties, there would have been no social problem to-day. That great man desired to build up the new industrial State on the principles and practice which had animated the older rural and urban dispensations—on the community of interest between master and man, between capitalist and employee, between guild and guild, between agricultural labourer and town workman. What was best in the feudal conception of the past was to be applied to the new progressive forces of the nineteenth century, and the aristocracy of industry was to follow in the tradition of the aristocracy of feudalism and make itself the guardian, and not the exploiter, of its new retainers."

"Disraeli's proclamation at the Crystal Palace of the "three great objects" of "the national party", to maintain the monarchy, the House of Lords and the church, to "uphold the Empire of England", and to elevate "the condition of the people" summed up the Tory doctrines he had been preaching for nearly forty years. He was reasserting the indispensability of his leadership by defining Toryism in the terms he had patented, summoning his followers to march to the music only he knew how to play. The strategy of protecting the institutional and social order by seeking national integration both through the focusing of popular sentiment on the symbols of crown and empire and through attention to the material bases of popular well-being in the frame of national efficiency would supply the Conservative party with the major elements of its appeal to the mass electorate for almost a century."

"Disraeli, like his successors, saw society in terms of a trust, drawing its cohesion from the observance of mutual obligations and its rulers ready to employ where necessary the huge engine of government to promote the wellbeing of the people. Toryism needed—and needs—to identify itself with forces and feelings making for stability, the preservation of national institutions and the enlargement of national prestige."

"No doubt Bismarck and Disraeli dominated the Congress of Berlin, and equally there is no doubt that Disraeli found Bismarck a fascinating and bizarre figure. Bismarck behaved in an unusual way to Disraeli as well. He called upon him, something he never did after he achieved his great status, and he invited him to a family dinner, a confidence accorded to literally no other foreign statesman."

"The real hit of the congress was the personal tie between Bismarck and Beaconsfield. No doubt Bismarck flattered "the old Jew" in order to extract concessions for Russia's benefit. But the mutual affection was genuine. The two men recognised their common qualities... Each admired the actor in the other, and characteristically each noted the beauty of the other's voice. Both had the brooding melancholy of the Romantic movement in its Byronic phase; both had broken into the charmed circle of privilege—Bismarck as a boorish Junker, Disraeli as a Jew; both had a profound contempt for political moralising. Was it Disraeli or Bismarck who said of himself: "My temperament is dreamy and sentimental. People who paint me all make the mistake of giving me a violent expression"? Was it Disraeli or Bismarck who said on becoming prime minister: "Well, I've climbed to the top of the greasy pole"? In politics both men had used universal suffrage to ruin liberalism or, in the English phrase, "to dish the Whigs". Both genuinely advocated social reform; Disraeli had once defended protective tariffs. Both used foreign success to strengthen their position at home. When Bismarck was told of the British occupation of Cyprus, he exclaimed: "This is progress! It will be popular: a nation loves progress!" Beaconsfield was annoyed at having the words taken out of his mouth and commented sourly: "His idea of progress obviously consists in taking something from somebody else"—an idea which Beaconsfield had made the basis of Tory policy."

"Disraeli was an artist in politics, whose principal achievement was his own career. But he had an imaginative appreciation of the nature of political power which no one in his generation could match... The majesty of power Disraeli saw as a genuine element in the world. Thus, to approach it with some show of pomp and circumstance was not to indulge in theatrical nonsense—even if admitting that it was a show. When he spoke of jewels in the imperial diadem, Conservative members would say that this was just Dizzy's way, but he was putting into words for them romantically patriotic convictions that they themselves would never express... Sir Henry Lawrence...had once written that it was 'the due admixture of Romance and Reality that best carries a man through life'. Disraeli seemed to know what that precise admixture should be. It was this inner sureness of touch and grasp, this mastery of occasion, that had carried him against all odds into the command of the political ideas of so many dukes, squires, soldiers, lawyers, brewers, and private gentlemen. Disraeli, his party felt, dumbly but truly, knew what politics were about."

"What distinguished Lord Beaconsfield from the ordinary Tory leaders was his readiness to trust the English people whom they did not trust, and his total indifference to the barriers of caste, which for them were the be-all and end-all of politics. In the inarticulate mass of the English populace which they held at arm's length he discerned the Conservative working man, as the sculptor perceives the angel prisoned in a block of marble. He understood that the common Englishman, even when he personally has nothing to guard beyond a narrow income and a frugal home, has yet Conservative instincts as strong as those of the wealthiest peer."

"Mr. Gladstone ranked Disraeli as the greatest master of parliamentary wit that had ever been. He looked upon his character as a great mystery, and it pained him to feel that the mystery will never be solved."

"In whatever he has written he has affected something which has been intended to strike his readers as uncommon and therefore grand. Because he has been bright and a man of genius, he has carried his object as regards the young. He has struck them with astonishment and aroused in their imagination ideas of a world more glorious, more rich, more witty, more enterprising, than their own. But the glory has been the glory of pasteboard, and the wealth has been a wealth of tinsel. The wit has been the wit of hairdressers, and the enterprise has been the enterprise of mountebanks."

"Disraeli has become a code name for "collectivist" or, as they now put it, rather inaccurately, "corporatist" policies. He is the mascot of the "wets". This is a grievous distortion of history. It is true that, in his romantic youth, he wrote the only phrase which the majority of his present-day admirers have ever read from his pen – about there being a nation of the rich and a nation of the poor. His paternalism, however, was superficial. In so far as he ever favoured authoritarian measures for the defence of what are now ludicrously called the "under-privileged" he favoured them not so much in the name of abstract social justice as in that of national cohesion. What he believed in was the Nation which he tended in those benighted days to call the Race. This is his one, valid, surviving contribution to Conservative thinking. He was an imperialist."

"The present man will do well, and will be particularly loyal and anxious to please me in every way. He is vy. peculiar, but vy. clever and sensible and vy. conciliatory."

"Disraeli was a racial thinker. He thought race "the key of history". "All is race", he wrote; "All is race; there is no other truth", said Sidonia. Race, for him, transcended everything: it explained religion; it explained politics. Disraeli was far more of a racial thinker than a social or religious thinker... Disraeli's racial doctrine went the whole hog. Not only was race the key to history, but some races were far superior to others. There were master races, and there were the rest. Their superiority was a biological matter rather than just a cultural one, and depended on purity of blood. Interbreeding caused racial degeneration. If such doctrines ring oddly today, let us recall that they were advanced for the best of reasons: to raise a downtrodden people, the Jews, in the esteem of mankind, and to raise them, moreover, not to equality, but to a position of hardly deserved superiority among the nations. Disraeli was unusual not because he used the common coin of pseudo-scientific racial thought, but because he used it for Jewish (and therefore, in the circumstances, virtuous) ends. Disraeli said little about the lower races; his object was to praise, not to disparage. There was an absence of malign intent. Still, Disraeli believed that to think racially was to be modern and scientific."

"He looked to national consensus in the 1830s and again in the 1870s; it does not follow that the intermediate decades were consistent. In the 1840s, Young England was more about social cohesion than national identity... It was only in the 1870s that the two themes of social cohesion and national identity were finally integrated... Many Conservative parties elsewhere failed to make the crucial move from élite parties to mass parties, partly because they did not have a brand image, or not one that could be put across in popular terms. It is to Disraeli's mental footwork as much as anything that the Conservatives owe their survival."

"Sybil can be read now as the production of a future Conservative Prime Minister, and hence in the narrow sense as a political novel. The elements of political pleading are indeed evident in any reading of it. Their curiosity, their partisanship and their opportunism are matched only by their brilliance of address. The novel would be fascinating if it were only political. The stucco elegance of Disraeli’s writing has a consonance with one kind of political argument. What is intolerable in his descriptions of persons and feelings becomes in his political flights a rather likeable panache. The descriptions of industrial squalor are very like those of Dickens on Coketown: brilliant romantic generalizations—the view from the train, from the hustings, from the printed page—yet often moving, like all far-seeing rhetoric. There are similar accounts of the conditions of the agricultural poor which need to be kept in mind against the misleading contrasts of North and South. Again, in a quite different manner, there is in Sybil the most spirited description of the iniquities of the tommy-shop, and of the practical consequences of the system of truck, to be found anywhere. Disraeli's anger—the generalized anger of an outsider making his way—carries him often beyond his formal text. The hostile descriptions of London political and social life are again generalization, but they have, doubtless, the same rhetorical significance as those of the forays among the poor. Anyone who is prepared to give credit to Disraeli's unsupported authority on any matter of social fact has of course mistaken his man, as he would similarly mistake Dickens. But Disraeli, like Dickens, is a very fine generalizing analyst of cant, and almost as fine a generalizing rhetorician of human suffering. Both functions, it must be emphasized, are reputable."

"The "landed interest" and its possibilities always fired the imagination of Disraeli... In Disraeli the agricultural landlords had the most eloquent champion of their class and cause that England or any other country has ever seen. Disraeli believed in them more than some of them believed in him, and was not ashamed to say so. "Good-bye, my dear lord," said he at the end of a visit to one of the stately homes of England, "you have shown me the finest spectacle these islands can afford—a great nobleman living at home among his own people." What could be better?"

"[Thatcher] began by asking what benefits ordinary people had received after 3½ years of Socialism. The Government should do what any good housewife would do if money was short—look at their accounts and see what was wrong."

"Don't be scared of the high language of economists and Cabinet ministers, but think of politics at our own household level. After all, women live in contact with food supplies, housing shortages, and the ever-decreasing opportunities for children, and we must therefore face up to the position, remembering that as more power is taken away from the people, so there is less responsibility for us to assume."

"It was not a Government that built up the skill and craft of this country...It was private individuals who patiently persevered, building up their businesses bit by bit...Their success provided employment for others and greatly benefited the community as a whole. This was the spirit that made England great and can restore her once again. Do you want it to perish for a soul-less Socialist system, or to live to recreate a glorious Britain?"

"We have reached a crisis in world history, a crisis which demands swift and certain action...We believe in the freedom of the democratic way of life. If we serve that idea faithfully with tenacity of purpose, we have nothing to fear from Russian Communism...Communism seizes power by force, not by free choice of the people. The democratic nations must therefore have forces with which to fight it so that choice of government may be free. In the light of these convictions our task is clear. We must firstly believe in the Western way of life and serve it steadfastly. Secondly we must build up our fighting strength to be prepared to defend our ideals, for aggressive nations understand only the threat of force. The situation is already grave, but much is possible for a nation with clear intentions and the ability to carry them into action."

"Every Conservative desires peace. The threat to peace comes from Communism, which has powerful forces ready to attack anywhere. Communism waits for weakness, it leaves strength alone. Britain therefore must be strong, strong in arms, and strong in faith in her own way of life. The greatest hope for peace lies in friendship and co-operation with the United States of America."

"In considering our traditional ties with the Commonwealth we should remember that it now differs greatly from the entity which existed 20 or 30 years ago. Many of us do not feel quite the same allegiance to Archbishop Makarios or Doctor Nkrumah or to people like Jomo Kenyatta as we do towards Mr. Menzies of Australia."

"In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman."

"It is good to recall how our freedom has been gained in this country—not by great abstract campaigns but through the objections of ordinary men and women to having their money taken from them by the State. In the early days, people banded together and said to the then Government, “You shall not take our money before you have redressed our grievances”. It was their money, their wealth, which was the source of their independence against the Government."

"Our freedoms depended on our having independence, independence in the wage packet, and independence of the Government...If you rely always on a Government for your wage packet, then the source of your independence to fight that Government has gone...Already one person in four works in the public sector. This is more than enough, and we must stop the encroachment from going any further."

"The...philosophical reason for which we are against nationalisation and for private enterprise is because we believe that economic progress comes from the inventiveness, ability, determination and the pioneering spirit of extraordinary men and women. If they cannot exercise that spirit here, they will go away to another free enterprise country which will then make more economic progress than we do. We ought, in fact, to be encouraging small firms and small companies, because the extent to which innovation comes through these companies is tremendous."

"One of the effects of the rapid spread of higher education has been to equip people to criticise and question almost everything. Some of them seem to have stopped there instead of going on to the next stage which is to arrive at new beliefs or to reaffirm old ones. You will perhaps remember seeing in the press the report that the student leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit has been awarded a degree on the result of his past work. His examiners said that he had posed a series of most intelligent questions. Significant? I would have been happier had he also found a series of intelligent answers."

"I started life with two great advantages: no money, and good parents."

"I don't think there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime."

"Parents can best exert influence through local authorities"

"If you really don't like it, and if your child isn't progressing, have a word with the head teacher. And if you're still not satisfied, or feel that you want your child to go to a school with a different kind of philosophy and approach—the only thing is to approach your education authority and have him transferred to another school, though an extra change of school is not always good for a child"

"I wish I could say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had done himself less than justice. Unfortunately, I can only say that I believe he has done himself justice. Some Chancellors are macro-economic. Other Chancellors are fiscal. This one is just plain cheap."

"I was attacked for fighting a rearguard action in defence of “middle-class interests.”...Well, if “middle class values” include the encouragement of variety and individual choice, the provision of fair incentives and rewards for skill and hard work, the maintenance of effective barriers against the excessive power of the State and a belief in the wide distribution of individual private property, then they are certainly what I am trying to defend. This is not a fight for “privilege”; it is a fight for freedom—freedom for every citizen."

"If a Tory does not believe that private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had better become a socialist and have done with it."

"This is not a confrontation between ‘left’ and ‘right’. I am trying to represent the deep feelings of those many thousands of rank-and-file Tories in the country—and potential Conservative voters, too—who feel let down by our party and find themselves unrepresented in a political vacuum."

"In the desperate situation of Britain today, our party needs the support of all who value the traditional ideals of Toryism: compassion, and concern for the individual and his freedom; opposition to excessive State power; the right of the enterprising, the hard-working and the thrifty to succeed and to reap the rewards of success and pass some of them on to their children; encouragement of that infinite diversity of choice that is an essential of freedom; the defence of widely-distributed private property against the Socialist State; the right of a man to work without oppression by either employer or trade union boss. There is a widespread feeling in the country that the Conservative party has not defended these ideals explicitly and toughly enough, so that Britain is set on a course towards inevitable Socialist mediocrity. That course must not only be halted, it must be reversed."

"Our challenge is to create the kind of economic background which enables private initiative and private enterprise to flourish for the benefit of the consumer, employee, the pensioner, and society as a whole...I believe we should judge people on merit and not on background. I believe the person who is prepared to work hardest should get the greatest rewards and keep them after tax. That we should back the workers and not the shirkers: that it is not only permissible but praiseworthy to want to benefit your own family by your own efforts"

"I place a profound belief—indeed a fervent faith—in the virtues of self reliance and personal independence. On these is founded the whole case for the free society, for the assertion that human progress is best achieved by offering the freest possible scope for the development of individual talents, qualified only by a respect for the qualities and the freedom of others...For many years there has been a subtle erosion of the essential virtues of the free society. Self-reliance has been sneered at as if it were an absurd suburban pretention. Thrift has been denigrated as if it were greed. The desire of parents to choose and to struggle for what they themselves regarded as the best possible education for their children has been scorned."

"I do not believe, in spite of all this, that the people of this country have abandoned their faith in the qualities and characteristics which made them a great people. Not a bit of it. We are still the same people. All that has happened is that we have temporarily lost confidence in our own strength. We have lost sight of the banners. The trumpets have given an uncertain sound. It is our duty, our purpose, to raise those banners high, so that all can see them, to sound the trumpets clearly and boldly so that all can hear them. Then we shall not have to convert people to our principles. They will simply rally to those which truly are their own."

"This Party of ours has been on the defensive for too long. The time has come to counter-attack...The intellectual counter-attack is as important as the counter-attack in Parliament and in the constituencies. If we can win the battle of ideas, then the war will already be half-won."

"I shall never stop fighting. I mean this country to survive, to prosper and to be free...I haven't fought the destructive forces of socialism for more than twenty years in order to stop now, when the critical phase of the struggle is upon us."

"This is what we believe."

"Detente sounds a fine word. And, to the extent that there really has been a relaxation in international tension, it is a fine thing. But the fact remains that throughout this decade of detente, the armed forces of the Soviet Union have increased, are increasing, and show no signs of diminishing."

"They are arrayed against every principle for which we stand. So when the Soviet leaders jail a writer, or a priest, or a doctor or a worker, for the crime of speaking freely, it is not only for humanitarian reasons that we should be concerned. For these acts reveal a regime that is afraid of truth and liberty; it dare not allow its people to enjoy the freedoms we take for granted, and a nation that denies those freedoms to its own people will have few scruples in denying them to others. If detente is to progress then it ought to mean that the Soviet authorities relax their ruthless opposition to all forms and expressions of dissent."

"The whole history of negotiation with the Soviet Union teaches us that if you do something they want without insisting on something in return, the Soviets do not regard it as a kindness to be reciprocated, but as a weakness to be exploited. There is a lot of fashionable nonsense talked about how we misunderstand Communism, misrepresent Communism, see Communists under every bed. An attempt is being made, it seems, to create an atmosphere where truth and commonsense on these matters is actively discouraged. I believe the people of this country understand better the truth of the matter than those who try to mislead them. We must work for a real relaxation of tension, but in our negotiations with the Eastern bloc we must not accept words or gestures as a substitute for genuine detente. No flood of words emanating from a summit conference will mean anything unless it is accompanied by some positive action by which the Soviet leaders show that their ingrained attitudes are really beginning to change."

"What are the lessons then that we've learned from the last thirty years? First, that the pursuit of equality itself is a mirage. What's more desirable and more practicable than the pursuit of equality is the pursuit of equality of opportunity. And opportunity means nothing unless it includes the right to be unequal and the freedom to be different. One of the reasons that we value individuals is not because they're all the same, but because they're all different. I believe you have a saying in the Middle West: ‘Don't cut down the tall poppies. Let them rather grow tall.’ I would say, let our children grow tall and some taller than others if they have the ability in them to do so. Because we must build a society in which each citizen can develop his full potential, both for his own benefit and for the community as a whole, a society in which originality, skill, energy and thrift are rewarded, in which we encourage rather than restrict the variety and richness of human nature."

"I am all for the spirit behind this, for easier contacts and the freer movement of people. I am for détente—who is not? I am also for attente, for wanting to see results; for not letting down our guard; for keeping our powder dry. Let them show us that they will practise what they preach, about reducing the threat of war, about non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries."

"In every generation there comes a moment to choose, and for too long we've chosen the soft option. And it's brought us pretty low. There are some signs now that our people are prepared to make the tough choice and to follow the harder road. We're still the same people that have fought for freedom, and won, and the spirit of adventure, the inventiveness, the determination are still strands in our character. We may suffer from a British sickness now, but we have a British constitution and it's still sound, and we have British hearts and a British will to win through. I believe in Britain. I believe in the British people. I believe in our future."

"And I will go on criticising Socialism, and opposing Socialism because it is bad for Britain – and Britain and Socialism are not the same thing...It's the Labour Government that have brought us record peace-time taxation. They’ve got the usual Socialist disease – they’ve run out of other people's money."

"I sometimes think the Labour Party is like a pub where the mild is running out. If someone doesn't do something soon, all that's left will be bitter. (Laughter). And all that's bitter will be Left."

"Let me give you my vision. A man's right to work as he will to spend what he earns to own property to have the State as servant and not as master these are the British inheritance. They are the essence of a free economy. And on that freedom all our other freedoms depend."

"Some Socialists seem to believe that people should be numbers in a State computer. We believe they should be individuals. We are all unequal. No one, thank heavens, is like anyone else, however much the Socialists may pretend otherwise. We believe that everyone has the right to be unequal but to us every human being is equally important."

"She's ruled by a dictatorship of patient, far-sighted determined men who are rapidly making their country the foremost naval and military power in the world. They are not doing this solely for the sake of self-defence. A huge, largely land-locked country like Russia does not need to build the most powerful navy in the world just to guard its own frontiers. No. The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in the Soviet politburo don't have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns. They know that they are a super power in only one sense—the military sense. They are a failure in human and economic terms."

"We are fighting a major internal war against terrorism in Northern Ireland, and need more troops in order to win it."

"The Socialists tell us that there are massive profits in a particular industry and they should not go to the shareholders—but that the public should reap the benefits. Benefits? What benefits? When you take into public ownership a profitable industry, the profits soon disappear. The goose that laid the golden eggs goes broody. State geese are not great layers. The steel industry was nationalised some years ago in the public interest—yet the only interest now left to the public is in witnessing the depressing spectacle of their money going down the drain at a rate of a million pounds a day."

"Socialists then shift the ground for taking industries into “public ownership”. They then tell us that some industries cannot survive any longer unless they are taken into public ownership, allegedly to protect the public from the effects of their collapse. It all sounds so cosy, and so democratic. But is it true? No, of course it isn't. The moment ownership passes into the name of the public is the moment the public ceases to have any ownership or accountability, and often the moment when it ceases to get what it wants. But it is invariably the moment when the public starts to pay. Pays to take the industry over. Pays the losses by higher taxes. Pays for inefficiencies in higher prices."

"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them."

"We know what we want to do as a Conservative Party. There are two ways to run a country. One is towards Socialist Marxism and the other is to a free society. The more you have nationalisation and the more the State takes choice away from the people, the further you are going to the total Socialist Marxist society. The more you do that, the more you relinquish your freedom and income to the State."

"There are others who warn not only of the threat from without, but of something more insidious, not readily perceived, not always deliberate, something that is happening here at home. What are they pointing to? They are pointing to the steady and remorseless expansion of the Socialist State. Now none of us would claim that the majority of Socialists are inspired by other than humanitarian and well-meaning ideals. At the same time few would, I think, deny today that they have made a monster that they can't control. Increasingly, inexorably, the State the Socialists have created is becoming more random in the economic and social justice it seeks to dispense, more suffocating in its effect on human aspirations and initiative, more politically selective in its defence of the rights of its citizens, more gargantuan in its appetite—and more disastrously incompetent in its performance. Above all, it poses a growing threat, however unintentional, to the freedom of this country, for there is no freedom where the State totally controls the economy. Personal freedom and economic freedom are indivisible. You can't have one without the other. You can't lose one without losing the other."

"Every step this Socialist Government takes to seize more power over our daily lives diminishes those lives and the freedom which is their essence and their strength. One of our principal and continuing priorities when we are returned to office will be to restore the freedoms which the Socialists have usurped. Let them learn that it is not a function of the State to possess as much as possible. It is not a function of the State to grab as much as it can get away with. It is not a function of the State to act as ring-master, to crack the whip, dictate the load which all of us must carry or say how high we may climb. It is not a function of the State to ensure that no-one climbs higher than anyone else. All that is the philosophy of Socialism. We reject it utterly for, however well-intended, it leads in one direction only: to the erosion and finally the destruction of the democratic way of life."

"We have brought three words—freedom, choice, opportunity—into the centre of the political debate. And we have exposed the language of Socialism, the gloss they put on words to conceal their true meaning. For instance, Socialists say “publicly owned”. What they mean is “State controlled”. Socialists say “Government aid”. What they mean is “taxpayers' aid”. Socialists say “social justice”. What they mean is “selective justice”. Socialists say “equality.” What they mean is “levelling down”. Why do they twist the truth like this? Because they dare not spell out the Socialist reality. One way to destroy capitalism, said Lenin, was to devalue its currency. Another way is to debase its language. Whenever we can, let us, like Luther, nail the truth to the door—and let us do it in unambiguous English. These are the opening rounds in the battle of ideas. It is a battle that we are winning."

"There is no such thing as “safe” Socialism. If it's safe, it's not Socialism. And if it's Socialism, it's not safe. The signposts of Socialism point downhill to less freedom, less prosperity, downhill to more muddle, more failure. If we follow them to their destination, they will lead this nation into bankruptcy."

"Our aim is not just to remove our uniquely incompetent Government from office—it is to destroy the socialist fallacies—indeed the whole fallacy of socialism—that the Labour Party exists to spread."

"In some European countries, we now see Communist parties dressed in democratic clothes and speaking with soft voices. Of course we hope that their oft-proclaimed change of heart is genuine. But every child in Europe knows the story of little Red Riding Hood and what happened to her in her grandmother's cottage in the forest. Despite the new look of these Communist parties, despite the softness of their voices, we should be on the watch for the teeth and the appetite of the wolf."

"Under the Socialists, rapid strides have been taken towards the Iron Curtain State. We have seen increased nationalisation measures, increased powers of central Government over both large and small companies, increased levels of tax on the pay packet and on savings alike, and an increased proportion of the national income spent not by the wage-earner but by the Government or Government agencies. In the result, the Prime Minister has become the first Socialist Minister since the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1951 to say that his policies will mean a reduced standard of living for our people...it is clear that Socialist systems are not good at creating wealth; they can only spend the wealth that others create."

"The Labour Party has now been taken over by extremists...The Labour Party is now committed to a programme which is frankly and unashamedly Marxist, a programme initiated by its National Executive and now firmly endorsed by its official Party Conference. In the House of Commons the Labour Left may still be outnumbered, but their votes are vital to the continuance of Labour in office, and that gives them a strength out of proportion to their numbers. And make no mistake, that strength, those numbers, are growing. In the constituency Labour parties, in the Parliamentary Labour Party, in Transport House, in the Cabinet Room itself, the Marxists call an increasing number of tunes...let's not mince words. The dividing line between the Labour Party programme and Communism is becoming harder and harder to detect. Indeed, in many respects Labour's programme is more extreme than those of many Communist parties of Western Europe."

"I call the Conservative Party now to a crusade. Not only the Conservative Party. I appeal to all those men and women of goodwill who do not want a Marxist future for themselves or their children or their children's children. This is not just a fight about national solvency. It is a fight about the very foundations of the social order. It is a crusade not merely to put a temporary brake on Socialism, but to stop its onward march once and for all."

"The word “equality” is often used, but, wisely, rarely defined. The moment one tries to define it, one gets into great difficulty. For example, it cannot mean equality of incomes or earnings; otherwise, we would not need more than one union. Indeed, we would not need one union. If we are to have opportunity, we cannot have equality, because the two are opposite. We may have equality of opportunity, but if the only opportunity is to be equal, it is not opportunity."

"To me there is only one way to judge a person, whatever his background, whatever his colour, whatever his religion, and that is what that person is, and not by his race or creed. That is what I believe in, that is what I will tell everyone and that is what I try to achieve everything."

"I do not believe that history is writ clear and unchallengeable. It doesn't just happen. History is made by people: its movement depends on small currents as well as great tides, on ideas, perceptions, will and courage, the ability to sense a trend, the will to act on understanding and intuition. It is up to us to give intellectual content and political direction to these new dissatisfactions with socialism in practice, with its material and moral failures, we must convert disillusion into understanding. If we fail, the tide will be lost. But if it is taken, the last quarter of our century can initiate a new renaissance matching anything in our island's long and outstanding history."

"The economic success of the Western world is a product of its moral philosophy and practice. The economic results are better because the moral philosophy is superior. It is superior because it starts with the individual, with his uniqueness, his responsibility, and his capacity to choose. Surely this is infinitely preferable to the Socialist-statist philosophy which sets up a centralised economic system to which the individual must conform, which subjugates him, directs him and denies him the right to free choice. Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice, there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose."

"In our philosophy the purpose of the life of the individual is not to be the servant of the State and its objectives, but to make the best of his talents and qualities. The sense of being self-reliant, of playing a role within the family, of owning one's own property, of paying one's way, are all part of the spiritual ballast which maintains responsible citizenship, and provides the solid foundation from which people look around to see what more they might do, for others and for themselves. That is what we mean by a moral society; not a society where the State is responsible for everything, and no-one is responsible for the State."

"Our religion teaches us that every human being is unique and must play his part in working out his own salvation. So whereas socialists begin with society, and how people can be fitted in, we start with Man, whose social and economic relationship are just part of his wider existence. Because we see man as a spiritual being, we utterly reject the Marxist view, which gives pride of place to economics...The religious tradition values economic activity, how we earn our living, create wealth, but warns against obsession with it, warns against putting it above all else. Money is not an end in itself, but a means to an end."

"There is not and cannot possibly be any hard and fast antithesis between self-interest and care for others, for man is a social creature, born into family, clan, community, nation, brought up in mutual dependence. The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. The admonition: love they neighbour as thyself, and do as you would be done by, expresses this. You will note that it does not denigrate self, or elevate love of others above it. On the contrary, it sees concern for self and responsibility for self as something to be expected, and asks only that this be extended to others. This embodies the great truth that self-regard is the root of regard for one's fellows."

"Instead of a government with steel in its backbone, we've got one with Steel in its pocket."

"People from my sort of background needed Grammar schools to compete with children from privileged homes like Shirley Williams and Anthony Wedgwood Benn."

"My job is to stop Britain from going red."

"Madame Chairman, I presume this is to sweep Britain clean of socialism"

"Well now, look, let us try and start with a few figures as far as we know them, and I am the first to admit it is not easy to get clear figures from the Home Office about immigration, but there was a committee which looked at it and said that if we went on as we are then by the end of the century there would be four million people of the new Commonwealth or Pakistan here. Now, that is an awful lot and I think it means that people are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture and, you know, the British character has done so much for democracy, for law and done so much throughout the world that if there is any fear that it might be swamped people are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in. So, if you want good race relations, you have got to allay peoples' fears on numbers. Now, the key to this was not what Keith Speed said just a couple of weeks ago. It really was what Willie Whitelaw said at the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton, where he said we must hold out the clear prospect of an end to immigration because at the moment it is about between 45,000 and 50,000 people coming in a year. Now, I was brought up in a small town, 25,000. That would be two new towns a year and that is quite a lot. So, we do have to hold out the prospect of an end to immigration except, of course, for compassionate cases. Therefore, we have got to look at the numbers who have a right to come in. There are a number of United Kingdom passport holders—for example, in East Africa—and what Keith and his committee are trying to do is to find out exactly how we are going to do it; who must come in; how you deal with the compassionate cases, but nevertheless, holding out the prospect of an end to immigration."

"I hate extremes of any kind. Communism and the National Front both seek the domination of the state over the individual. They both, I believe crush the right of the individual. To me, therefore, they are parties of a similar kind. All my life I have stood against banning Communism or other extremist organisations because, if you do that, they go underground and it gives them an excitement that they don't get if they are allowed to pursue their policies openly. We'll beat them into the ground on argument... The National Front is a Socialist Front."

"No, I'm not a feminist...I think they've become too strident. I think they have done great damage to the cause of women by making us out to be something we are not. Each person is different. Each has their own talents and abilities, and these are the things you want to draw and bring out. You don't say: “I must get on because I'm a woman, or that I must get on because I'm a man”. You should say that you should get on because you have the combination of talents which are right for the job. The moment you exaggerate the question, you defeat your case."

"Once you give people the idea that all this can be done by the State, and that it is somehow second-best or even degrading to leave it to private people...then you will begin to deprive human beings of one of the essential ingredients of humanity—personal moral responsibility. You will in effect dry up in them the milk of human kindness. If you allow people to hand over to the State all their personal responsibility, the time will come—indeed it is close at hand—when what the taxpayer is willing to provide for the good of humanity will be seen to be far less than what the individual used to be willing to give from love of his neighbour. So do not be tempted to identify virtue with collectivism. I wonder whether the State services would have done as much for the man who fell among thieves as the Good Samaritan did for him? ...the role of the State in Christian Society is to encourage virtue, not to usurp it."

"Marxists get up early in the morning to further their cause. We must get up even earlier to defend our freedom."

"All over the country, particularly in our large urban areas, old people do go in fear and trembling as never before during either the lifetime of their parents or grandparents...we have been too ready to listen to those who believe that rising crime is due to things like higher unemployment, poor housing, poor pay. While it has always been part of Conservative policy to raise the standard of living of our people we must recognise that in the 1930's there were far more people out of work, far less prosperity and worse housing—but much less crime than now...Rising crime is not due to “society”—but to the steady undermining of personal responsibility and self-discipline—all things which are taught within the family."

"Perhaps [the] most important reason for the fall in standards and increase in crime—the attack on traditional values. It is not surprising that sometimes parents have been confused about the endless advice and the many rival theories on how to bring up children. There were times when I had to remind myself that our parents and grandparents brought us up without trendy theories and they didn't make such a bad job of it. So it would seem that the tried and trusted values and commonsense application would lead to far better results than we are now experiencing. We must teach that each of us is a responsible person who can choose his own course of action and who has a duty to others to do as he would be done by. That morality is largely based on religious values. Cut the stem and the plant withers. That is why we have been so keen to keep religious teaching in our schools. To those who say that is indoctrinating children, I would reply—it is no such thing. It is a practical recognition of the truth that while an adult may, if he wishes, reject the faith in which he has been brought up, a child will find it difficult to acquire any faith at all without some instruction in the discipline of belief and practice."

"The only way to do the best you can is to work as hard as you can."

"If the past is any guide, what has happened this winter could happen again next winter and the winter after that and so on and so on. What we face is a threat to our whole way of life...The case is now surely overwhelming, there will be no solution to our difficulties which does not include some restriction on the power of the unions."

"We shall have to learn again to be one nation, or one day we shall be no nation."

"As Conservatives we believe that recovery can only come through the work of individuals. We mustn't forever take refuge behind collective decisions. Each of us must assume our own responsibilities. What we get and what we become depends essentially on our own efforts. For what is the real driving force in society? It's the desire for the individual to do the best for himself and his family. People don't go out to work for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They go out to work for their family, for their children, to help look after their parents...That's the way society is improved, by millions of people resolving that they'll give their children a better life than they've had themselves. And there's just no substitute for this elemental human instinct, and the worst possible thing a Government can do is to try to smother it completely with a sort of collective alternative. They won't work, they can't work. They crush and destroy something precious and vital in the nation and in the individual spirit."

"I am a conviction politician. The Old Testament prophets didn't say, 'Brothers, I want a consensus.' They said, 'This is my faith, this is what I passionately believe. If you believe it too, then come with me.'"

"There are people in this country who are the great destroyers; they wish to destroy the kind of free society we have. They wouldn't have the freedom and the kind of society they wish to impose on us. Many of those people are in the unions. Many many people in the unions do not wish to strike, and I think many of those who struck in hospitals and in the ambulance service didn't wish to. I'm not suggesting that every strike is dominated by those, but a number are."

"I can't bear Britain in decline. I just can't."

"We Conservatives...are realists. We know that the British are one of the most creative and gifted peoples on earth. But we also know that the British are individualists, who do not respond to state direction and control. We like leadership—yes. But, above all, we like freedom."

"I proclaim with confidence that Britain can get right back into the world competitive race if only we can break free of the collective chains which hold us back. Unlike the socialists, who trust the state, we trust the people. That is why we are the party of freedom."

"In this over-governed country of ours, the creative majority have too little freedom, and the tiny minority of wreckers have too much licence. The government I shall form next weekend will decisively reverse this state of affairs. Help me to liberate those who create wealth—and to make the wreckers run for cover."

"Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope."

"Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country."

"I have thought long and deeply about the post of Foreign Secretary and have decided to offer it to Peter Carrington who – as I am sure you will agree – will do the job superbly."

"It has been suggested by some people in this country that I and my government will be a “soft touch” in the [[w:European_Community|[European] Community]]. In case such a rumour may have reached your ears, Mr Chancellor...it is only fair that I should advise you frankly to dismiss it (as my own colleagues did, long ago). We shall judge what British interests are and we shall be resolute in defending them."

"Communism never sleeps, never changes its objectives, nor must we. Our first duty to freedom is to defend our own. Then one day we might export a little to those peoples who have to live without it. Let no one be under any misunderstanding about the inflexible resolve of Her Majesty's Government to strengthen our defences and to play our full part in the defence of a free Europe."

"The restoration of the confidence of a great nation is a massive task. We do not shrink from it. It will not be given to this generation of our countrymen to create a great Empire. But it is given to us to demand an end to decline and to make a stand against what Churchill described as the “long dismal drawling tides of drift and surrender, of wrong measurements and feeble impulses”. Though less powerful than once we were, we have friends in every quarter of the globe, who will rejoice at our recovery, welcome the revival of our influence, and benefit from the message and from the example of our renewal."

"I must be absolutely clear about this. Britain cannot accept the present situation on the Budget. It is demonstrably unjust. It is politically indefensible: I cannot play Sister Bountiful to the Community while my own electorate are being asked to forego improvements in the fields of health, education, welfare and the rest."

"They are all a rotten lot. Schmidt and the Americans and we are the only people who would do any standing up and fighting if necessary."

"Pennies don't fall from heaven, they have to be earned here on earth."

"We are not asking for a penny piece of Community money for Britain. What we are asking is for a very large amount of our own money back, over and above what we contribute to the Community, which is covered by our receipts from the Community."

"I have always gone about this business on the basis that one cannot have a partnership unless there is equity among partners. Equity, of course, is historically a British concept, but I think that it is one that we bring to the [European] Community."

"No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well."

"We will not take money in taxes from those who work hard and pay it out to those who don't. We are trying to roll back the tide of Socialism. We must get ‘stuck in’ and sort out our problems in our traditional British way instead of asking the Government to intervene every time. Intervening means taking from people who work jolly hard and just manage to live within their means and make a profit, money in extra tax to pay for those who don't."

"Don't try persuading me, you know I find persuasion very counterproductive."

"Gentlemen, there is nothing sweeter than success, and you boys have got it!"

"I am the rebel head of an establishment government."

"There really is no alternative."

"They don't patronize me for being a woman. Nobody puts me down."

"To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. [laughter] The lady's not for turning."

"If simply printing and spending more money would cure our problems we should by now be one of the wealthiest nations in the Western world.—In the lifetime of the last Labour Government the amount of money in the economy went up by £20 thousand million but the number of jobs did not increase. Indeed, unemployment doubled and prices more than doubled too.—In the last three years (1976–79) the amount of money in the economy went up by 50%; but yet only 4%; went into output, the rest into higher prices and imports. The record is clear, printing money doesn't create jobs, it only creates more inflation. But there is another word for printing money—they call it “reflection”. It is a cosy word but a fraudulent device. It cuts the value of every pound in circulation, of every pound the thrifty have saved. It means spending money you can't afford, haven't earned and haven't got. You would accept that it is neither moral nor responsible for a family to live beyond its means. Equally it is neither moral nor responsible for a Government to spend beyond the nation's means, even for services which may be desirable. So we must curb public spending to amounts that can be financed by taxation at tolerable levels and borrowing at reasonable rates of interest."

"Let me make one point about the hunger strike in the Maze prison. I want this to be utterly clear. There can be no political justification for murder or any other crime. The Government will never concede political status to the hunger strikers, or to any others convicted of criminal offences in the Province."

"It's like a nurse looking after an ill patient. Which is the better nurse? The one who smothers the patient with sympathy and says ‘never mind, dear, there there, you just lie back and I'll bring you all your meals. I'll bring you all your papers. Just lie back, I'll look after you’? Or the nurse who says ‘Now, come on. Shake out of it. I know you've had an operation yesterday. It's time you put your feet to the ground and took a few steps. That's right, dear, that's right. Now get back and take a few more tomorrow’...Which is the one most likely to get results? The one who says, come on you can do it. That's me."

"I love argument, I love debate. I don't expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that’s not their job."

"To many of us it seems that there is precious little difference between the policies of the Communist Party and the policies of the Labour Party."

"May I make one point absolutely clear; the time we went there was a hunger strike on in the Maze, no-one has asked me, no-one in official authority or in high places has ever asked me to give political status to people who've been convicted of terrible crimes like murder, wounding, maming, causing explosions. That used to be asked. I think one of the reasons why we're not asked now is because we have got over our viewpoint and because everyone knows that this government will not budge on things which it regards as vital. There is no such thing as political murder. There is murder. There is no such things as causing explosions for political purposes and risking the lives of innocent men women and children. It is causing explosion, it is a crime, and they know that neither I, nor any member of my government will be moved on this. And we won through on that. And everyone knows it."

"For years there was a widespread belief that we could have inflation and a high level of employment at the same time. For years there was a belief that we could secure more jobs if we were prepared to put up with a little more inflation—always a little more, it was thought. The experience of the past 25 years has taught us on the Government Benches that those beliefs were a most damaging illusion. Inflation and unemployment, instead of moving in opposite directions, rose inexorably together. As Governments tried to stimulate employment by pumping money into the economy they caused inflation. The inflation led to higher costs. The higher costs meant loss of ability to compete. The few jobs that we had gained were soon lost; and so were a lot more with them. And then, from a higher level of unemployment and inflation, the process was started all over again, and each time round both inflation and unemployment rose. In Parliament after Parliament, each new Government had a higher average rate of inflation and unemployment than the preceding Government. It is that cycle that we have set out to break."

"The nation is but an enlarged family."

"Those terrorists will carry their determination to disrupt society to any lengths. Once again we have a hunger strike at the Maze Prison in the quest for what they call political status. There is no such thing as political murder, political bombing or political violence. There is only criminal murder, criminal bombing and criminal violence. We will not compromise on this. There will be no political status."

"I am a great admirer of Professor Hayek. Some of his books are absolutely supreme—“The Constitution of Liberty” and the three volumes on “Law, Legislation and Liberty”—and would be well read by almost every hon. Member."

"In the past our people have made sacrifices, only to find at the eleventh hour their government had lost its nerve and the sacrifice had been in vain. It shall not be in vain this time. This Conservative Government, not yet two years in office, will hold fast until the future of our country is assured...This is the road I am resolved to follow. This is the path I must go. I ask all who have the spirit—the bold, the steadfast and the young in heart—to stand and join with me as we go forward."

"There can be no question of political status for someone who is serving a sentence for crime. Crime is crime is crime. It is not political. To give concessions on political status would put many people in jeopardy."

"Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul."

"It is generally acknowledged that the Government are running, in the Maze prison, one of the most liberal and humane prison regimes anywhere...What hunger strikers are asking for—the one who died last was in fact a murderer; let us not mince our words—is political status by easy stages. They cannot have it. They are murderers and people who use force and violence to obtain their ends. They have made perfectly clear what they want. They cannot and will not have it."

"Every political debate these days contains a lot about economic policies. So much so that sometimes I think people get a little tired of hearing about them. Naturally there is a cry that Government must put people before economics. Who could disagree? That is the very reason why we in our Party have constantly fought Marxism and Communism. Fought Marxism because of —its compulsory society —its nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange. —its attempt to snuff out individual conscience. —the absence of the great voluntary societies which are so much a part of our way of life. —its denial of freedom to choose —its elevation of the values of the State above those of religion. Its denial of the right to educate children outside the state system. —its extinction of private property because property rights support human rights."

"And never forget that the Marxist societies call themselves, and indeed are, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Some of the aims of socialism, are the aims of a Marxist society, and they result in the subjugation of the rights of people to political theory. Because the Marxist system has become morally and materially bankrupt, citizens who live beneath its yoke see hope in our ideals. Ideals which limit the power of the State so that the varied talents and abilities of each person may flourish giving dignity and meaning to life. Ideals which respect the family, its loyalties, affections and responsibilities. Ideals where the rule of law is just and impartially administered. Those who live under the heel of Marxist tyranny look with envy at the very things we take for granted. They know that politics is about more than economics in a free society. So do we—we belong to the oldest and most enduring democratic Party in the world."

"It would seem that dead hunger strikers, who have extinguished their own lives, are of more use to PIRA than living members. Such is their calculated cynicism. This Government is not prepared to legitimise their cause by word or by deed. And we should be clear what that cause is. It is a dictatorship by force and by fear in Northern Ireland, and in the Republic. These men deny democracy everywhere; they seek power for themselves. Some people argue that the Government could make the problem go away. We can of course maintain and improve an already humane prison regime. But there is no point in pretending that this is what the PIRA want. They have remained inflexible and intransigent in the face of all that we have done because what they want is special treatment, treatment different from that received by other prisoners. They want their violence justified. It isn't, and it will not be."

"In this country over the last five years pay has doubled, whereas output has slightly fallen. That is totally different from the position with many of our competitors. Pay in those countries has gone up hand in hand with productivity. Consequently, they have the jobs and we have a larger proportion of the unemployment."

"My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day's work for an honest day's pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police."

"I count myself among those politicians who operate from conviction. For me, pragmatism is not enough. Nor is that fashionable word “consensus”. When I asked one of my Commonwealth colleagues at this Conference why he kept saying that there was a “consensus” on a certain matter, another replied in a flash “consensus is the word you use when you can't get agreement”! To me consensus seems to be—the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes, but to which no-one objects.—the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner “I stand for consensus”?"

"The principle that adequate health care should be provided for all, regardless of ability to pay, must be the foundation of any arrangements for financing the Health Service."

"I am sure you will agree that, in Britain with our democratic institutions and the need for a high degree of consent, some of the measures adopted in Chile are quite unacceptable. Our reform must be in line with our traditions and our Constitution. At times the process may seem painfully slow. But I am certain we shall achieve our reforms in our own way and in our own time. Then they will endure."

"I must tell the House that the Falkland Islands and their dependencies remain British territory. No aggression and no invasion can alter that simple fact. It is the Government's objective to see that the islands are freed from occupation and are returned to British administration at the earliest possible moment...We cannot allow the democratic rights of the islanders to be denied by the territorial ambitions of Argentina."

"The people of the Falkland Islands, like the people of the United Kingdom, are an island race. Their way of life is British; their allegiance is to the Crown. They are few in number, but they have the right to live in peace, to choose their own way of life and to determine their own allegiance. Their way of life is British; their allegiance is to the Crown. It is the wish of the British people and the duty of Her Majesty's Government to do everything that we can to uphold that right. That will be our hope and our endeavour and, I believe, the resolve of every Member of the House."

"We have to recover those islands, we have to recover them for the people on them are British and British stock and they still owe allegiance to the Crown and want to be British. We have to do what is necessary to recover those islands...When you stop a dictator there are always risks but there are great risks in not stopping a dictator. My generation learned that a long time ago."

"I am not talking about failure, I am talking about my supreme confidence in the British fleet...superlative ships, excellent equipment, the most highly trained professional group of men, the most honourable and brave members of Her Majesty's Service. Failure? Do you remember what Queen Victoria once said? “Failure—the possibilities do not exist”. That is the way we must look at it, with all our professionalism, all our flair and every single bit of native cunning, every single bit of professionalism and all our equipment and we must go out calmly, quietly, to succeed."

"Just rejoice at that news and congratulate our forces and the marines... Rejoice."

"Difficult days lie ahead, but Britain will face them in the conviction that our cause is just and in the knowledge that we have been doing everything reasonable to secure a negotiated settlement. The principles that we are defending are fundamental to everything that this Parliament and this country stand for. They are the principles of democracy and the rule of law...Britain has a responsibility towards the islanders to restore their democratic way of life. She has a duty to the whole world to show that aggression will not succeed and to uphold the cause of freedom."

"The fact is that the two major nuclear powers have not gone to war against each other—because, I believe, nuclear weapons are achieving their purpose as a deterrent that makes the prospect of war too horrific. It is noteworthy that, since the last world war, there have been 140 conventional wars, fought with ordinary weapons, which are themselves horrific, and that nuclear weapons have been a deterrent to war. I therefore believe that we should keep them."

"The battle of the Falklands was a remarkable military operation, boldly planned, bravely executed, and brilliantly accomplished. We owe an enormous debt to the British forces and to the Merchant Marine. We honour them all. They have been supported by a people united in defence of our way of life and of our sovereign territory."

"I do not believe that people who go on strike in this country have a legitimate cause. Throughout the period of the Labour Government and this one, I have never supported any strikes in this country."

"We fought to show that aggression does not pay and that the robber cannot be allowed to get away with his swag. We fought with the support of so many throughout the world: the Security Council, the Commonwealth, the European Community, and the United States. Yet we also fought alone – for we fought for our own sovereign territory."

"When we started out, there were the waverers and the fainthearts. The people who thought that Britain could no longer seize the initiative for herself. The people who thought we could no longer do the great things which we once did. Those who believed that our decline was irreversible—that we could never again be what we were. There were those who would not admit it—even perhaps some here today—people who would have strenuously denied the suggestion but—in their heart of hearts—they too had their secret fears that it was true: that Britain was no longer the nation that had built an Empire and ruled a quarter of the world. Well they were wrong. The lesson of the Falklands is that Britain has not changed and that this nation still has those sterling qualities which shine through our history. This generation can match their fathers and grandfathers in ability, in courage, and in resolution. We have not changed. When the demands of war and the dangers to our own people call us to arms—then we British are as we have always been: competent, courageous and resolute."

"The battle of the South Atlantic was not won by ignoring the dangers or denying the risks. It was achieved by men and women who had no illusions about the difficulties. We faced them squarely and we were determined to overcome...What has indeed happened is that now once again Britain is not prepared to be pushed around. We have ceased to be a nation in retreat. We have instead a new-found confidence—born in the economic battles at home and tested and found true 8,000 miles away...we rejoice that Britain has re-kindled that spirit which has fired her for generations past and which today has begun to burn as brightly as before. Britain found herself again in the South Atlantic and will not look back from the victory she has won."

"The battle for women's rights has been largely won. The days when they were demanded and discussed in strident tones should be gone for ever. And I hope they are. I hated those strident tones that you still hear from some Women's Libbers'."

"The spirit of the South Atlantic was the spirit of Britain at her best. It has been said that we surprised the world, that British patriotism was rediscovered in those spring days. Mr. President, it was never really lost."

"Let me make one thing absolutely clear. The National Health Service is safe with us."

"The point of having nuclear weapons is to deter a war of any kind. They have succeeded in doing so for the past 37 years. To be an effective deterrent a potential aggressor must believe that under certain circumstances such weapons will be used."

"Peace is not bought cheaply. It cannot be won without cost. The cost of Britain's defence is the price we pay to prevent war. The money for our armed services is truly our “peace tax”. What a cruel irony it is that the word “peace” has been hijacked by those who seek one-sided disarmament. It's ironic because if only one side disarms, the other is far more tempted to aggression. Unilateralism makes war more likely. We who believe in strong defence are the true peace party."

"The right hon. Gentleman is afraid of an election is he? Oh, if I were going to cut and run I'd have gone after the Falklands. Afraid? Frightened? Frit? Couldn't take it? Couldn't stand it? Right now inflation is lower than it has been for thirteen years, a record the right hon. Gentleman couldn't begin to touch!"

"The choice facing the nation is between two totally different ways of life. And what a prize we have to fight for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark, divisive clouds of Marxist socialism and bring together men and women from all walks of life who share a belief in freedom."

"Under a Labour Government, there's virtually nowhere you could put your savings where they would be safe from the state. They want your money for State Socialism, and they would mean to get it if they got in. Put your savings in the bank—and they'll nationalise it. Put your savings in a pension fund or a life assurance company—and a Labour Government would force them to invest the money in their own socialist schemes. Put your savings in your socks and they'd nationalise socks."

"I don't know by whom we might be threatened. What I do know is a government [sic] we have to be prepared for any eventuality, and I do know that possessions of those nuclear weapons has kept the peace between nuclear powers far better than the possession of conventional weapons did. You know when we only had conventional weapons Europe was at war again with 21–22 years. We have had 38 years peace and in another four or five years we will have the longest period of peace in Europe for centuries. That, to me, is the greatest prize of all, and...I'm prepared to allocate that expenditure to keep peace for the people for whom I'm responsible."

"Peace, freedom and justice are only to be found where people are prepared to defend them."

"What do you think of those two?"

"Unfortunately in our education system youngsters are still not given sufficient encouragement to go into industry or commerce and not told that it is a good thing to make an honest profit. They should be told that if you don't make a profit, you won't be in business very long because you haven't anything to plow back for tomorrow. You make your profit by pleasing others so you have to make it honestly."

"If we do not keep alive the flame of freedom that flame will go out, and every noble ideal will die with it. It is not by force of weapons but by force of ideas that we seek to spread liberty to the world' s oppressed. It is not only ideals, but conscience that impels us to do so. Is there conscience in the Kremlin? Do they ever ask themselves what is the purpose of life? What is it all for? Does the way they handled the Korean airliner atrocity suggest that they ever considered such questions? No. Their creed is barren of conscience, immune to the promptings of good and evil. To them it is the system that counts, and all men must conform."

"Our people will never keep the Red Flag flying here. There is only one banner that Britain flies, the one that has kept flying for centuries—the red, white and blue."

"Let us never forget this fundamental truth: the State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves. If the State wishes to spend more it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. It is no good thinking that someone else will pay – that ‘someone else’ is you. There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers’ money."

"I came to office with one deliberate intent: to change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society – from a give-it-to-me, to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain."

"I believe the police are upholding the law. They are not upholding the Government. This is not a dispute between miners and Government. This is a dispute between miners and miners. They have in their constitution the right to have a ballot. They have not been able to have a national ballot yet. Many of them have had local ballots. This is a dispute between miners and miners. It is some of the miners who are trying to stop other miners going to work. It is the police who are in charge of upholding the law...The police have been wonderful."

"You saw the scenes that went on in television last night. I must tell you that what we have got is an attempt to substitute the rule of the mob for the rule of law, and it must not succeed. It must not succeed. There are those who are using violence and intimidation to impose their will on others who do not want it...Ladies and Gentlemen we need the support of everyone in this battle which goes to the very heart of our society. The rule of law must prevail over the rule of the mob."

"The United States has no socialist party, or no socialist party has been in power. That is the reason why it has always been the country of last resort for every currency."

"We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands and now we have to fight the enemy within, which is much more difficult but just as dangerous to liberty."

"The violence and intimidation we have seen should never have happened. It is the work of extremists. It is the enemy within."

"The right hon. Gentleman [Neil Kinnock] leads a party which claims to support democracy but repudiates those miners who have voted democratically to remain at work and have done so in accordance with their union procedures. He leads a party which condemns violence in general but supports the mass picketing which inevitably ends in violence. He leads a party which has allied itself to the wreckers against the workers. The forces to which the right hon. Gentleman has lent his voice and support have no more love for parliamentary democracy than for the jobs and homes of those who oppose them. Sooner or later, when he has ceased to be of value to their purpose, they will turn on him, just as surely as they have turned on the police, on the steel workers, and on working miners and their families. There is only one word to describe the policy of the right hon. Gentleman when faced with threats, whether from home or abroad, and that word is appeasement. He will live to regret it. It is no policy for Britain."

"The bomb attack on the Grand Hotel early this morning was first and foremost an inhuman, undiscriminating attempt to massacre innocent unsuspecting men and women staying in Brighton for our Conservative Conference...But the bomb attack clearly signified more than this. It was an attempt not only to disrupt and terminate our Conference; It was an attempt to cripple Her Majesty's democratically-elected Government. That is the scale of the outrage in which we have all shared, and the fact that we are gathered here now—shocked, but composed and determined—is a sign not only that this attack has failed, but that all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail."

"We heard moving accounts from two working miners about just what they have to face as they try to make their way to work. The sheer bravery of those men and thousands like them who kept the mining industry alive is beyond praise. “Scabs” their former workmates call them. Scabs? They are lions!"

"In the Conservative Party, we have no truck with outmoded Marxist doctrine about class warfare. For us, it is not who you are, who your family is or where you come from that matters. It is what you are and what you can do for our country that counts. That is our vision."

"No-one in their senses wants nuclear weapons for their own sake, but equally, no responsible prime minister could take the colossal gamble of giving up our nuclear defences while our greatest potential enemy kept their's. Policies which would throw out all American nuclear bases...would wreck NATO and leave us totally isolated from our friends in the United States, and friends they are. No nation in history has ever shouldered a greater burden nor shouldered it more willingly nor more generously than the United States. This Party is pro-American. And we must constantly remind people what the defence policy of the [Labour] Party would mean. Their idea that by giving up our nuclear deterrent, we could somehow escape the result of a nuclear war elsewhere is nonsense, and it is a delusion to assume that conventional weapons are sufficient defence against nuclear attack. And do not let anyone slip into the habit of thinking that conventional war in Europe is some kind of comfortable option. With a huge array of modern weapons held by the Soviet Union, including chemical weapons in large quantities, it would be a cruel and terrible conflict. The truth is that possession of the nuclear deterrent has prevented not only nuclear war but also conventional war and to us, peace is precious beyond price. We are the true peace party."

"It was a lovely morning. We have not had many lovely days. And the sun was just coming through the stained glass windows and falling on some flowers right across the church and it just occurred to me that this was the day I was meant not to see."

"I personally have always voted for the death penalty because I believe that people who go out prepared to take the lives of other people forfeit their own right to live. I believe that that death penalty should be used only very rarely, but I believe that no-one should go out certain that no matter how cruel, how vicious, how hideous their murder, they themselves will not suffer the death penalty."

"We suffered a tragedy not one of us could have thought would happen in our country. And we picked ourselves up and sorted ourselves out as all good British people do, and I thought, let us stand together for we are British! They were trying to destroy the fundamental freedom that is the birth-right of every British citizen, freedom, justice and democracy."

"I have made it quite clear – and so did Mr Prior when he was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – that a unified Ireland was one solution. That is out. A second solution was confederation of two states. That is out. A third solution was joint authority. That is out. That is a derogation from sovereignty."

"At one end of the spectrum are the terrorist gangs within our borders, and the terrorist states which finance and arm them. At the other are the Hard Left operating inside our system, conspiring to use union power and the apparatus of local government to break, defy and subvert the law."

"Oh, but you know, you do not achieve anything without trouble, ever."

"I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together."

"You never compromise with violence. You never compromise with intimidation. You never compromise by those who want to use those to extinguish freedom and democracy, because if you do then the very things for which you stand are extinguished."

"If they do not wish to confer the honour, I am the last person who would wish to receive it."

"I'm the world's greatest fan of your President [Ronald Reagan], as you know. I think he's done terrific things and I think that in his recent speech, the keynote that he struck, that America is a confident leader of the free world, is the right one and I'm absolutely delighted at the way in which confidence had returned to the United States."

"I support very much the approaches that the President [Ronald Reagan] is taking. As you know, I am his greatest fan!"

"We had to make certain that violence and intimidation and impossible demands could not win. There would have been neither freedom nor order in Britain if we had given in to violence. There would have been no hope for any prosperous industry if people had gone on strike, really, for bigger and bigger subsidies from the tax-payers, because in the end it is the tax-payers who pay these subsidies. So that is over."

"We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend."

"Don't you think that's the way to persuade more companies to come to this region and get more jobs—because I want them—for the people who are unemployed. Not always standing there as moaning minnies. Now stop it!"

"All my upbringing was to instill into both my sister and I a fantastic sense of duty, a great sense of whatever you do you are personally responsible for it. You do not blame society. Society is not anyone. You are personally responsible and just remember that you live among a whole lot of people and you must do things for them, and you must make up your own mind. That was very very strong, very strong. I remember my father sometimes saying to me if I said: “Oh so and so is doing something; can't I do it too?” You know, children do not like to be different. “You make up your own mind what you are going to do, never because someone else is doing it!” and he was always very stern about that. It stood one in good stead."

"Home really was very small and we had no mod cons and I remember having a dream that the one thing I really wanted was to live in a nice house, you know, a house with more things than we had...We had not got hot water. We only had a cold water tap. We had to heat all the hot water in a copper. There was an outside toilet. So when people tell me about these things, I know about them."

"We will not reflate...Past governments have tried that. Past governments have deliberately created inflation in the hope of reducing unemployment. It always finished up with worse inflation and worse unemployment. Mr President, You can't build a secure future on dishonest money. And there is a fundamental truth, from which no government can escape."

"Those who want the country to have a strong and sure defence can't rely on the Labour Party, the SDP or the Liberals. They can rely on us. By the end of this century it is predicted that several more countries will have acquired nuclear weapons. Labour wants Britain to give them up. At the very time when any sensible person would be renewing his insurance cover, Labour wants to cancel Britain's policy altogether. Moreover, they want to get rid of American bases from Britain and all nuclear weapons from British soil. Does anyone who has witnessed Mr. Gorbachev's performance thinks that he respects weakness? No. Mr. President, it is recognition of the West's strength and cohesion that has brought the Soviet Union back to the negotiating table. Our wish is to see substantial reductions in nuclear weapons, provided they are balanced and verifiable. I know that will be President Reagan's objective at his meeting with Mr Gorbachev, and he has our full support and good wishes as he goes to Geneva. The West could not have a better or a braver champion."

"I detest apartheid. I couldn't stand being excluded or discriminated against because of the colour of my own skin. And if you can't stand a colour bar against yourself, you can't stand it against anyone else. Apartheid is wrong and it must go."

"It is traditional conservatism...It is radical, because at the time when I took over we needed to be radical. I would not call it populist. I may say many of the things that I have said strike a chord in the hearts of ordinary people. Why? Because they are British. Because their character is independent. They do not like to be shoved around. Because they are prepared to take responsibility. Because they do expect to be loyal to their friends and loyal allies. You call it populist. I say it strikes a chord in the hearts of people. I know, because it struck a chord in my heart many many years ago."

"I find that the conservatism which I follow does have some things in common with what Professor Hayek was preaching and also has some things in common with what you called old-fashioned Liberals. Let me just quote one, to whom I am devoted, John Stuart Mill on liberty. “A nation that dwarfs its citizens will find that with small men it can accomplish no great thing.” Is that not what I have been saying? Yes, it is partly perhaps old-fashioned liberalism...my pride that it has something in common with that...but that also has something in common with my belief that really nations are there to try to help people to bring out the best talents and abilities and initiatives in themselves and that, I think, is conserving the best in human nature and trying to change the rest, but trying to change it through the character of men and women."

"I believe in the British lion and I believe that the British character is lion-hearted, and I believe that it has not been lion-hearted in some of the post-War period, and I want it to get back to being lion hearted."

"I'm absolutely amazed when some people say I am either hard or uncaring, because it's so utterly untrue. I can't say it because, if you say you are caring, it's like saying, ‘I'm a very modest person.’ Nobody believes you."

"Let me say this, if you want someone weak you don't want me, there are plenty of others to choose from."

"In my work, you get used to criticisms. Of course you do, because there are a lot of people trying to get you down, but I always cheer up immensely if one is particularly wounding because I think well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. That is why my father always taught me: never worry about anyone who attacks you personally; it means their arguments carry no weight and they know it."

"Seven years ago, who would have dared forecast such a transformation of Britain. This didn't come about because of consensus. It happened because we said: this we believe, this we will do. It's called leadership."

"Conservatism is not some abstract theory. It's a crusade to put power in the hands of ordinary people. And a very popular crusade it is proving. Tenants are jumping at the opportunity to buy their own council houses. Workers are jumping at the opportunity to buy shares in their own privatised companies. Trade unionists are jumping at the opportunity, which the ballot box now gives them, to decide “who rules” in their union. And the rest of Britain is looking on with approval. For popular capitalism is biting deep."

"Popular capitalism, which is the economic expression of liberty, is proving a much more attractive means for diffusing power in our society. Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State. To us Conservatives, popular capitalism means what it says: power through ownership to the man and woman in the street, given confidently with an open hand."

"Because you see, it is not as if you are judged wholly on what you say. You are up against people who deliberately set out to twist what you say to make it mean other things, and that I am afraid is part of the job, part of the world in which one lives.”"

"You will quite often hear people say: “Well look, she is the best man in politics,” and I say: “Oh no, much better than that; she is the best woman.”"

"From France to the Philippines, from Jamaica to Japan, from Malaysia to Mexico, from Sri Lanka to Singapore, privatisation is on the move...The policies we have pioneered are catching on in country after country. We Conservatives believe in popular capitalism—believe in a property-owning democracy. And it works! … The great political reform of the last century was to enable more and more people to have a vote. Now the great Tory reform of this century is to enable more and more people to own property. Popular capitalism is nothing less than a crusade to enfranchise the many in the economic life of the nation. We Conservatives are returning power to the people. That is the way to one nation, one people."

"In a decision of the utmost gravity, Labour voted to give up Britain's independent nuclear deterrent unilaterally. Labour's defence policy—though "defence" is scarcely the word—is an absolute break with the defence policy of every British Government since the Second World War. Let there be no doubt about the gravity of that decision. You cannot be a loyal member of NATO while disavowing its fundamental strategy. A Labour Britain would be a neutralist Britain. It would be the greatest gain for the Soviet Union in forty years. And they would have got it without firing a shot."

"The [Labour] moderates split off and that split of the moderates delayed the realignment of British politics for at least one generation and possibly two, because as a conservative passionately believing in freedom under the law and believing that socialism cannot stand for that, the realignment - you hear me say my job is to stay in long enough so that everyone knows that socialism and the British character do not mix, so socialism has got to go - is to get the fundamental realignment which I think is in keeping with the British character, which is two parties, a free enterprise party, because if you have political freedom under the rule of law you have got to have economic freedom as well. It is to bring about that can only be done really by eventually the Labour Party splitting off the Left and rejecting the Clause 4 and the command economy, and then we really should get a realignment."

"It has been my strategy, believing passionately as I do in what we stand for, to take a different direction, to make people see that was the better direction; for us to stay in power long enough to make the Labour Party realise that their policies will never be re-elected and they must do a fundamental reappraisal of their policies and start two generations later what Gaitskell wanted to do but failed...I myself do not think one more push will be quite enough...I think you are likely to have it much more up nearer towards the year 2000, then you will have the fundamental realignment that should have been brought about half a century before."

"A world without nuclear weapons may be a dream but you cannot base a sure defence on dreams. Without far greater trust and confidence between East and West than exists at present, a world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us."

"I hope to go on and on."

"I, along with something like 5 million other people, insure to enable me to go into hospital on the day I want; at the time I want, and with a doctor I want."

"The greatest division this nation has ever seen were the conflicts of trade unions towards the end of a Labour Government...That trade union movement...used their power against their members. They made them come out on strike when they didn't want to. They loved secondary picketing. They went and demonstrated outside companies where there was no dispute whatsoever, and sometimes closed them down. They were acting as they were later in the coal strike, before my whole trade union laws were through of this Government. They were out to use their power to hold the nation to ransom, to stop power from getting to the whole of manufacturing industry to damage people's jobs, to stop power from getting to every house in the country, power, heat and light to every housewife, every child, every school, every pensioner. You want division; you want conflict; you want hatred. There it was. It was that which Thatcherism—if you call it that—tried to stop. Not by arrogance, but by giving power to the ordinary, decent, honourable, trade union member who didn’t want to go on strike. By giving power to him over the Scargills of this world."

"I believe passionately that people have a right, by their own efforts, to benefit their own families, so we have taken down taxation. It doesn't matter to me who you are or what your background is. If you want to use your own efforts to work harder—yes, I am with you all the way, whether it is unskilled effort or whether it is skilled, we have taken the income tax down."

"We've been working to restore the political system to bring out all that was best in the British character. That's what we've done. It's called Thatcherism – it's got nothing to do with Thatcher except that I was merely the vehicle for it. But it is in everything I do. It's a mixture of fundamentally sound economics. You live within your means; you have honest money, so therefore you don't make reckless promises. You recognise human nature is such that it needs incentives to work harder, so you cut your tax. It is about being worthwhile and honourable. And about the family. And about that something which is really rather unique and enterprising in the British character – it's about how we built an Empire, and how we gave sound administration and sound law to large areas of the world. All those things are still there in the British people aren't they?"

"[The Community Charge is] the flagship of the Thatcher fleet."

"Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay."

"I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand "I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!" or "I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!" "I am homeless, the Government must house me!" and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations."

"There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."

"All too often the ills of this country are passed off as those of society. Similarly, when action is required, society is called upon to act. But society as such does not exist except as a concept. Society is made up of people. It is people who have duties and beliefs and resolve. It is people who get things done. She prefers to think in terms of the acts of individuals and families as the real sinews of society rather than of society as an abstract concept. Her approach to society reflects her fundamental belief in personal responsibility and choice. To leave things to ‘society’ is to run away from the real decisions, practical responsibility and effective action."

"When the ANC says that they will target British companies, this shows what a typical terrorist organisation it is. I fought terrorism all my life and if more people fought it, and we were all more successful, we should not have it and I hope that everyone in this hall will think it is right to go on fighting terrorism. They will if they believe in democracy."

"Every prime minister needs a Willie."

"Quoted by Ian Aitken in "Points of Order" The Guardian (29 January 1988)."

"There is no way in which one can buck the market."

"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people. Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. And with the Channel Tunnel to give you direct access to it. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."

"The freedom of peoples depends fundamentally on the rule of law, a fair legal system. The place to have trials or accusations is a court of law, the Common Law that has come right up from Magna Carta, which has come right up through the British courts – a court of law is the place where you deal with these matters. If you ever get trial by television or guilt by accusation, that day freedom dies because you have not had it done with all of the careful rules that have developed in a court of law. Press and television rely on freedom. Those who rely on freedom must uphold the rule of law and have a duty and a responsibility to do so and not try to substitute their own system for it."

"I can't help reflecting that it's taken a Government headed by a housewife with experience of running a family to balance the books for the first time in twenty years—with a little left over for a rainy day."

"We support the right of women to choose our own lives for ourselves. If women wish to be lawyers, doctors, engineers, scientists, politicians, we should have the same opportunities as men, more and more we do...But many women wish to devote themselves mainly to raising a family and running a home. And we should have that choice too. Very few jobs can compare in long-term importance and satisfaction with that of housewife and mother. For the family is the building block of society. It is a nursery, a school, a hospital, a leisure place, a place of refuge and a place of rest. It encompasses the whole of society. It fashions our beliefs. It is the preparation for the rest of our life. And women run it."

"Mr. Chairman, you have invited me to speak on the subject of Britain and Europe. Perhaps I should congratulate you on your courage. If you believe some of the things said and written about my views on Europe, it must seem rather like inviting Genghis Khan to speak on the virtues of peaceful coexistence! ...The European Community is one manifestation of that European identity, but it is not the only one. We must never forget that east of the Iron Curtain, peoples who once enjoyed a full share of European culture, freedom and identity have been cut off from their roots. We shall always look on Warsaw, Prague and Budapest as great European cities...To try to suppress nationhood and concentrate power at the centre of a European conglomerate would be highly damaging and would jeopardise the objectives we seek to achieve. Europe will be stronger precisely because it has France as France, Spain as Spain, Britain as Britain, each with its own customs, traditions and identity. It would be folly to try to fit them into some sort of identikit European personality...it is ironic that just when those countries such as the Soviet Union, which have tried to run everything from the centre, are learning that success depends on dispersing power and decisions away from the centre, there are some in the Community who seem to want to move in the opposite direction. We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels."

"For generations, we have assumed that the efforts of mankind would leave the fundamental equilibrium of the world's systems and atmosphere stable. But it is possible that with all these enormous changes (population, agricultural, use of fossil fuels) concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself...the increase in the greenhouse gases...has led some to fear that we are creating a global heat trap which could lead to climatic instability."

"The Government espouses the concept of sustainable economic development. Stable prosperity can be achieved throughout the world provided the environment is nutured and safeguarded. Protecting this balance of nature is therefore one of the great challenges of the late Twentieth Century."

"A man may climb Everest for himself, but at the summit he plants his country's flag."

"There is nothing new or unusual about the Tory commitment to protect the environment. The last thing we want is to leave environmental debts for our children to clear up...It's we Conservatives who are not merely friends of the Earth—we are its guardians and trustees for generations to come. The core of Tory philosophy and for the case for protecting the environment are the same. No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease. This Government intends to meet the terms of that lease in full."

"In this country and in other democracies, the enemies of civilisation and freedom have turned to the gun and the bomb to destroy those they can't persuade. The terrorist threat to freedom is worldwide. It can never be met by appeasement. Give in to the terrorist and you breed more terrorism. At home and abroad our message is the same. We will not bargain, nor compromise, nor bend the knee to terrorists."

"In our United Kingdom, the main terrorist threat has come from the IRA. Their minds twisted by hatred and fanaticism, they have tried to bomb and murder their way to their objective of tearing more than a million citizens out of the United Kingdom. The truth is that the whole IRA campaign is based on crushing democracy and smashing anyone who doesn't agree with them. To all those who have suffered so much at their hands—to the Northern Ireland policemen and prison officers and their families, to the soldiers, the judges, the civil servants and their families—we offer our deepest admiration and thanks for defending democracy and for facing danger while keeping within the rule of law—unlike the terrorist who skulks in the shadows and shoots to kill...we will never give up the search for more effective ways of defeating the IRA. If the IRA think they can weary us or frighten us, they have made a terrible miscalculation. People sometimes say that it is wrong to use the word never in politics, I disagree, some things are of such fundamental importance that no other word is appropriate. So I say once again today that this Government will never surrender to the IRA. Never."

"Marxism has had it."

"I think male Prime Ministers one day will come back into fashion!"

"We have become a grandmother."

"The Delors report is aimed at a federal Europe, a common currency and a common economic policy, which would take many economic policies, including fiscal policy, out of the hands of the House, and that is completely unacceptable. It would also require a treaty amendment, which we do not believe would ever be passed by the House because of the lack of sovereignty that it would imply."

"You know, if you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything, wouldn't you, at any time? And you would achieve nothing!"

"Human rights did not begin with the French Revolution...[they] really stem from a mixture of Judaism and Christianity...[we English] had 1688, our quiet revolution, where Parliament exerted its will over the King...it was not the sort of Revolution that France's was...'Liberty, equality, fraternity' – they forgot obligations and duties I think. And then of course the fraternity went missing for a long time."

"The community charge is a way of asking people to pay for what they vote for, and when they do, they will vote against Labour authorities."

"We do not want a united Germany. This would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security."

"1989 will be remembered for decades to come as the year when half the people of half our continent began to throw off their chains. The messages on our banners in 1979—freedom, opportunity, family, enterprise, ownership—are now inscribed on the banners in Leipzig, Warsaw, Budapest and even Moscow...In 1979, we knew that we were starting a British revolution; in fact, we were the pioneers of a world revolution."

"Imagine a Labour canvasser talking on the doorstep to those East German families when they settle in, on freedom's side of the wall. "You want to keep more of the money you earn? I'm afraid that's very selfish. We shall want to tax that away. You want to own shares in your firm? We can't have that. The state has to own your firm. You want to choose where to send your children to school? That's very divisive. You'll send your child where we tell you." Mr President, the trouble with Labour is that they're just not at home with freedom. Socialists don't like ordinary people choosing, for they might not choose Socialism."

"Advisers advise, Ministers decide!"

"I think it is a great day for freedom. I watched the scenes on television last night and again this morning because I felt one ought not only hear about them but see them because you see the joy on people's faces and you see what freedom means to them; it makes you realise that you cannot stifle or suppress people's desire for liberty and so I watched with the same joy as everyone else and I hope that they will be a prelude to the Berlin Wall coming down."

"We've beaten the Germans twice and now they're back!"

"Socialism is a creed of the state. It regards ordinary human beings as the raw material for its schemes of social change. But we put our faith in people—in the millions of people who spend what they earn—not what other people earn. Who make sacrifices for their young family or their elderly parents. Who help their neighbours and take care of their neighbourhoods. The sort of people I grew up with. These are the people whom I became Leader of this Party to defend."

"I have fought three elections against the BBC and I don't want to fight another election against it."

"I believe that the royal family are a focus of patriotism, of loyalty, of affection and of esteem. That is a rare combination, and we should value it highly."

"Iraq has violated and taken over the territory of a country which is a full member of the United Nations. That is totally unacceptable and if it were allowed to endure then there would be many other small countries that could never feel safe...The fundamental question is this: whether the nations of the world have the collective will effectively to see that Security Council Resolution is upheld, whether they have the collective will effectively to do anything which the Security Council further agrees to see that Iraq withdraws and that the government of Kuwait is restored to Kuwait."

"Today we are coming to realise that an epoch in history is over...For more than forty years that Iron Curtain remained in place. Few of us expected to see it lifted in our life-time. Yet with great suddenness the impossible has happened. Communism is broken, utterly broken...We do not see this new Soviet Union as an enemy, but as a country groping its way towards freedom. We no longer have to view the world through a prism of East-West relations. The Cold War is over."

"Iraq's invasion of Kuwait defies every principle for which the United Nations stands. If we let it succeed, no small country can ever feel safe again. The law of the jungle would take over from the rule of law."

"I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air—the rather nauseating stench of appeasement."

"The toppling of the Berlin Wall. The overthrow of Ceausescu by the people he had so brutally oppressed. The first free elections in Eastern Europe for a generation. The spread of the ideas of market freedom and independence to the very heart of the Soviet Leviathan...Our friends from Eastern Europe reminded us that no force of arms, no walls, no barbed wire can for ever suppress the longing of the human heart for liberty and independence. Their courage found allies. Their victory came about because for forty long, cold years the West stood firm against the military threat from the East. Free enterprise overwhelmed Socialism. This Government stood firm against all those voices raised at home in favour of appeasement. We were criticised for intransigence. Tempted repeatedly with soft options. And reviled for standing firm against Soviet military threats. When will they learn? When will they ever learn?"

"Now again in the sands of the Middle East, principle is at stake. Mr President, dictators can be deterred, they can be crushed—but they can never be appeased. These things are not abstractions. What changed the world and what will save the world were principle and resolve. Our principles: freedom, independence, responsibility, choice—these and the democracy built upon them are Britain's special legacy to the world. And everywhere those who love liberty look to Britain. When they speak of parliaments they look to Westminster. When they speak of justice they look to our common law. And when they seek to regenerate their economies, they look to the transformation we British have accomplished. Principles and resolve: They are what changed Britain a decade ago. They are what the Conservative Party brings to Britain. And they alone can secure her freedom and prosperity in the years ahead."

"Last week, Mr President, I seemed to hear a strange sound emanating from Blackpool. And I thought at first it was seagulls. [laughter] Then I remembered that Labour was holding its annual Conference there. And I realised it wasn't seagulls, it was chickens—[laughter and applause] chickens being counted before they were hatched—[laughter and applause] except for Labour's call to enter the ERM and cut interest rates. That was a case of counting chickens after they'd flown the coop. Then, I heard voices getting all worked up about someone they kept calling the “Prime Minister in Waiting”. [laughter] It occurs to me, Mr President, that he might have quite a wait. [applause] I can see him now, like the people queuing up for the Winter sales. All got up with his camp bed, hot thermos, woolly balaclava, CND badge ... [laughter and applause] Waiting, waiting, waiting ... And then when the doors open, in he rushes—only to find that, as always, there's “that woman” ahead of him again. [applause and laughter] I gather there may be an adjective between “that” and “woman” [laughter] only no-one will tell me what it is. [laughter and applause]"

"Now, that brings me to the Liberal Party. I gather that during the last few days there have been some ill-natured jokes about their new symbol, a bird of some kind, adopted by the Liberal Democrats at Blackpool. Politics is a serious business, and one should not lower the tone unduly. So I will say only this of the Liberal Democrat symbol and of the party it symbolises. This is an ex-parrot. It is not merely stunned. It has ceased to be, expired and gone to meet its maker. It is a parrot no more. It has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is a late parrot. And now for something completely different."

"It seems like cloud cuckoo land... If anyone is suggesting that I would go to Parliament and suggest the abolition of the pound sterling – no! … We have made it quite clear that we will not have a single currency imposed on us."

"The President of the Commission, M. Delors, said at a press conference the other day that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the Community, he wanted the Commission to be the Executive and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate. No. No. No."

"I am still at the crease, though the bowling has been pretty hostile of late. And in case anyone doubted it, can I assure you there will be no ducking the bouncers, no stonewalling, no playing for time. The bowling's going to get hit all round the ground. That is my style."

"I fight on, I fight to win."

"Paddy Ashdown: ...this is an agreement which the right hon. Lady will be entitled to regard with a certain pride and satisfaction as she looks back on the twilight days of her premiership..."

"Margaret Thatcher: ...The first eleven and a half years have not been so bad – and with regard to a twilight, please remember that there are 24 hours in a day."

"Having consulted widely among colleagues, I have concluded that the unity of the Party and the prospects of victory in a General Election would be better served if I stood down to enable Cabinet colleagues to enter the ballot for the leadership. I should like to thank all those in Cabinet and outside who have given me such dedicated support."

"People on all levels of income are better off than they were in 1979. The hon. Gentleman is saying that he would rather that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That way one will never create the wealth for better social services. as we have. What a policy. Yes, he would rather have the poor poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That is the Liberal policy."

"It may be inverted snobbishness but I don't want old style, Old Etonian Tories of the old school to succeed me and go back to the old complacent, consensus ways. John Major is someone who has fought his way up from the bottom and is far more in tune with the skilled and ambitious and worthwhile working classes than Douglas Hurd is."

"We're leaving Downing Street for the last time after eleven-and-a-half wonderful years, and we're very happy that we leave the United Kingdom in a very, very much better state than when we came here eleven and a half years ago."

"Americans and Europeans alike sometimes forget how unique is the United States of America. No other nation has been created so swiftly and successfully. No other nation has been built upon an idea – the idea of liberty. No other nation has so successfully combined people of different races and nations within a single culture. Both the founding fathers of the United States and successive waves of immigrants to your country were determined to create a new identity. Whether in flight from persecution or from poverty, the huddled masses have, with few exceptions, welcomed American values, the American way of life and American opportunities. And America herself has bound them to her with powerful bonds of patriotism and pride. The European nations are not and can never be like this. They are the product of history and not of philosophy. You can construct a nation on an idea; but you cannot reconstruct a nation on the basis of one."

"When people are free to choose, they choose freedom."

"But freedom without law is freedom only for the strong at the expense of the weak. Freedom without law is therefore no freedom, but rather anarchy or tyranny. Law is the bond of all civil society. We are not asking a favour of a man when we ask him to obey the law. Obedience of the rule of law is necessary for the continuance of liberty itself. Doubtless you will point out that laws have not always been just—indeed they have been very unjust. In South Africa that certainly has been the case. Thankfully, that is now being remedied. And alongside that, democracy has yet to be achieved."

"Our sovereignty does not come from Brussels—it is ours by right and by heritage."

"Member for Islwyn was going to have a single currency willy-nilly. He has already made up his mind. The argument that he uses is that, if others have it, we must. That is an argument for a flock of sheep, not for people who are sent here to analyse the problem and to use our minds and our reason to say which course we should follow."

"It is a great night. It is the end of Socialism."

"The trouble with you John, is that your spine does not reach your brain."

"We could have stopped this, we could still do so... But for the most part, we in the west have actually given comfort to the aggressor."

"I set out to destroy socialism because I felt it was at odds with the character of the people. We were the first country in the world to roll back the frontiers of socialism, then roll forward the frontiers of freedom. We reclaimed our heritage; we are renewing it and carrying it forward."

"I didn't realise how absolutely useless they [the House of Lords] are. There they are, they just go along to collect £15,000 a year... They've got no guts. They should be defending Britain against the transfer of power to Maastricht and our loss of sovereignty and our loss of identity... If they were bigger men, they would take the risk. Actually, I think they are quite useless and they ought to be abolished. They are no good at all."

"[It is a] killing field of the like of which I thought we would never see in Europe again [and is] not worthy of Europe, not worthy of the west and not worthy of the United States... This is happening in the heart of Europe and we have not done more to stop it. It is in Europe's sphere of influence. It should be in Europe's sphere of conscience... We are little more than an accomplice to massacre."

"Clear. Decisive. Purposeful."

"Douglas, Douglas, you would make Neville Chamberlain look like a warmonger."

"I could never have signed this treaty. I hope that that is clear to all who have heard me."

"We weren't getting a fair deal on the budget and I wasn't going to have it. There's a great strand of equity and fairness in the British people – this is our characteristic. There's not a strand of equity or fairness in Europe – they're out to get as much as they can. That's one of those enormous differences. So I tackled it on that basis."

"When I'm out of politics I'm going to run a business, it'll be called 'rent-a-spine'."

"We were the first country to attempt and to succeed in rolling back the frontiers of socialism, which is the first cousin to communism."

"Socialists don't like people to do things for themselves. Socialists like to get people dependent on the state! You never build a great society that way."

"The interviewer Stina Dabrowski said to Thatcher: "So when people criticise you and say what it led to the period when you were prime minister was that the rich became richer and the poor and the became poorer." Thatcher replied "That is not correct. The poor also became less poor, because the benefits at the bottom for those who are genuinely poor do go up. Money spend on education goes up and on the Health Service goes up so that is not true. What happens you might get a bigger gap but you might start here creates a small gap particularly if you're paying top tax today - 83% on earnings and income and 98% on savings. Your gap goes up, it does go up, but the whole thing moves up the gap, you must give people incentive!"

"[M]ore than they wanted freedom, the Athenians wanted security. Yet they lost everything—security, comfort, and freedom. This was because they wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them. The freedom they were seeking was freedom from responsibility. It is no wonder, then, that they ceased to be free. In the modern world, we should recall the Athenians' dire fate whenever we confront demands for increased state paternalism."

"The kind of Conservatism which he and I...favoured would be best described as "liberal", in the old-fashioned sense. And I mean the liberalism of Mr Gladstone not of the latter day collectivists. That is to say, we placed far greater confidence in individuals, families, businesses and neighbourhoods than in the State."

"I am not sure what is meant by those who say that the Party should return to something called "One Nation Conservatism". As far as I can tell by their views on European federalism, such people's creed would be better described as "No Nation Conservatism"."

"The fightback begins now!"

"We fly the British flag, not these awful things you are putting on tails."

"In my lifetime all our problems have come from mainland Europe and all the solutions have come from the English-speaking nations across the world."

"On my way here I passed a local cinema and it turns out you were expecting me after all, for the billboards read: The Mummy Returns."

"Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds."

"I might have preferred iron, but bronze will do. It won't rust. And, this time I hope, the head will stay on."

"I never hugged him, I bombed him."

"I had applied for a job [at Imperial Chemical Industries] in 1948 and was called for a personal interview. However I failed to get selected. Many years later, I succeeded in finding out why I had been rejected. The remarks written by the selectors on my application were: "This woman is headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated!""

"No theory of government was ever given a fairer test or a more prolonged experiment in a democratic country than democratic socialism received in Britain. Yet it was a miserable failure in every respect. Far from reversing the slow relative decline of Britain vis-à-vis its main industrial competitors, it accelerated it. We fell further behind them, until by 1979 we were widely dismissed as 'the sick man of Europe'. ... To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches."

"Chatham famously remarked: 'I know that I can save this country and that no one else can.' It would have been presumptuous of me to have compared myself to Chatham. But if I am honest, I must admit that my exhilaration came from a similar inner conviction."

"It was at Strasbourg...that I overheard a foreign government official make a stray remark that pleased me as much as any I can remember: 'Britain is back,' he said."

"The significance of the Falklands War was enormous, both for Britain's self-confidence and for our standing in the world...We had come to be seen by both friends and enemies as a nation which lacked the will and the capability to defend its interests in peace, let alone in war. Victory in the Falklands changed that. Everywhere I went after the war, Britain's name meant something more than it had. The war also had real importance in relations between East and West: years later I was told by a Russian general that the Soviets had been firmly convinced that we would not fight for the Falklands, and that if we did fight we would lose. We proved them wrong on both counts, and they did not forget the fact."

"But when you are at war you cannot allow the difficulties to dominate your thinking: you have to set out with an iron will to overcome them. And anyway what was the alternative? That a common or garden dictator should rule over the Queen's subjects and prevail by fraud and violence? Not while I was prime minister."

"Unlike some of my colleagues, I never ceased to believe that, other things being equal, the level of unemployment was related to the extent of trade union power. The unions had priced many of their members out of jobs by demanding excessive wages for insufficient output, so making British goods uncompetitive."

"Labour's own drift to the left and the extremism of the trade unions had disillusioned and fractured its traditional support. The SDP and the Liberals failed to grasp the significance of what was happening. They projected their appeal to the middle-class Left, especially those who worked in the public sector, probably, I suspect, because Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams instinctively sought out their own kind and allowed that instinct to overcome their judgement. In fact, the more numerous and dissatisfied Labour supporters were in the rising working and lower-middle class – the same group that in America Ronald Reagan was winning over and who were known as 'Reagan Democrats'. They were benefiting from the opportunities we had made available, especially the sale of council houses; more important, they shared our values, including a strong belief in family life and an intense patriotism. We now had an opportunity to bring them into the Conservative fold."

"I had by now come to share Nigel's high opinion of himself."

"From 1972 until 1985 the conventional wisdom was that Britain could only be governed with the consent of the trade unions. No government could really resist, still less defeat, a major strike; in particular a strike by the miners' union. ... [M]any on the left and outside it continued to believe that the miners had the ultimate veto and would one day use it. That day had now come and gone. Our determination to resist a strike emboldened the ordinary trade unionist to defy the militants. What the strike's defeat established was that Britain could not be made ungovernable by the Fascist Left. Marxists wanted to defy the law of the land in order to defy the laws of economics. They failed, and in doing so demonstrated just how mutually dependent the free economy and a free society really are. It is a lesson no one should forget."

"When the Norman Fowlers of this world believe that they can afford to rebel, you know that things are bad."

"The star of that year's conference was undoubtedly the Swedish conservative leader—since Prime Minister—who delivered a speech of such startling Thatcherite soundness that in applauding I felt as if I was giving myself a standing ovation."

"I have enormous admiration for the Jewish people, inside or outside Israel. There have always been Jewish members of my staff and indeed my Cabinet. In fact I just wanted a Cabinet of clever, energetic people – and frequently that turned out to be the same thing. My old constituency of Finchley has a large Jewish population. In the thirty-three years I represented it I never had a Jew come in poverty and desperation to one of my constituency surgeries. They had always been looked after by their own community."

"I often wished that...Christians themselves would take closer note of the Jewish emphasis on self-help and acceptance of personal responsibility. On top of all that, the political and economic construction of Israel against huge odds and bitter adversaries is one of the heroic sagas of our age. They really made 'the desert bloom'. I only wished that Israeli emphasis on the human rights of the Russian refuseniks was matched by proper appreciation of the plight of landless and stateless Palestinians."

"The colour of someone's skin should not determine his or her political rights."

"I was lectured on my political morality, on my preferring British jobs to black lives, on my lack of concern for human rights. One after the other, their accusations became more vitriolic and personal until I could stand it no longer. To their palpable alarm I began to tell my African critics a few home truths. I noted that they were busily trading with South Africa at the same time as they were attacking me for refusing to apply sanctions. I wondered when they intended to show similar concern about abuses in the Soviet Union, with which of course they often had not just trade but close political links. I wondered when I was going to hear them attack terrorism. I reminded them of their own less than impressive record on human rights. And when the representative from Uganda took me to task for racial discrimination, I turned on him and reminded him of the Asians which Uganda had thrown out on racial grounds, many of whom had come to settle in my constituency in North London, where they were model citizens and doing very well."

"I never confused the leader page of the Guardian with vox populi."

"I had great regard for the Victorians for many reasons. ... I never felt uneasy about praising 'Victorian values' or – the phrase I originally used – ‘Victorian virtues’ ... [T]hey distinguished between the 'deserving' and the 'undeserving poor'. Both groups should be given help; but it must be help of very different kinds if public spending is not just going to reinforce the dependency culture. The problem with our welfare state was that...we had failed to remember that distinction and so we provided the same 'help' to those who had genuinely fallen into difficulties and needed some support till they could get out of them, as to those who had simply lost the will or habit of work and self-improvement. The purpose of help must not be to allow people to live a half-life, but to restore their self-discipline and through that their self-esteem."

"The press was full of outraged criticism of the community charge from Conservative supporters. What hurt me was that the very people who had always looked to me for protection from exploitation by the socialist state were those who were suffering most. These were the people who were just above the level at which community charge benefit stopped but who were by no means well off and who had scrimped and saved to buy their homes."

"A whole class of people – an 'underclass' if you will – had been dragged back into the ranks of responsible society and asked to become not just dependants but citizens. The violent riots of 31 March in and around Trafalgar Square was their and the Left's response. And the eventual abandonment of the charge represented one of the greatest victories for these people ever conceded by a Conservative Government."

"[D]uring my second term of office as Prime Minister, certain harmful features and tendencies in the European Community started to become ­evident. Against the notable gains constituted by the securing of Britain's budget rebate and progress towards a real Common – or 'Single' – Market had to be set a more powerful Commission ambitious for power, an inclination towards bureaucratic rather than market solutions to economic problems and the re-emergence of a Franco-German axis with its own covert federalist and protectionist agenda. As yet, however, the full implications of all this were unclear – even to me, distrustful as I always was of that un-British combination of high-flown rhetoric and pork-barrel politics which passed for European statesmanship."

"I always regarded free trade as far more important than all the other ambitious and often counter-productive strategies of global economic policy – for example the policies of 'co-ordinated growth' which led principally to inflation. Free trade provided a means not only for poorer countries to earn foreign currency and increase their peoples' standards of living. It was also a force for peace, freedom and political decentralization: peace, because economic links between nations reinforce mutual understanding with mutual interest; freedom, because trade between individuals bypasses the apparatus of the state and disperses power to customers not planners; political decentralization, because the size of the political unit is not dictated by the size of the market and vice versa."

"Not the least of those opponents was Jacques Delors. By the summer of 1988 he had altogether slipped his leash as a fonctionnaire and become a fully fledged political spokesman for federalism. The blurring of the roles of civil servants and elected representatives was more in the continental tradition than in ours. It proceeded from the widespread distrust which their voters had for politicians in countries like France and Italy. That same distrust also fuelled the federalist express. If you have no real confidence in the political system or political leaders of your own country you are bound to be more tolerant of foreigners of manifest intelligence, ability and integrity like M. Delors telling you how to run your affairs. Or to put it more bluntly, if I were an Italian I might prefer rule from Brussels too. But the mood in Britain was different. I sensed it. More than that, I shared it and I decided that the time had come to strike out against what I saw as the erosion of democracy by centralization and bureaucracy, and to set out an alternative view of Europe's future."

"Were British democracy, parliamentary sovereignty, the common law, our traditional sense of fairness, our ability to run our own affairs in our own way to be subordinated to the demands of a remote European bureaucracy, resting on very different traditions? I had by now heard about as much of the European 'ideal' as I could take; I suspected that many others had too. In the name of this ideal, waste, corruption and abuse of power were reaching levels which no one who supported, as I had done, entry to the European Economic Community could have foreseen."

"For me as a British Conservative, with Edmund Burke the father of Conservatism and first great perceptive critic of the Revolution as my ideological mentor, the events of 1789 represent a perennial illusion in politics. The French Revolution was a Utopian attempt to overthrow a traditional order — one with many imperfections, certainly — in the name of abstract ideas, formulated by vain intellectuals, which lapsed, not by chance but through weakness and wickedness, into purges, mass murder and war. In so many ways it anticipated the still more terrible Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The English tradition of liberty, however, grew over the centuries: its most marked features are continuity, respect for law and a sense of balance, as demonstrated by the Glorious Revolution of 1688."

"Orthodox finance, low levels of regulation and taxation, a minimal bureaucracy, strong defence, a willingness to stand up for Britain's interests wherever and whenever threatened – I did not believe that I had to open windows into men's souls on these matters. The arguments for them seemed to me to have been won. I now know that such arguments are never finally won."

"I was determined to accept the invitation I had earlier received from General Jaruzelski to go to Poland. I always felt the greatest affection and admiration for this nation of indomitable patriots, whose traditions and distinctive identity the Prussians, Austrians and Russians (in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) and the Nazis and communists (in the twentieth century) had sought vainly to extinguish. I could not forget the Polish airmen who had fought with the RAF against Nazism, and how a war begun over the freedom of Poland had ended leaving them trapped under tyranny."

"Geoffrey Howe from this point on would be remembered not for his staunchness as Chancellor, nor for his skilful diplomacy as Foreign Secretary, but for this final act of bile and treachery. The very brilliance with which he wielded the dagger ensured that the character he assassinated was in the end his own."

"I was sick at heart. I could have resisted the opposition of opponents and potential rivals and even respected them for it; but what grieved me was the desertion of those I had always considered friends and allies and the weasel words whereby they had transmuted their betrayal into frank advice and concern for my fate."

"Nazism (national Socialism) and communism (international socialism) were but two sides of the same coin."

"We all see these great calamities with different eyes, and so their impact upon us is different."

"The main contribution one can make as a student to one's country in peace or wartime is to study hard and effectively."

"Each demand for security, whether of employment, income or social position, implied the exclusion from such benefits of those outside the particular privileged group - and would generate demands for countervailing privileges from the excluded groups. Eventually, in such a situation every will lose."

"Everyone had something unique to offer in life and their responsibility was to develop those gifts - and heroes come from all backgrounds."

"You cannot build a great nation or brotherhood of man by spreading envy or hatred."

"Our opponents like to try and make you believe that Conservatism is a privilege of the few. But Conservatism conserves all that is great and best in our national heritage."

"It is not our policy to suppress success."

"Our policy is not built on envy or hatred, but on liberty for the individual man or woman."

"Communism was the regime for the privileged elite, capitalism the creed for the common man."

"When you stop selecting by ability you have to select according to some other inevitably less satisfactory criterion."

"Those who use this country's great tradition of freedom of speech should not seek to deny that same freedom to others, especially to those who, like Mr Powell, spent their war years in distinguished service in the Forces."

"Many senior policemen put greater emphasis on maintaining 'order' than on upholding the law. In practice that meant failing to uphold the rights of individuals against the rule of the mob."

"For my part, I favour an approach to statecraft that embraces principles, as long as it is not stifled by them; and I prefer such principles to be accompanied by steel along with good intentions."

"We now know that bin Laden's terrorists had been planning their outrages for years. The propagation of their mad, bad ideology – decency forbids calling it a religion – had been taking place before our eyes. We were just too blind to see it. In short, the world had never ceased to be dangerous. But the West had ceased to be vigilant. Surely that is the most important lesson of this tragedy, and we must learn it if our civilisation is to survive."

"The habit of ubiquitous interventionism, combining pinprick strikes by precision weapons with pious invocations of high principle, would lead us into endless difficulties. Interventions must be limited in number and overwhelming in their impact."

"I should therefore prefer to restrict my guidelines to the following:"

"The West as a whole in the early 1990s became obsessed with a 'peace dividend' that would be spent over and over again on any number of soft-hearted and sometimes soft-headed causes. Politicians forgot that the only real peace dividend is peace."

"Never believe that technology alone will allow America to prevail as a superpower."

"But if Saddam had been in a position credibly to threaten America or any of its allies – or the coalition's forces – with attack by missiles with nuclear warheads, would we have gone to the Gulf at all?"

"For every idealistic peacemaker willing to renounce his self-defence in favour of a weapons-free world, there is at least one warmaker anxious to exploit the other's good intentions."

"Successful entrepreneurship is ultimately a matter of flair. But there is also a fund of practical knowledge to be acquired and, of course, the right legal and financial framework has to be provided for productive enterprise to develop."

"It is always important in matters of high politics to know what you do not know. Those who think they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge."

"Singapore's success shows us that:"

"All corporatism – even when practised in societies where hard work, enterprise and cooperation are as highly valued as in Korea – encourages inflexibility, discourages individual accountability, and risks magnifying errors by concealing them."

"My father, more perceptive than many, wryly commented that by the time I was an adult there might not be an Indian Civil Service to enter. He turned out to be right. I had to settle for British politics instead."

"Patched-up diplomatic solutions designed to answer the needs of the moment rarely last, and as they unravel they can actually make things worse."

"North Korea desperately needed the foreign currency which this lethal trade could bring; its role as chief 'rogue' reinforced its prestige among anti-Western states, near and far; and it could also hope at the right moment to extort new instalments of Danegeld from America and her allies."

"Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper."

"You only have to wade through a metric measure or two of European prose, culled from its directives, circulars, reports, communiqués or what pass as debates in its 'parliament', and you will quickly understand that Europe is, in truth, synonymous with bureaucracy – to which one might add 'to', 'from' and 'with' bureaucracy if one were so minded."

"What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmes of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy."

"'Europe' in anything other than the geographical sense is a wholly artificial construct. It makes no sense at all to lump together Beethoven and Debussy, Voltaire and Burke, Vermeer and Picasso, Notre Dame and St Paul's, boiled beef and bouillabaisse, and portray them as elements of a 'European' musical, philosophical, artistic, architectural or gastronomic reality. If Europe charms us, as it has so often charmed me, it is precisely because of its contrasts and contradictions, not its coherence and continuity."

"Not that this appears to affect the intentions of the political-bureaucratic elite, which in Britain as elsewhere in Europe believes that it has an overriding mission to achieve European integration by hook or by crook and which is convinced that History (with an extra-large 'H') is on its side."

"The feminists hate me, don't they? And I don’t blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison."

"It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs."

"Oh, those poor shopkeepers!"

"The problem is the Queen is the kind of woman who could vote SDP."

"I owe nothing to Women's Lib."

"Victorian values."

"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it."

"Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly."

"A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure."

"If my critics saw me walking over the River Thames they would say it was because I couldn't swim."

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

"I definitely believe Margaret Thatcher became a friend of Pinochet during the Falklands War, but I have a completely different vision of feminism and humanism, and could never believe that Margaret Thatcher was an icon of feminism. I do not think that she represents the values."

"The fall of Margaret Thatcher in the autumn of 1990 had much of the appearance of a return of British politics to its modern starting-point in the early sixties."

"Remember how close the IRA came to killing her at Brighton in 1984. I have a sense that she feels she has been living on borrowed time and that she has so much left to do ever since. As you know, she needs very little sleep and sits up there in that study of hers on the first floor of No. 10 until the small hours. It's as if she looks out the window and sees the camp fires of her enemies who are surrounding her, just waiting for her to go. And she knows that so many of the old ways and policies she despises will begin to reappear the moment she does."

"When she came to power in 1979 we genuinely debated whether or not those who governed Britain would be the trade unions or the elected Government of our country. I think her most significant achievement is that that question is no longer asked. She has had a unique character and unique strengths and abilities and unique faults as well."

"no one knows how we got here, from Maggie Thatcher in London to Ronald Reagan in America. If that is not the bottom of the barrel! And in terms of America, the Americans are even more abject than the Europeans who are stifling among their artefacts, their icons, which they call history."

"Reagan is a symptom of the American panic just as Maggie Thatcher is a symptom of the British panic. They want to thrust themselves, you and me, back into the past. Their identity is being attacked because they told themselves nothing but lies about us. I can now describe the people who described me. This involves a tremendous shift in the world. It is a dangerous time for us but a desperate time for them"."

"She behaves with all the sensitivity of a sex-starved boa constrictor."

"In terms of stamina and persistence, you have to admit Margaret Thatcher is an extraordinary woman. She came out of Number 10, saying "I fight on. I fight to win." Then she went to the House and made a statement on the Paris CSCE talks. You would think she would be downcast after that setback, but not at all. When Paddy Ashdown said that the Paris Treaty was one of the great moments of the twilight of her premiership, she replied, "As for twilight, people should remember that there is a 24-hour clock", which was a smashing answer."

"The Prime Ministers who are remembered are those who think and teach, and not many do. Mrs. Thatcher... influenced the thinking of a generation."

"She was a tigress surrounded by hamsters."

"In Britain, Thatcher was comfortably re-elected in 1983 and 1987, and the radical left-wing challenge of a coal miners’ strike designed in effect to bring down the government was defeated in 1984–5. This strike had its own dynamic very much located in British industrial and labour politics, but can also be placed within the Cold War. The leadership of the British NUM (National Union of Mineworkers), was very left-wing and was ready to take money from both the Soviet Union and Libya. Faced by a national dock strike in support of the miners, the government, in July 1984, drew up plans for troops to move coal and food around the country. Thatcher’s closest aides saw the struggle as one to maintain effective government. In the end, the dock strike petered out in 1984. As another link with Cold War tensions, Thatcher survived an IRA bomb attack in 1984. The provision of arms to the IRA in part came from American sympathisers of Irish origin, but Eastern Bloc supplies were also significant, notably from Libya and Czechoslovakia. The IRA endorsed radical Marxist positions."

"I've not seen one interview in recent years where she hasn't wiped the floor with the interviewer with contemptuous ease."

"She will be remembered not only for being Britain's first female prime minister and holding the office for eleven years, but also for the determination and resilience with which she carried out all her duties throughout her public life. Even those who disagreed with her never doubted the strength of her convictions and her unwavering belief in Britain's destiny in the world."

"Her iron will won international respect. Her unabashed femininity gained women's. Margaret Thatcher was a lady's lady."

"I'll miss her because I value her counsel. I value her long experience and the wisdom that comes from that experience. She has been an outstanding Prime Minister for the United Kingdom and an outstanding friend to the United States."

"America's highest civilian award is the Medal of Freedom. And we're here to present it to one of the greatest leaders of our time... She's been called the Iron Lady—irrepressible, at times incorrigible, always indomitable... Her resolution and dedication set an example for all of us... Margaret Thatcher helped bring the cold war to an end, helped the human will outlast bayonets and barbed wire. She sailed freedom's ship wherever it was imperilled. Prophet and crusader, idealist and realist, this heroic woman made history move her way."

"Meetings with Mrs Thatcher are not for the faint-hearted or ill-briefed. She has normally read all the papers on the subjects under discussion, probably in the middle of the night when her ministers and advisers sleep. She will frequently launch a ferocious attack on a possible weak point in the arguments she is advised to accept. She expects her ministers and officials to defend them with with equal vigour if they believe they are right. She will interrupt them if they say something she disagrees with – and yet listen intently if they insist and prove to have an important point to make which she needs to consider. It sometimes seemed to me that she would on occasion tease her advisers by advancing some outrageous proposition in which she did not believe, just to see how they responded to it. Contrary to what is generally written in the newspapers and believed by her critics, she seemed to me positively to welcome serious argument and to have a high regard for those who argued with her most effectively."

"Of all the prime ministers that I have known, from Harold Macmillan to Lord Callaghan, she was the one who most wanted to do things, as distinct from simply being prime minister."

"The further you got from Britain, the more admired you found she was."

"[I]t was Alfred who instilled in her the habit of hard work, as something both virtuous in itself and the route to self-advancement. Throughout her life, it was her inexhaustible willingness to work longer hours than anyone else, her refusal to go to bed before she had read every last paper, which enabled her repeatedly to beat down colleagues and opponents by sheer mastery of detail. She once confessed to a recurring nightmare that "I'm going to take my final degree exam tomorrow and I haven't done a stroke of revision and I'm always terribly glad to wake up." As Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher still prepared for parliamentary questions or international summits like a schoolgirl swotting for an exam. She was contemptuous of opponents, colleagues or fellow heads of government who had stinted their homework. But however much they had done, she always expected to have done more."

"It would be hard to overestimate the effect of this sort of snobbish condescension on the formation of Margaret Thatcher's character. The discovery that all the trendy people were against her only confirmed her certainty that they were all wrong and reinforced her righteous sense of persecution. She encountered the same patronising attitude when she first became Leader of the Opposition in 1975. She had probably met it already at school, where she was used to being a loner who was not allowed to go to dances: it was precisely the attitude Alfred had tried to arm her against by urging her to follow her own – or his – convictions and ignore the crowd. But nowhere can it have been more brutal than at Oxford, where she went up naively expecting to find rational inquiry but met only with arrogant superiority. This was her first encounter with the liberal establishment and she did not like it. It hardened her heart: one day she would get even. Janet Vaughan...gets no warm words in her memoirs. The experience forged her lifelong view of herself as an outsider, part of a persecuted minority, which never left her."

"In 1979, blue collar Britain rescued this country when they backed Margaret Thatcher, rejecting the socialism of the elite. Despite endless expert economists objecting to the tough economic medicine Mrs Thatcher prescribed, it was blue collar Britain stuck with her as she turned our country around. She was elected four times in a row, never losing an election."

"Of all the elements combined in the complex of signs labelled Margaret Thatcher, it is her voice that sums up the ambiguity of the entire construct. She coos like a dove, hisses like a serpent, bays like a hound [in a contrived upper-class accent] reminiscent not of real toffs but of Wodehouse aunts."

"She is so clearly the best man among them...I can't help feeling a thrill, even though I believe her election will make things much more difficult for us. I have been saying for a long time that this country is ready...for a woman Prime Minister."

"[Margaret Thatcher] struck a chord which was waiting to be struck...all these fears of bureaucracy, of too much government, of the erosion of freedom of the individual, fears of anarchy...she just came at the time when all these fears began to coalesce."

"What does she want, this housewife? My balls on a tray?"

""There is no alternative" to the capitalist world economy, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher proclaimed triumphantly as the socialist world crumbled in the 1980s. But she was wrong, and today's climate activists are turning her phrase on its head: we have no alternative but to change course, radically and rapidly."

"Given half the chance she would have led poor MacCormick and the camera crew in a chorus of "Rule Britannia" before the credits rolled. She is the most outrageous female performer since Edna Everage, she positively exults in getting whatever Buggins is unfortunate enough to have his turn in the ring and clouting him round the head, and kneeing him in the groin and all the time she smiles that damnable smile."

"We shall remember – not the bomb or the ruined building – but your courage, calm and nobility in the aftermath."

"Powellism anticipated, Thatcherism coincided with, changes in economic opinion which occurred very generally among economists, civil servants and financial commentators of all political opinions in face of the economic decline of the 1970s. They were also parts of a struggle for power, victory in which enabled Mrs Thatcher to play radical variations on that patriotic conjunction of freedom, authority, inequality, individualism and average decency and respectability, which had been the Conservative Party's theme since at least 1886 and the aspiration it had maintained through all the resistances it had encountered from, and all the concessions it had made to, the higher thought, collectivist practice and the caution, or reluctance, of its leaders. The Conservative Party under Mrs Thatcher has used a radical rhetoric to give intellectual respectability to what the Conservative Party has always wanted."

"What kind of leadership Mrs Thatcher will provide remains to be seen... But one thing is clear enough at this stage – Mrs Thatcher is a bonny fighter. She believes in the ethic of hard work and big rewards for success. She has risen from humble origins by effort and ability and courage. She owes nothing to inherited wealth or privilege. She ought not to suffer, therefore, from that fatal and characteristic 20th-century Tory defect of guilt about wealth. All too often this has meant that the Tories have felt themselves to be at a moral disadvantage in the defence of capitalism against socialism. This is one reason why Britain has travelled so far down the collectivist road. What Mrs Thatcher ought to be able to offer is the missing moral dimension to the Tory attack on socialism. If she does so, her succession to the leadership could mark a sea-change in the whole character of party political debate in this country."

"[When Mrs Thatcher was Education Secretary] I was struck then by her incisiveness in everything she said, and her grasp of her subject. She was never caught out, ever, by any question asked. So my recollection of her is quite clear. Curiously enough I came back one day and said to my wife, "You know, she's got the brains of all of us put together, and so we'd better look out.""

"For us she is not the iron lady. She is the kind, dear Mrs. Thatcher."

"On one occasion I asked her, "Mrs T, what was your greatest disappointment in government?" Again as though she had thought long and hard beforehand about it, she said, "I cut taxes and I thought we would get a giving society, and we haven't.""

"She has towered over all her contemporaries... Her courage – intellectual, psychological and in the face of physical danger – is quite out of the ordinary. It is her unwavering purpose that has kept her government on their fixed course through the troughs as well as the crests of party and personal popularity. The temptation to take the easier path, to fudge, and to trim, are immense. She herself has never succumbed to it... Mrs Thatcher evokes admiration and detestation for one identical reason: she is 'big'. She has impressed herself on government as nobody has done since the war years of Churchill. She falls short of greatness, but she radiates dominance. I do not believe that in our lifetime we shall ever look upon her like again."

"No other British Prime Minister would have won the Falklands War or the miners' strike. She showed unique resolution and clarity. She was terrifyingly inspiring. If she hadn't won, we'd be like Greece."

"The blood that is spilling is not my responsibility. It is the responsibility of Mrs. 'No.'"

"Nor could it have been expected that the first woman to become prime minister of Great Britain would challenge the social welfare state in Western Europe. Margaret Thatcher's path to power, like Deng's, had not been easy. Born without wealth or status, disadvantaged by gender in a male-dominated political establishment, she rose to the top through hard work, undisguised ambition, and an utter unwillingness to mince words. Her principal targets were high taxes, nationalized industries, deference to labor unions, and intrusive government regulation. "No theory of government was ever given a fairer test . . . than democratic socialism received in Britain," she later argued. "Yet it was a miserable failure in every respect." The results she produced after eleven years in power were not as impressive as Deng's, but they did show that privatization, deregulation, and the encouragement of entrepreneurs—even, critics said, of greed—could command wide popular support. That too was a blow to Marxism, for if capitalism really did exploit "the masses," why did so many among them cheer the "iron lady"? Thatcher minced no words either about detente. "[W]e can argue about Soviet motives," she told an American audience soon after taking office, "but the fact is that the Russians have the weapons and are getting more of them. It is simple prudence for the West to respond." The invasion of Afghanistan did not surprise her: "I had long understood that detente had been ruthlessly used by the Soviets to exploit western weakness and disarray. I knew the beast." Not since Churchill had a British leader used language in this way: suddenly words, not euphemisms, were being used again to speak truths, not platitudes. From California a former movie actor turned politician turned broadcaster gave the new prime minister a rave review. "I couldn't be happier," Ronald Reagan told his radio audience. "I've been rooting for her . . . since our first meeting. If anyone can remind England of the greatness she knew . . . when alone and unafraid her people fought the Battle of Britain it will be the Prime Minister the Eng[lish] press has already nicknamed 'Maggie.'"

"The Iron Lady was a great lady. She deserves applause."

"She spoke like Queen Elizabeth I. She looked like Queen Elizabeth I."

"Fortunately Hayek never had any influence on Thatcher's policies. (Her chief economic adviser in these years was Alan Walters, a Friedman-style monetarist.) Equally, and perhaps also happily, Thatcher had no understanding of Hayek's ideas. If it was true that she carried about with her for a time a copy of Hayek's magnum opus, The Constitution of Liberty (1960), she cannot have read its postscript, "Why I am not a Conservative", in which Hayek explains that he rejects conservatism because it lacks a vision of human progress. A case can be made that Thatcher was no conservative, either – at least if being conservative includes an aversion to policies that impose deep changes on inherited social institutions. But this is a view that goes only so far. Unlike Hayek, Thatcher understood and accepted the political limits of market economics."

"I found our conversation startling. She had a level of understanding of the way the world worked that most people in the political realm are unable to acquire. And it was a view that I would agree with. She believed in free-market discipline."

"She does have a very natural understanding of what the people, the majority, the good hearted, the people who really care about the country, think... She doesn't actually have that superior feeling about ordinary people's views. She does have a real belief that they are worthwhile. She isn't in any way snooty, intellectually snooty, she has a simplicity which enables her to feel for people who say, "I don't want old ladies mugged on the street. If we hanged the muggers then they wouldn't be mugged on the street." She managed to disentangle herself from the rather artificial reactions of the House of Commons, of government, of metropolitan man. She can react as ordinary people do to a series of events, and that's tremendous strength."

"[N]o British Prime Minister for whom I worked would have got a better deal than Margaret Thatcher and several would probably have settled for something inferior."

"Margaret Thatcher was the hardest-working head of Government I ever met. Her application was prodigious and she was always extraordinarily well briefed for every meeting. Whatever the subject, she could press her sometimes jarring and belligerent viewpoints with great authority, and for that I deeply respected her."

"It is Mrs Thatcher's great merit that she has broken with the Keynesian immorality of 'in the long run we are all dead' and to have concentrated on the long run future of the country irrespective of possible effects on the electors. Keynesian irresponsibility naturally appeals to the timid wets... Mrs Thatcher's courage makes her put the long run future of the country first. After being much too long restrained by the believers in the Muddle of the Middle, her new stature ought to enable her to guide us by her true vision."

"A mixture of a matron at a minor public school and a guard in a concentration camp."

"I have always admired you, because you are a true commitment politician, as I trust I am... Politically, I cannot be sorry that you are no longer PM. Yet in a personal sense I am terribly sorry as although I disagreed with you, no one could say you were not honest, courageous and with great integrity."

"She comes from a certain social background, one step up the ladder of economic success, with it, a lot of the characteristics that you associate with people who've just made it. A certain intolerance of those who haven't, a certain suspicion of those who are further up the ladder, a certain bigotry. Slightly over-simplistic solutions about the nature of the society in which they live. And then she went to university and got a fantastic degree and she had a fine mind."

"You've got to put her in the same category as Bloody Mary, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Anne and Queen Victoria. However, she reminds me most of Queen Elizabeth I out of these four. Her handling of men is not dissimilar. I mean, if you had been a courtier of Queen Elizabeth I you would never have known quite whether you were going to get the treatment of an admired friend, or a poke in the eye with an umbrella."

"She was motivated by a real sense of shame at what her country had become, and a manic sense of mission that never left her. She showed phenomenal energy and stamina, a readiness to fight rather than compromise, and, once engaged, an absolute refusal to haul up the white flag. Her achievements, judged simply in terms of what faced her in 1979, were truly astonishing. She knew what was happening to the country, but, unlike most of her contemporaries, she believed it could be saved. Ten years later she had been proved right about the country, the unions, the 1981 Budget, the Falklands, the miners, and right – in my view – about Europe and the single currency. She had transformed Britain's prospects where other politicians who had appeared cleverer, more experienced and more sophisticated had failed."

"Oh yes, she is dramatically exciting! She has an openness, a frankness, an enthusiasm and an unwillingness to be cowed and overcome by tiredness which makes her enormous fun to work with. You can never be quite sure on issues you have never discussed with her what her instinctive reaction will be, but it's bound to be interesting. She is as willing as any politician to be pre-occupied with the difficulties of the situation. Britain has not been winning for many years and the business of turning us round so that we begin to become winners again instead of losers is very difficult and there are many days when you go into the office and yet again the cards seem to fall in the wrong way. In politics as in any other walk of life, you just wonder when your lucky breaks are going to come back again. Now Margaret is quite undaunted by that. She is willing to be pre-occupied with the difficulties and discuss them because they have to be discussed, but you never feel that she is being overborne by them and she is able to show that even on the days when it isn't fun, she thinks it's well worth while having a try!"

"Margaret Thatcher was beyond argument a great Prime Minister. Her tragedy is that she may be remembered less for the brilliance of her many achievements than for the recklessness with which she later sought to impose her own increasingly uncompromising views."

"Whenever feminists have complained in my presence about neglect of female high-achievers, other than rock singers and courtesans, I always like to mention brilliant Margaret Thatcher. It always makes them furious. They can't bear to think of her as one of the most successful women of the 20th century."

"Thatcherism was still wreaking, and had wrought for the previous decade, the most heinous social, economic and spiritual damage upon this country... We were told that everything I had been taught to regard as a vice—and I still regard them as vices—was, in fact, under Thatcherism, a virtue: greed, selfishness, no care for the weaker, sharp elbows, sharp knees, all these were the way forward."

"History will surely recognise her achievements as Britain's first woman Prime Minister, a leader with the courage of her convictions who assailed the conventional wisdom of her day, challenged and overthrew the existing order, changed the political map, and put the country on its feet again. She did all this with ruthlessness and much injustice and at a high cost in human misery, but she did it."

"She seems to me to have been gripped since before she won the leadership of the Tory party by a clear understanding, a passionately clear understanding, of the interacting causes of our relative economic decline. She saw it, as it seems to me, partly stemming from successive governments which by increasing the money supply kept on rescuing managements and labour from having to become more competitive. She saw it therefore as primarily a failure of government in creating the climate which enabled inefficiencies to continue to the point where all our neighbours soared past us in competitiveness, in prosperity, in social services, in standard of living and in purchasing power for all their people. She saw it infecting management which was allowed to be flabby. And she saw it as intensified or made worse and more difficult by the uncomprehending approach of trade unions who don't seem to realise where their members' interests lie."

"While I would not go so far as to say that Mrs. Thatcher had a coherent ideological agenda, she most certainly harbored dogmatic prejudices to which radical policies could be appended according to convenience and opportunity. Although anything but an intellectual herself, Margaret Thatcher was unusually attracted to intellectual men who could assist her in justifying and describing her own instincts—so long as they were themselves outsiders and not tarred with the brush of convention. Unlike the more moderate conservatives whose policies and ambitions she so devastatingly thwarted, Mrs. Thatcher was quite unprejudiced against Jews, showing something of a predilection for them in her choice of private advisors. Finally, and once again in contrast to her conservative predecessors, she was rather sympathetic to the writings of economists—but only and egregiously those from one particular school: Hayek and the Austrians."

"[The British armed forces responded to Mrs. Thatcher as war leader] in a way that hasn't been known since the time of Elizabeth I, with a passion and loyalty that few male generals have ever inspired or commanded."

"If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. And I warn you not to grow old."

"I found her totally different from other politicians. Every other politician I knew said that in order to win elections you had to win the centre. Her position was that you had to articulate your position as clearly as you can and the centre will come over to you... I was always very taken with her. You could say she seduced me... But I thought she might never get elected with those views."

""Economics are the method," Margaret Thatcher said, "the object is to change the heart and soul." It was a mission largely accomplished."

"Margaret Thatcher always gave me headaches."

"Her great virtue is saying that two and two makes four, which is unpopular nowadays as it always has been. I adore Mrs Thatcher. At last politics make sense to me, which it hasn't since Stafford Cripps."

"What a superb creature she is – right and beautiful – few prime ministers are either. But the country will let her down, too idle and selfish."

"Margaret was unusual, for a Tory leader, in actually warming to the Conservative Party – that is to say, the party in the country, rather than its Members of Parliament... Harold Macmillan had a contempt for the party, Alec Home tolerated it, Ted Heath loathed it. Margaret genuinely liked it. She felt a communion with it, one which later expanded to embrace the silent majority of the British people as a whole."

"Of all the prime ministers, I thought she offered the best hope for Britain. Her strengths were her passionate belief in her country and her iron will to turn it around. She was convinced that free enterprise and the free market led to a free society. Her basic political instincts were sound though she tended to be too self-confident and self-righteous. Her disadvantage, in a class-conscious Britain, was her background as "the grocer's daughter". It was a pity that the British establishment still labored under these prejudices. By the time she left office, Britons had become less class-ridden."

"The greatest Prime Minister this century toppled for no good reason, by pygmies."

"From the military man's point of view she was an ideal Prime Minister... One wanted a decision and she gave it."

"If you fight a war, you want a great general. She was a great general."

"She is an enemy of apartheid... We have much to thank her for."

"I think Margaret Thatcher started it, the greed thing, people just wanting more and more."

"Personally I think that she has the qualities of a very great politician. I believe she has tremendous conviction, she has drive, she has commitment, she is totally genuine. On the other side I think she has a certain tunnel vision, she is uncompromising, she goes over the top too much – she did over the miners, she tried to make out that Arthur Scargill was Galtieri and that the miners were the Argies. I think that view does not go down well in the country. And I think she's deeply lacking in compassion and sensitivity."

"She has the eyes of Stalin and the voice of Marilyn Monroe."

"Margaret Thatcher is the greatest living Englishwoman."

"She's the biggest bastard we have ever known."

"She's the Prime Minister who really wanted to be Queen. Major's boring, the Prime Minister who wanted to be a train spotter."

"[Television interviewers] simply lack the guts or resourcefulness to stand up to a politician who combines the hauteur of Trollope's Mrs Proudie with the jugular instincts of a fishwife."

"The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend. As a grocer's daughter who rose to become Britain's first female prime minister, she stands as an example to our daughters that there is no glass ceiling that can't be shattered. As prime minister, she helped restore the confidence and pride that has always been the hallmark of Britain at its best. And as an unapologetic supporter of our transatlantic alliance, she knew that with strength and resolve we could win the Cold War and extend freedom's promise."

"Whenever I am asked which famous person dead or alive I would want to meet if I could, my answer is always without fail Margaret Thatcher. It surprises people that the leader of Britain's Conservative Party is my greatest shero. While her politics aren't mine, she was also a first-the first female prime minister of Britain. Thatcher was a self-starter in the grandest of ways. Without any kind of special invitation or connections, time and time again she showed up in rooms filled with men and didn't have to do much to lead them to decide that she should be in charge. That she held office for eleven years, longer than any other British politician in the twentieth century, proves her level of confidence and intellect. It was her fearlessness and internal sense of equality, however, which made her able to pull off being a first."

"Europe was less distracted and divided by disinformation campaigns from fossil fuel companies and emerged early on as a global leader on the climate issue. UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a former research chemist, respected the scientific warnings and, also driven by her determination to break the power of the coal-mining unions, lent her support in 1989 to the concept of negotiating the UN Framework Convention...Thus, when the US stepped back from leadership on the climate issue, the European Union, led by the UK and Germany as well as the Netherlands and its Scandinavian member states, partly filled the void and pushed for global action to address the problem. Benefitting from German reunification and the collapse of the former East Germany's emissions, and those from other former Soviet states, the EU achieved the target it agreed to at Kyoto."

"[D]uring the [Falklands] war her leadership had been superb... Mrs Thatcher started off as terribly vulnerable. At home her political position was weak. A bad reverse in the early days and her leadership might have had to be terminated. An actual naval defeat down in the Southern Atlantic would have toppled her and possibly even the whole government. She knew she was playing for enormous stakes. But once she faced them, she behaved outstandingly well. Some potential Prime Ministers might have accepted the invasion, decided not to throw the Argentines out, and worked out some compromise. I have never doubted that such a course would have been absolutely devastating for this country. Mrs Thatcher recognised that from the start, instinctively, and deserves credit for it."

"When the historians seek parallels for the counter-revolution which took place in Britain under Margaret Thatcher, I think they will compare what happened here with what happened to France under General de Gaulle from 1958–68. Both leaders challenged their countries to do better, to think bigger and to reverse their relative decline. Both leaders drew heavily on a strident nationalism to galvanize their nations. Through their own hubris, both were ignominiously brought down by the people on whom they had relied in order to exert immense and unprecedented power... Both leaders sought regeneration from within, building up national pride and eschewing dilution through a United States of Europe."

"Someone once said that Margaret Thatcher satisfied the average Englishman's longing for the perfect dominatrix. No doubt about it, she could deliver pain. The Iron Lady should best be remembered as the Leather Lady. Indeed, today Thatcherism leaves its dreary imprint not only on the Conservative Party but---thanks also to Tony Blair---on a Labor Party that accepts most of her regressive policies."

"The Prime Minister whose social background Wilson's most resembles is not Edward Heath or John Major, still less Jim Callaghan (all Southerners from differing tribes), but Margaret Thatcher. In key respects, the early lives of the two leaders were remarkably similar. Both were brought up in or near middling English industrial towns. Both came from disciplined, Church-based families and had parents who valued learning, while having little formal education themselves... Both were Nonconformists... Both Alfred and Herbert [Wilson] began in the Liberal Party, the characteristic political home of provincial Nonconformity, before moving in contrary directions when the Liberals fell apart in the 1920s... There were, however, two differences which greatly influenced the outcome. First, Harold and Margaret were not contemporaries. Margaret was nine and a half years Harold's junior, and from that gap huge differences in outlook arose. Secondly, Alfred Roberts was a self-employed man, while Herbert was an employee. Harold spent his adolescence and early manhood during the worst years of the depression... By contrast, Margaret entered her teens and became politically conscious only as the depression came to an end. Alfred Roberts suffered during the hard times, but never badly. Where Harold's youthful experience was of financial uncertainty caused by factors outside the family's control, Margaret's memory was of a solid certainty, the product, as she believed, of her father's efforts and prudence."

"Margaret Thatcher, when we first became aware of her, was middle class mimsy... What she's done over the years progressively is in fact get sexier, and much more powerful. The fabrics are richer, there's more bulk. She's adopted what most Englishwomen find very frightening, which is a sort of hard-edged French chic...there's a certain sort of unforgivingness to it, a certain arrogance. She has discovered for herself a sort of power dressing... Rather like a Holbein painting of Henry VIII, here was a figure which was saying: "I am powerful." What Margaret Thatcher is doing...is expressing power in dress... I think Margaret Thatcher is a ruler, who thinks of herself as a ruler... This is now expressed with...a complete confidence that this powerful person with an enormous presence is ME."

"The Prime Minister, shortly after she came into office, received a soubriquet as the "Iron Lady". It arose in the context of remarks which she made about defence against the Soviet Union and its allies; but there was no reason to suppose that the right hon. Lady did not welcome and, indeed, take pride in that description. In the next week or two this House, the nation and the right hon. Lady herself will learn of what metal she is made."

"Is the right hon. Lady aware that the report has now been received from the public analyst on a certain substance recently subjected to analysis and that I have obtained a copy of the report? It shows that the substance under test consisted of ferrous matter of the highest quality, that it is of exceptional tensile strength, is highly resistant to wear and tear and to stress, and may be used with advantage for all national purposes?"

"When she trusts her instincts she's almost always right. When she stops to think she's all too often wrong."

"She reached out...to the provincial England of her childhood, constructing an alternative national epic in which there was a merchant-adventurer in every counting-house, a village Hampden in every store. As many commentators have pointed out, she spoke in the accents not of church but of chapel, and in her radical contempt for paternalism it is not difficult to find echoes of her Northamptonshire shoemaker forbears. Her version of Victorian values was of a piece with this, invoking the plebeian virtues of self-reliance and self-help rather than the more patrician ones of chivalry and noblesse oblige."

"Attacking by turns the Church of England, the higher civil service, the universities, the BBC and the bar, she did as much as the cultural revolution of the 1960s to destabilise the establishment and degentrify public life."

"Mrs Thatcher was the only philosophically interesting prime minister of my adult lifetime. As much by accident as by design she stumbled on issue after issue of high principle, where there were genuinely incompatible moral choices to be made... Attacking socialism as an evil, and casting doubt on the very idea of public service, she forced us to reaffirm – but also to rethink – the place of the collectivist idea in British life and politics and of the social services in civil society. Her ideas, though aligned to right-wing politics, have disturbing affinities to the radical individualism recently in vogue on the left."

"The popularity of Lady Thatcher (as she later became) was due in part to the clarity of her public statements and her ability to persuade the electorate that her convictions corresponded to their wishes – particularity in matters of taxation and opportunity. Her unpopularity among the intellectual and media élite was due both to her right-wing philosophy and to her confrontational approach to those who disagreed with her."

"To her supporters...Margaret Thatcher left Britain a renewed and invigorated force both at home and on the world stage. She reversed years of national decline. She made Britain again the essential ally of the United States, largely due to her personal relationship with President Reagan, and helped end the Cold War. She turned around the economy and finally tamed the over-powerful unions, who had protected their own interests at the expense of the country's well-being for far too long. She radically overhauled the British state, taking power away from bureaucrats and putting it in the hands of the electorate, who came to enjoy a wealth and a standard of living that they had never known before. On coming to power she found Britain in tatters, and she gave it back its pride and confidence. Her critics, however, are less kind. They point above all to her intensely divisive nature and question the efficacy of many of her policies. The "economic miracle" is largely a myth, they insist, suggesting that recovery was inevitable and that monetarism only prolonged the recession of the early 1980s. Even when recovery came it proved unsustainable and was over-egged by Lawson with her acquiescence, which then led to the harsh recession of the 1990s. While a few became rich under Mrs Thatcher, many missed out on growing prosperity, and the gap between the rich and the poor, and north and south, widened considerably."

"Thatcher could congratulate herself on being, in a very real sense, godmother to the Reagan–Gorbachev relationship."

"The entire foundation of the "ownership society" is based on new enclosures. And the contrived law to justify contemporary enclosures à la [Richard] Epstein is based on three falsifications...The third deliberate distortion is the reduction of public to individual. Public is used both for government as well as collective interests and community organizations. However, cowboy capitalism reduces society to individuals, and makes community disappear. Margaret Thatcher said there is no such thing as a society, there are only individuals. Ayn Rand has said there is no such entity as the public, since the public is merely a number of individuals."

"Mrs Thatcher is beginning to reflect a genuine English nationalist feeling, a deep feeling about the English and how they see themselves in terms of their own history."

"She is undoubtedly a most formidable communicator. She has the ability to take hold of complex issues and, if you like, simplify them, moralise them, according to her own bourgeois values, and to get them across. She's used it at every platform I've seen her on, from the House of Commons to a party conference, and above all on television and radio. Secondly, I think that she's sensed some of the kinds of moral considerations in politics that underlie people's political and economic attitudes, and I think she has articulated right-wing moral convictions in a more formidable and more committed way than any leader of the right in post-war Britain."

"She has an instant appraisal of what you are trying to suggest to her and if you haven't done your homework she'll kill you stone dead – not with words but with a look."

"Mr. Breivik, his writings suggest, would have been reluctant to describe himself as a fascist — a common feature of European far-right discourse. He wrote: "I equate multiculturalism with the other hate-ideologies: Nazism (anti-Jewish), communism (anti-individualism) and Islam (anti-Kaffir)." These ideas, it is important to note, were echoes of ideas in mainstream European neo-conservatism. In 1978, the former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, famously referred to popular fears that Britain "might be swamped by people of a different culture." In 1989, Ms Thatcher asserted that "human rights did not begin with the French Revolution." Instead, they "really stem from a mixture of Judaism and Christianity"— in other words, faith, not reason."

"I think her greatest achievement is to have made people believe that the impossible is possible. That the things which were said in 1979 to be beyond resolution, the problem of the trade unions for example, she boldly took it on and she did it. If politicians can learn that lesson from her, that there is no problem which is too big to be solved, then she's contributed something enormously important to our life."

"I took care not to arrange a single meeting between Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative councillors on Barnet Council. For allowing her to sit round the same table would have ended with blood on the floor, and it would not have been hers. That they are Conservative councillors matters little to her. She cannot see a councillor, let alone a bunch of them, without the conviction rising rapidly in her that they could be running their council under a much stricter financial regime."

"It is difficult to exaggerate either the extent to which research underpins her authority and power or the liking she has for statistics of any sort. Knowledge is power, and she loves retaining almost any sort of knowledge, although with something more than the lawyer's ability to read rapidly and retain facts for only as long as is necessary for a case... It is this enquiring and researching mind, coupled with such a retentive memory and the ability to get to the very heart of the most complex of issues, which underpin her will and authority."

"Faced with a wilful woman armed with facts and figures, the intelligent question is how best to disarm her. Confronting her is easy; anyone can do that, and lose. Winning against her is the hard part. The best way is to approach her with an argument that is presented crisply and knowledgeably, then stick with it as she tries to find the weak spots. She is intolerant of intellectual slackness, of threadbare arguments and of poor advocacy. She enjoys a good, businesslike argument, provided it is based on solid facts. She always demands thorough research to back up cases, both her own and those of others; this is one of her strongest weapons in advancing her beliefs and objectives. The incautious Minister who fails to learn his Whitehall brief thoroughly will soon find that she has absorbed it in greater detail than he has – and that now she is using it against him. Politics and Government are very serious, professional business for her... Margaret Thatcher...prefers a good argument to a good joke."

"My impression still is that Mrs Thatcher has failed fully to grasp one of the clearest truths about British politics in the 20th century – the truth that the British people are not that much concerned about capitalism (though they are perfectly happy to accept its advantages); in the abstract, they do not understand or like it. They only become enthusiastic for it when it is presented in a patriotic context. Joe Chamberlain knew this; the last Conservative politician to have known it with perfection is Enoch Powell. After that came Margaret Thatcher. She also knows it. Why they like her is because she "speaks for Britain", not because she is a very good economist (though she is probably as bright as any of that bunch), but because she expresses the sentiments and prejudices of the British people."

"The other element in Thatcherism is supposed to be the wish to restore Britain as a great power in the world. By this Mrs. Thatcher does not mean primarily a power devoted to the preservation of its own interests. She belongs to that militant Whig branch of English Conservatism which took over when Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940. This is to say that her view of foreign policy has a high moral content or, in other words, that she likes to devote herself to large and distant causes – the freedom of Afghanistan rather than the security of Ulster. She is suspicious about the Common Market, but seems prepared to swallow its consequences (e.g. the Single European Act) so long as the blame for them can be attributed to the Foreign Office. I believe that she went into the Falklands with reluctance and regret and that, having done so, she carried it off with a courage and skill of which no other Prime Minister, possibly including Churchill, would have been capable. In terms of theory, however, she has contributed nothing new to the discussion of Britain's role in the world. Margaret Thatcher is a great Prime Minister, great by virtue of her courage and by virtue of what ideologues would often, misguidedly, describe as her "low political cunning"."

"It was because she offered ‘earnest and practical dissent’ to progressive orthodoxy. Mrs Thatcher is the point at which all snobberies meet: intellectual snobbery, social snobbery, the snobbery of Brooks's, the snobbery about scientists among those educated in the arts, the snobbery of the metropolis about the provincial, the snobbery of the South about the North, and the snobbery of men about women."

"In 1980 and 1981 Mrs Thatcher's team (but not the Cabinet) wrestled with the question of how to stop inflation. The new ingredient was courage. Other governments had enforced restraint or cut proposed spending increases. What was wholly exceptional was a government willing to persevere with, indeed intensify, deflationary measures while the bottom fell out of the market. Austerity in prosperity is merely prudent; austerity in adversity requires the courage to put all ordinary political considerations in temporary abeyance. It was this courage of economic liberalism of 1979, which marked out a new determination by government to govern. The new regime of 1979 had not involved any real test of political will, for economic liberalism was and is as uncontentious as any great reversal of assumptions can be. Few, in 1986, were still sighing for the price, wage, dividend and exchange controls of the 1970s. Changing the economic culture was the easy bit. Reducing inflation by a mixture of fiscal and monetary measures, a problem in financial technology, was a far more desperate business... If 1981 was crucial, which it was, it was as a triumph of political will, not of economic doctrine."

"Mrs Thatcher fits the rule that there are no bad Prime Ministers. She may lack Heath's architectonic sense, but more than makes up for it in persuasiveness and electioneering flair. She lacks Callaghan's fatalism, most certainly, but not his caution. She has Eden's wish to meddle, but with the energy to support it. If in many ways she is under-read, her appetite for official papers exceeds that of almost all her predecessors. Had she lost the 1987 election, she would have looked like a curious aberration; since she won, she will be seen as marking a change of epochs, whatever her individual qualities. Whatever the future holds, she will go down as one of history's great improbabilities. For the present, it is perhaps safest to assert that she is the only Prime Minister to cook for her private secretaries when they are working late. She may have slain yesterday's dragon, not today's: her battle was with an archaic union-based socialism, not a pervasive middle-class liberalism. Still, the dragon looked anything but slayable in 1975, and the work had to be done, with but few helpers in her own party. She may outlive the context which made her relevant, but in the process bequeath a broad national governing party. The measure of her achievement is that she has made Thatcherism unnecessary."

"Her strong points were her iron will. I've never known a will like it in politics and I've known a few politicians in my time in various countries. I've never known a man or woman faintly like her, she was as tough as they come, and anything that required guts and will she could do for you. Anything that required sensitivity, she couldn't, she had none."

"My first impression of her was positive: there was absolutely no side to this woman. She treated officials like fully-fledged human beings who (at that stage of her premiership at least) were allowed their say... As you talked, the electric blue eyes bored into you, as if probing you for insincerities or fuzzy thinking. I liked the way she preferred plain speaking, even when she simplified things outrageously, and admired her "can-do" style. If you made your point with conviction and could prove you were right, she would take the argument, while avoiding any appearance of doing so. Watching her in action it struck me that she was composed of two vital elements: strong passions and a sharp intelligence. The trick, you soon learned, was to bring the two together."

"[She has a] patronising elocution voice [and] neat well-groomed clothes and hair, packaged together in a way that's not exactly vulgar, just low. [It fills me with] a kind of rage."

"Brezhnev took Afghanistan. / Begin took Beirut. / Galtieri took the Union Jack. / And Maggie, over lunch one day, / Took a cruiser with all hands. / Apparently, to make him give it back."

"In Margaret Thatcher, however, Britain had a Prime Minister who was not going to allow peripheral circumstances to get in the way of grim reality... She was faced with making the final, historically momentous decision to permit us to go in and establish a beach-head [on the Falklands]... I am clear that this was easily the biggest single military decision she had to take... There may have been a few politicians, ministers or even servicemen who still doubted her resolve. But Margaret Thatcher never shirked a hard decision. And when asked for her verdict, just a few hours from now, she would not falter."

"On 8 April 2013, former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher died. Street parties broke out across the UK, particularly in working class areas and in former mining communities which were ravaged by her policies. Thatcher's legacy is best remembered for her destruction of the British workers' movement, after the defeat of the miners' strike of 1984-85. This enabled the drastic increase of economic inequality and unemployment in the 1980s. Her government also slashed social housing, helping to create the situation today where it is unavailable for most people, and private property prices are mostly unaffordable for the young. Thatcher also complained that children were "being cheated of a sound start in life" by being taught that "they have an inalienable right to be gay", so she introduced the vicious section 28 law prohibiting teaching of homosexuality as acceptable. Abroad, Thatcher was a powerful advocate for racism, advising the Australian foreign minister to beware of Asians, else his country would "end up like Fiji, where the Indian migrants have taken over". She hosted apartheid South Africa's head of state, while denouncing the African National Congress as a "typical terrorist organisation". Chilean dictator general Augusto Pinochet, responsible for the rape, murder and torture of tens of thousands of people, was a close personal friend. Back in Britain, Thatcher protected numerous politicians accused of paedophilia including Sir Peter Hayman, and MPs Peter Morrison and Cyril Smith. She also lobbied for her friend, serial child abuser Jimmy Savile, to be knighted despite being warned about his behaviour. Thatcher was eventually forced to step down after the defeat of her hated poll tax by a mass non-payment campaign."

"When she became leader of the Opposition in 1975...a meeting...was arranged... She won me over. The strength of her determination and the simplicity of her rational ideas uncluttered by intellectual confusion convinced me that she was the first party leader I had met, apart from Gaitskell, who might check Britain's slide and possibly begin to reverse it. She did not seem much like a Tory but she had the Tory Party to work for her, which was a useful start... Mrs Thatcher is a radical of practical Manchester Liberal descent. She believes that Marx and other economic theorists have not extinguished Adam Smith's truths... Mrs Thatcher has had to puncture illusions and force unpleasant facts on reluctant listeners dreaming of a lazy Utopia, agreeable but unobtainable."

"I have seen their backs before, madam."

"I believe I forgot to tell you I was made a Duke."

"Napoleon has humbugged me, by God; he has gained twenty-four hours' march on me."

"Who will attack first tomorrow? I or Bonaparte? -Bonaparte. -Well, Bonaparte has not given me any idea of his projects, and as my plans will depend on his, how can you expect to tell me what mine are?"

"Up, Guards, and at them again."

"Hard pounding this, gentlemen; let's see who will pound longest."

"Uxbridge: By God, sir, I've lost my leg! Wellington: By God, sir, so you have!"

"Give me night or give me Blücher."

"My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won: the bravery of my troops hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to win such a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expense of so many gallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune but for the result to the public."

"It has been a damned serious business... Blucher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing — the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. … By God! I don't think it would have been done if I had not been there."

"They came on in the same old way, and we sent them back in the same old way."

"The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance."

"Just to show you how little reliance can be placed even on what are supposed the best accounts of a battle, I mention that there are some circumstances mentioned in General —'s account which did not occur as he relates them. It is impossible to say when each important occurrence took place, or in what order."

"Publish and be damned."

"The national character of the three kingdoms was strongly marked in my army. I found the English regiments always in the best humour when we were well supplied with beef; the Irish when we were in the wine countries, and the Scotch when the dollars for pay came up. This looks like an epigram, but I assure you it was a fact, and quite perceptible; but we managed to reconcile all their tempers, and I will venture to say that in our later campaigns, and especially when we crossed the Pyrenees, there never was an army in the world in better spirits, better order, or better discipline. We had mended in discipline every campaign, until at last (smiling) I hope we were pretty near perfect."

"Buonaparte's mind was, in its details, low and ungentlemanlike. I suppose the narrowness of his early prospects and habits stuck to him; what we understand by gentlemanlike feelings he knew nothing at all about."

"The noble Earl had alluded to the propriety of effecting Parliamentary Reform. The noble Earl had, however, been candid enough to acknowledge that he was not prepared with any measure of reform, and he could have no scruple in saying that his Majesty's Government was as totally unprepared with any plan as the noble Lord. Nay, he, on his own part, would go further, and say, that he had never read or heard of any measure up to the present moment which could in any degree satisfy his mind that the state of the representation could be improved, or be rendered more satisfactory to the country at large than at the present moment... He was fully convinced that the country possessed at the present moment a Legislature which answered all the good purposes of legislation, and this to a greater degree than any Legislature ever had answered in any country whatever. He would go further and say, that the Legislature and the system of representation possessed the full and entire confidence of the country—deservedly possessed that confidence—and the discussions in the Legislature had a very great influence over the opinions of the country. He would go still further and say, that if at the present moment he had imposed upon him the duty of forming a Legislature for any country, and particularly for a country like this, in possession of great property of various descriptions, he did not mean to assert that he could form such a Legislature as they possessed now, for the nature of man was incapable of reaching such excellence at once; but his great endeavour would be, to form some description of legislature which would produce the same results. The representation of the people at present contained a large body of the property of the country, and in which the landed interests had a preponderating influence. Under these circumstances, he was not prepared to bring forward any measure of the description alluded to by the noble Lord. He was not only not prepared to bring forward any measure of this nature, but he would at once declare that as far as he was concerned, as long as he held any station in the government of the country, he should always feel it his duty to resist such measures when proposed by others."

"I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life."

"The revolution is made, that is to say, that power is transferred from one class of society, the gentlemen of England, professing the faith of the Church of England, to another class of society, the shopkeepers, being dissenters from the Church, many of them Socinians, others atheists. I don't think that the influence of property in this country is in the abstract diminished. That is to say, that the gentry have as many followers and influence as many voters at elections as ever they did. But a new democratic influence has been introduced into elections, the copy-holders and free-holders and lease-holders residing in towns which do not themselves return members to Parliament. These are all dissenters from the Church, and are everywhere a formidably active party against the aristocratic influence of the Landed Gentry. But this is not all. There are dissenters in every village in the country; they are the blacksmith, the carpenter, the mason, &c. &c. The new influence established in the towns has drawn these to their party; and it is curious to see to what a degree it is a dissenting interest."

"The foreign policy of England should be to maintain peace, not only for herself but between the powers of the world. This should be her policy, not only because she can have no interest in a change of the state of possession of the several powers...but because she has the most extensive commercial relations depending upon peace with each and all the powers of the world, the interruption of which must be injurious to her prosperity."

"I believe that if ever we are to come to blows with the Russians in India we must rely upon our sepoys, as we have in all our wars there with European as well as with native powers. These with our superior knowledge of the art of war in that country and our superior equipment, founded upon our knowledge of the resources of the seat of the war, the character of the natives and other circumstances, will give us advantages which will more than counter balance the supposed inferiority of our troops."

"Buonaparte's whole life, civil, political, and military, was a fraud. There was not a transaction, great or small, in which lying and fraud were not introduced."

"Buonaparte's foreign policy was force and menace, aided by fraud and corruption. If the fraud was discovered, force and menace succeeded; and in most cases the unfortunate victim did not dare to avow that he perceived the fraud."

"The real question that now divides the country and which truly divides the House of Commons, is church or no church. People talk of the war in Spain, and the Canada question. But all that is of little moment. The real question is church or no church."

"There is not a Moslem heart in Asia, from Pekin to Constantinople, which will not vibrate, when reflecting upon the fact that the European ladies, and other females attached to the troops at Cabul, were made over to the tender mercies of the Moslem chief, who had with his own hand murdered the representative of the British Government at the Court of the Sovereign of Afghanistan... It is impossible to impress upon you too strongly the notion of the importance of the restoration of our reputation in the East. Our enemies in France, the United States, and wherever found, are now rejoicing in our disasters and degradation. You will teach them that their triumph is premature."

"All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called "guessing what was at the other side of the hill.""

"I used to say of him that his presence on the field made the difference of forty thousand men."

"The only thing I am afraid of is fear."

"The French system of conscription brings together a fair sample of all classes; ours is composed of the scum of the earth — the mere scum of the earth. It is only wonderful that we should be able to make so much out of them afterwards."

"My rule always was to do the business of the day in the day."

"Circumstances over which I have no control."

"They wanted this iron fist to command them."

"Pour la canaille: Faut la mitraille."

"Mistaken for me, is he? That's strange, for no one ever mistakes me for Mr. Jones."

"If you believe that you will believe anything."

"You must build your House of Parliament on the river: so... that the populace cannot exact their demands by sitting down round you."

"I have no small talk and Peel has no manners."

"We always have been, we are, and I hope that we always shall be, detested in France."

"I should have given more praise."

"Depend upon it, Sir, nothing will come of them!"

"There is no mistake; there has been no mistake; and there shall be no mistake."

"During the Peninsula War, I heard a Portuguese general address his troops before a battle with the words, "Remember men, you are Portuguese!""

"Sparrow-hawks, Ma'am"

"Not at all. If I had lost the battle, they would have shot me."

"At first it was a lie, then a strong delusion, and at last downright madness."

"I don't know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but by God, they terrify me."

"[I don't] care a twopenny damn what [becomes] of the ashes of Napoleon Bonaparte."

"If a gentleman happens to be born in a stable, it does not follow that he should be called a horse."

"The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton."

"[N]o man better exemplified the best qualities of the English ruling class than the Duke of Wellington, with his high-nosed aristocratic confidence and direct simplicity of speech and manners; a man remarkable for hard-minded good sense, steady nerve and a character as true and tough as the metal of a cannon. In Wellington Bonaparte had come up against an officer with the same simple resolve to do his duty as Colonel Maillard who had held the Citadel of Ajaccio against him in 1792. In Wellington also Bonaparte had come up against by far the most formidable opponent of his career, alike because of the Englishman's professionalism, his force of leadership and his sheer strength of will."

"As one reads through the twelve portly volumes of Gurwood's edition of the Dispatches, one cannot but be amazed by the variety of knowledge, the clarity of exposition, the attention to detail, the relentless supervision or inspiration of such manifold activities—military, administrative and diplomatic."

"Madame de Maurville now told me that an English commissary was just arrived from the army [at Waterloo], who had assured her that the tide of success was completely turned to the side of the Allies... [S]he...returned escorted by Mr. Saumarez himself. His narration was all triumphant, and his account of the Duke of Wellington might almost have seemed an exaggerated panegyric if it had painted some warrior in a chivalresque romance. He was everywhere, he said; the eye could turn in no direction that it did not perceive him, either at hand or at a distance; galloping to charge the enemy, or darting across the field to issue orders. Every ball also, he said, seemed fired, and every gun aimed at him; yet nothing touched him; he seemed as impervious for safety as he was dauntless for courage: while danger all the time relentlessly environed him, and wounds or death continually robbed him of the services of some one of the bravest of those who were near to him. But he suffered nothing to check or engage him that belonged to personal interest or feeling; his entire concentrated attention, exclusive aim, and intense thought were devoted impartially, imperturbably, and grandly to the Whole, the All."

"We were considering in the Cabinet how the Chartists should be dealt with, and when it was determined that the procession should be stopped after it had moved, we agreed that the particular place where it should be stopped was purely a military question. The Duke of Wellington was requested to come to us, which he did very readily. We had then a regular Council of War, as upon the eve of a great battle. We examined maps and returns and information of the movements of the enemy. After long deliberation, plans of attack and defence were formed to meet every contingency. The quickness, intelligence, and decision which the Duke displayed were very striking, and he inspired us all with perfect confidence by the dispositions which he prescribed... It was not I alone who was struck with the consultation yesterday. Macaulay said to me that he considered it the most interesting spectacle he had ever witnessed, and that he should remember it to his dying day."

"Last night at a grand ball at Bath House... By far the most interesting figure present was the old Duke of Wellington, who appeared between twelve and one, and slowly glided through the rooms—truly a beautiful old man; I had never seen till now how beautiful, and what an expression of graceful simplicity, veracity, and nobleness there is about the old hero when you see him close at hand. His very size had hitherto deceived me. He is a shortish slightish figure, about five feet eight, of good breadth however, and all muscle or bone... Eyes beautiful light blue, full of mild valour, with infinitely more faculty and geniality than I had fancied before; the face wholly gentle, wise, valiant, and venerable. The voice too, as I again heard, is "aquiline" clear, perfectly equable—uncracked, that is—and perhaps almost musical, but essentially tenor or almost treble voice—eighty-two, I understand. He glided slowly along, slightly saluting this and that other, clear, clean, fresh as this June evening itself, till the silver buckle of his stock vanished into the door of the next room, and I saw him no more."

"I shall express a strong wish to see him here [in Paris], if he can manage it. I wish he would at the outset undertake this embassy. His military name would give him and us the greatest ascendency."

"This was the death-year of the Great Duke—the "Iron Duke," as we so often called him. Living in Knightsbridge, about a quarter of a mile beyond Apsley House, I had to pass by his dwelling every time that I went into the heart of London; and saw him, sometimes, every day for weeks together. What a fascination, what an irresistible attraction there was about that grand old man! How all the memorable doings of our century seemed to gather around him, as you looked at his rigid, stern figure! I often walked close by his horse, for half a mile out of my way, marking his bearing, and noting the uniform "military tip," of his forefinger towards his forehead, that he gave to all those, great or little, who took off their hats to him; and there were usually scores who did this... I remembered his opposition to Reform... But all this had passed away; and Wellington had become not only the great pillar of State and most valued counsellor of his Queen; but, next to her, the most deeply respected and most heartily honoured person in the realm. Everybody liked to see "the Duke"; and no one would hear a word against him. Soldiers—old soldiers—they idolized him. They regarded him as the very personification of English valour and English sagacity. Politicians—they all had a glance towards him when they contemplated new measures. He was an institution in himself. We all felt as if we lived, now he was dead, in a different England."

"The funeral of the Great Duke was the most impressive grand spectacle I ever beheld... The varied costume of the English regiments mingled with the kilted Highlanders, and Lancers and Life Guards with the Scotch Greys, rendered the vision picturesque as well as stately. But it was upon the huge funeral car, and the led charger in front of it, that all eyes gazed most wistfully:—above all, it was upon the crimson-velvet covered coffin, upon the vast pall—not covered by it, borne aloft, on the car, with the white-plumed cocked hat, and the sword and marshal's baton lying upon the coffin, that all gazed most intently. I watched it—I stretched my neck to get the last sight of the car as it passed along Piccadilly, till it was out of sight; and then I thought the great connecting link of our national life was broken: the great actor in the scenes of the Peninsula and Waterloo—the conqueror of Napoleon—and the chief name in our home political life for many years,—had disappeared. I seemed to myself to belong now to another generation of men; for my childhood was passed amid the noise about Wellington's battles, and his name and existence seemed stamped on every year of our time."

"[I]t is customary to say—and nothing is more true—that the most economical Government we ever had in England was the Government of the Duke of Wellington. Why was that Government so economical? Because the Duke of Wellington paid the greatest possible attention of any Minister who ever ruled in this country to the interests and business of England abroad. He attended to them so successfully and so sedulously that during his administration we were not involved in expensive wars; we did not get into difficulties in which we were obliged to have recourse to expensive arbitration...and I repeat it was essentially by his attention to foreign affairs, and by his knowledge of foreign affairs...that he was able to make his an economical Government and had not to appeal, as has been our custom of late, for increased armaments."

"Met dear Sir Andrew Barnard at Apsley House... Told me the best troops we had at Waterloo were almost all second battalions, scarcely out of the goose-step. They stood, and hammered away as well as the oldest, but it would have been very hazardous to have manoeuvred with them under fire as with the old Peninsulars. The Duke said of Napoleon during the action: "D—n the fellow, he is a mere pounder after all." ... I asked him (Sir Andrew) if he had any anxiety about the result. He said, "Oh no, except for the Duke. We had a notion that while he was there nothing could go wrong.""

"In so far as the conduct of campaigns...Wellington was a dangerous opponent. However, if that was the case, on the battlefield he was absolutely deadly. In the Peninsula he triumphed, generally resoundingly so, over every French commander that came against him...while at Waterloo he held off Napoleon himself for a full day at the head of an army that was not remotely comparable to the troops he had headed in Spain and Portugal... [I]t is evident that Wellington's icy manner reflected a cool detachment that allowed him constantly to out-think the enemy, to exploit any accident of ground to the full, to maximise the strong points of his own forces and to get the best out of his officers and men: liked he may not have been, but respect and confidence he inspired in abundance... In Wellington, then, Britain truly had one of the greatest generals of all time."

"Cold and indifferent, nay, apparently careless in the beginning of battles, when the moment of difficulty comes intelligence flashes from the eyes of this wonderful man; and he rises superior to all that can be imagined."

"In everything the Duke and Napoleon stood in strong contrast one towards the other. Napoleon could not serve. He never undertook a trust in a subordinate situation which he did not divert to purposes of his aggrandisement. He never, when advanced to the pinnacle of power, entered into an engagement which he was not prepared, when it suited his own interests, to violate. The Duke was the most perfect servant of his King and country that the world ever saw. He flourished no doubt in a condition of society which presented insuperable obstacles to the accomplishment of ambitious projects, had he been unwise enough to entertain them: but there is proof in almost every line which he has written, in almost every word which he spoke, that, be the condition of society what it might, the one great object of his life would have been to secure the ascendancy of law and order, and to preserve the throne and the constitution of the country unharmed. Nor can you place your finger upon a single engagement into which the Duke ever entered, whether in private life as a member of society, or in public life as a general or a statesman, the terms of which were not rigidly fulfilled, however serious to himself the inconveniences might be."

"In spite of some foibles and faults, he was, beyond all doubt, a very great man—the only great man of the present time—and comparable, in point of greatness, to the most eminent of those who have lived before him. His greatness was the result of a few striking qualities—a perfect simplicity of character without a particle of vanity or conceit, but with a thorough and strenuous self-reliance, a severe truthfulness, never misled by fancy or exaggeration, and an ever-abiding sense of duty and obligation which made him the humblest of citizens and most obedient of subjects. The Crown never possessed a more faithful, devoted, and disinterested subject. Without personal attachment to any of the monarchs whom he served, and fully understanding and appreciating their individual merits and demerits, he alike reverenced their great office in the persons of each of them, and would at any time have sacrificed his ease, his fortune, or his life, to serve the Sovereign and the State. Passing almost his whole life in command and authority, and regarded with universal deference and submission, his head was never turned by the exalted position he occupied, and there was no duty, however humble, he would not have been ready to undertake at the bidding of his lawful superiors, whose behests he would never have hesitated to obey. Notwithstanding his age and his diminished strength, he would most assuredly have gone anywhere and have accepted any post in which his personal assistance might have been essential to the safety or advantage of the realm. He had more pride in obeying than in commanding, and he never for a moment considered that his great position and elevation above all other subjects released him from the same obligation which the humblest of them acknowledged. He was utterly devoid of personal and selfish ambition, and there never was a man whose greatness was so thrust upon him. It was in this dispassionate unselfishness, and sense of duty and moral obligation, that he was so superior to Napoleon Bonaparte."

"In Mr. Gladstone's view, it was difficult to overrate the influence for good which the Duke, by his commanding personality and personal weight, exercised over his fellow-peers in counselling them, for the first twenty years after the Reform Act of 1832, to be moderate, and in persuading them not to resist popular demands."

"When did any nation wisely determine for order and freedom without enlisting at once the sympathies of England? England determines aid—and never did she possess, by the blessing of God, a subject and a soldier better calculated to carry out her intentions than General Sir Arthur Wellesley."

"So we have at last lost our great Duke. Old as he was, and both bodily and mentally enfeebled by age, he still is a great loss to the country. His name was a tower of strength abroad, and his opinions and counsel were valuable at home. No man ever lived or died in the possession of more unanimous love, respect, and esteem from his countrymen."

"Summoning the Duke of Richmond, who was to have command of the reserve when formed, he asked for a map. The two withdrew to an adjoining room. Wellington closed the door, and said, with an oath, "Napoleon has humbugged me." He then explained that he had ordered his army to concentrate at Quatre Bras, adding, "But we shall not stop him there; and if so, I must fight him here," marking Waterloo with his thumb-nail on the map as he spoke. It was not until the next morning that he left for the front."

"Our own Wellington was a far greater man. Not less resolute, firm, and persistent, but much more self-denying, conscientious, and truly patriotic. Napoleon's aim was "Glory;" Wellington's watchword, like Nelson's, was "Duty." The former word, it is said, does not once occur in his despatches; the latter often, but never accompanied by any high-sounding professions. The greatest difficulties could neither embarrass nor intimidate Wellington; his energy invariably rising in proportion to the obstacles to be surmounted. The patience, the firmness, the resolution, with which he bore through the maddening vexations and gigantic difficulties of the Peninsular campaigns, is, perhaps, one of the sublimest things to be found in history. In Spain, Wellington not only exhibited the genius of the general, but the comprehensive wisdom of the statesman. Though his natural temper was irritable in the extreme, his high sense of duty enabled him to restrain it, and to those about him his patience seemed absolutely inexhaustible. His great character stands untarnished by ambition, by avarice, or any low passion. Though a man of powerful individuality, he yet displayed a great variety of endowment. The equal of Napoleon in generalship, he was as prompt, vigorous, and daring as Clive; as wise a statesman as Cromwell; and as pure and high-minded as Washington. The great Wellington left behind him an enduring reputation, founded on toilsome campaigns won by skilful combination, by fortitude which nothing could exhaust, by sublime daring, and perhaps still sublimer patience."

"The late Duke of Wellington was a great routinist, because he was a first-rate man of business. He possessed in perfection all the qualities which constitute one. He was a most punctual man; he never received a letter without acknowledging or replying to it; and he habitually attended to the minutest details of all matters entrusted to him, whether civil or military. His business faculty was his genius, the genius of common sense; and it is not perhaps saying too much to aver, that it was because he was a first-rate man of business that he never lost a battle."

"The Duke of Wellington, who had an inflexible horror of falsehood, writing to Kellerman, when that general was opposed to him in the Peninsula, told him that if there was one thing on which an English officer prided himself more than another, excepting his courage, it was his truthfulness. "When English officers," said he, "have given their parole of honour not to escape, be sure they will not break it. Believe me—trust to their word; the word of an English officer is a surer guarantee than the vigilance of sentinels.""

"Bury the Great Duke With an empire's lamentation; Let us bury the Great Duke To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation; Mourning when their leaders fall, Warriors carry the warrior's pall, And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall."

"Lead out the pageant: sad and slow, As fits an universal woe, Let the long, long procession go, And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, And let the mournful martial music blow; The last great Englishman is low."

"O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute: Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, Whole in himself, a common good. Mourn for the man of amplest influence, Yet clearest of ambitious crime, Our greatest yet with least pretence, Great in council and great in war, Foremost captain of his time, Rich in saving common-sense, And, as the greatest only are, In his simplicity sublime."

"For this is England’s greatest son, He that gain'd a hundred fights, Nor ever lost an English gun."

"When men in after times shall look back to the annals of England for examples of energy and public virtue among those who have raised this country to her station on the earth, no name will remain more conspicuous or more unsullied than that of ARTHUR WELLESLEY, THE GREAT DUKE OF WELLINGTON. The actions of his life were extraordinary, but his character was equal to his actions. He was the very type and model of an Englishman; and, though men are prone to invest the worthies of former ages with a dignity and merit they commonly withhold from their contemporaries, we can select none from the long array of our captains and our nobles who, taken for all in all, can claim a rivalry with him who is gone from amongst us, an inheritor of imperishable fame."

"Macaulay was fond of repeating an answer made to him by Lord Clarendon in the year 1829. The young men were talking over the situation, and Macaulay expressed curiosity as to the terms in which the Duke of Wellington would recommend the Catholic Relief Bill to the Peers. "Oh," said the other, "it will be easy enough. He'll say 'My lords! Attention! Right about face! March!'""

"I am a Socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, Socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for co-operation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality, not because it wants people to be the same but because only through equality in our economic circumstances can our individuality develop properly."

"We should be tough on crime and tough on the underlying causes of crime."

"The news bulletins of the last week have been like hammer blows struck against the sleeping conscience of the country, urging us to wake up and look unflinchingly at what we see... A solution to this disintegration doesn't simply lie in legislation. It must come from the rediscovery of a sense of direction as a country and most of all from being unafraid to start talking once again about the values and principles we believe in and what they mean for us, not just as individuals but as a community. We cannot exist in a moral vacuum. If we do not learn and then teach the value of what is right and what is wrong, then the result is simply moral chaos which engulfs us all..."

"The importance of the notion of community is that it defines the relationship not only between us as individuals but between people and the society in which they live, one that is based on responsibilities as well as rights, on obligations as well as entitlements. Self-respect is in part derived from respect for others."

"It is largely from family discipline that social discipline and a sense of responsibility is learnt. A modern notion of society – where rights and responsibilities go together – requires responsibility to be nurtured. Out of a family grows the sense of community. The family is the starting place... All other things being equal, it is easier to do the difficult job of bringing up a child where there are two parents living happily together... If the old left tended to ignore the importance of the family, the new right ignores the conditions in which family life can most easily prosper."

"I shall not rest until, once again, the destinies of our people and our party are joined together again in victory at the next general election Labour in its rightful place in government again."

"The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes."

"Any parent wants the best for their children. I am not going to make a choice for my child on the basis of what is the politically correct thing to do."

"Tony Blair: Has the Prime Minister secured even the minimal guarantee from the Euro-rebels that, on a future vote of confidence on Europe, they will support him? John Major: I can sense the concern in the right hon. Gentleman's voice. Perhaps he would like to tell me whether he has received the support of the 50 MPs who defied his Front Bench over Maastricht; of the 40 who defied him over European finance; on a single currency, where the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) was in dispute with the deputy leader of the Labour party; and on clause IV, which half his, I think he called them, infantile MEPs want to keep. He does not, and his deputy leader does one day and does not the next. These are party matters. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what his position is? Tony Blair: There is one very big difference—I lead my party, he follows his."

"We have no plans to increase tax at all."

"I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country."

"I want to see a publicly-owned railway, publicly accountable."

"The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth, and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few."

"Socialism for me was never about nationalization or the power of the state, not just about economics or even politics. It is a moral purpose to life, a set of values, a belief in society, in co-operation, in achieving together what we cannot achieve alone. It is how I try to live my life, how you try to live yours—the simple truths—I am worth no more than anyone else, I am my brother’s keeper, I will not walk by on the other side. We are not simply people set in isolation from one another, face to face with eternity, but members of the same family, same community, same human race. This is my socialism and the irony of all our long years in opposition is that those values are shared by the vast majority of the British people."

"I can't stand politicians who wear God on their sleeves."

"Ask me my three main priorities for government, and I tell you: education, education and education. We are 35th in the world league of education standards – 35th. At every level, radical improvement and reform."

"If there are further steps to European integration, the people should have their say at a general election or in a referendum."

"In the end there is no escaping from the fact that businesses run business. And the best thing government can do is set a framework within which business has the stability to plan and invest in the future [...] I want a situation more like the Democrats and the Republicans in the US. People don't even question for a single moment that the Democrats are pro-business party. They should not be asking the question about the New Labour [...] New Labour is pro-business, pro-enterprise, and we believe there is nothing inconsistent between that and a decent and just society."

"Isn't it extraordinary that the Prime Minister of our country can't even urge his Party to back his own position. Weak! Weak! Weak!"

"Powers that are constitutionally there can be used but the Scottish Labour Party is not planning to raise income tax and once the power is given it is like any parish council: it's got the right to exercise it."

"Sovereignty rests with me as an English MP and that's the way it will stay."

"A new dawn has broken, has it not?"

"My message to Sinn Fein is clear. The settlement train is leaving. I want you on that train. But it is leaving anyway and I will not allow it to wait for you."

"I was born in 1953, a child of the Cold War era, raised amid the constant fear of a conflict with the potential to destroy humanity. Whatever other dangers may exist, no such fear exists today. Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war. That is a prize beyond value."

"She was the people's princess and that is how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and our memories for ever."

"I would never do anything to harm the country or anything improper. I think most people who have dealt with me think I'm a pretty straight sort of guy, and I am."

"A day like today is not a day for, sort of, soundbites, really - we can leave those at home - but I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders, I really do."

"We do, as a new Government, have to be extremely careful after 18 years in opposition. A lot of people who worked for us, they then go on and work for the lobby firms. I think we have to be very careful with people fluttering around the new Government, trying to make all sorts of claims of influence, that we are purer than pure, that people understand that we will not have any truck with anything that is improper in any shape or form at all."

"A New Britain where the extraordinary talent of the British people is liberated from the forces of conservatism that so long have held them back, to create a model 21st century nation, based not on privilege, class or background, but on the equal worth of all."

"I can stand here today, leader of the Labour Party, Prime Minister, and say to the British people: you have never had it so … prudent."

"We have done all that, but lots of people like you say because it's not perfect, you've done nothing and therefore I'm walking away from it – it's pathetic. And as for this rubbish that we took the whole of the social services budget and blew it on Kosovo – first of all, the figures are nonsense; secondly, I want to tell you this about Kosovo. I think the day that this movement, with its values, when we could do something about it, would walk away from the worst case of ethnic cleansing and racial genocide since the second world war, then we'd have something to be ashamed of."

"There have been the most terrible, shocking events taking place in the United States of America within the last hour or so, including two hijacked planes being flown deliberately into the World Trade Center. I am afraid we can only imagine the terror and the carnage there and the many, many innocent people who will have lost their lives. I know that you would want to join with me in sending the deepest condolences to President Bush and to the American people on behalf of the British people at these terrible events.This mass terrorism is the new evil in our world today. It is perpetrated by fanatics who are utterly indifferent to the sanctity of human life and we, the democracies of this world, are going to have to come together to fight it together and eradicate this evil completely from our world."

"When we act to bring to account those that committed the atrocity of September 11, we do so, not out of bloodlust. We do so because it is just. We do not act against Islam. The true followers of Islam are our brothers and sisters in this struggle. Bin Laden is no more obedient to the proper teaching of the Koran than those Crusaders of the 12th century who pillaged and murdered, represented the teaching of the Gospel. It is time the west confronted its ignorance of Islam. Jews, Muslims and Christians are all children of Abraham. This is the moment to bring the faiths closer together in understanding of our common values and heritage, a source of unity and strength. It is time also for parts of Islam to confront prejudice against America and not only Islam but parts of western societies too. America has its faults as a society, as we have ours. But I think of the Union of America born out of the defeat of slavery. I think of its Constitution, with its inalienable rights granted to every citizen still a model for the world. I think of a black man, born in poverty, who became chief of their armed forces and is now secretary of state Colin Powell and I wonder frankly whether such a thing could have happened here. I think of the Statue of Liberty and how many refugees, migrants and the impoverished passed its light and felt that if not for them, for their children, a new world could indeed be theirs. I think of a country where people who do well, don't have questions asked about their accent, their class, their beginnings but have admiration for what they have done and the success they've achieved. I think of those New Yorkers I met, still in shock, but resolute; the fire fighters and police, mourning their comrades but still head held high. I think of all this and I reflect: yes, America has its faults, but it is a free country, a democracy, it is our ally and some of the reaction to September 11 betrays a hatred of America that shames those that feel it. So I believe this is a fight for freedom. And I want to make it a fight for justice too. Justice not only to punish the guilty. But justice to bring those same values of democracy and freedom to people round the world. And I mean: freedom, not only in the narrow sense of personal liberty but in the broader sense of each individual having the economic and social freedom to develop their potential to the full. That is what community means, founded on the equal worth of all. The starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of Northern Africa to the slums of Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan: they too are our cause. This is a moment to seize. The Kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us. Today, humankind has the science and technology to destroy itself or to provide prosperity to all. Yet science can't make that choice for us. Only the moral power of a world acting as a community, can. "By the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more together than we can alone". For those people who lost their lives on September 11 and those that mourn them; now is the time for the strength to build that community. Let that be their memorial."

"For the moment, let me say this: Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also."

"I don't like it, to be honest, when politicians make a big thing of their religious beliefs, so I don't make a big thing of it."

"Look, I'm a person, an individual with a character and part of my character is about what I believe in and part of my beliefs obviously is a religious conviction. I simply hesitate whenever I get drawn into this territory because I have found, over time, that it either leads to people misunderstanding the basis upon which you are taking decisions or it leads to people trying to colonise God or religion for one particular political position. I make no claims to that at all."

"[The Joint Intelligence Committee] concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population, and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability."

"Sometimes, and in particular dealing with a dictator, the only chance of peace is a readiness for war."

"Lead me into war...you know I believe in you."

"The intelligence is clear: [Saddam Hussein] continues to believe that his weapons of mass destruction programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression. It is essential to his regional power. Prior to the inspectors coming back in, he was engaged in a systematic exercise in concealment of those weapons."

"I've never claimed to have a monopoly of wisdom, but one thing I've learned in this job is you should always try to do the right thing, not the easy thing. Let the day-to-day judgments come and go: be prepared to be judged by history."

"If we don't act now, we can't keep those people down there forever. We can't wait forever. If we don't act now, then we will go back to what has happened before and then of course the whole thing begins again and he carries on developing these weapons and these are dangerous weapons, particularly if they fall into the hands of terrorists who we know want to use these weapons if they can get them."

"We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years–contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence–Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd."

"This is the time not just for this Government–or, indeed, for this Prime Minister—but for this House to give a lead: to show that we will stand up for what we know to be right; to show that we will confront the tyrannies and dictatorships and terrorists who put our way of life at risk; to show, at the moment of decision, that we have the courage to do the right thing."

"Before people crow about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction, I suggest they wait a bit."

"As I have said throughout, I have no doubt that they will find the clearest possible evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction."

"What amazes me is how many people are happy for Saddam to stay. They ask why we don't get rid of Mugabe, why not the Burmese lot. Yes, let's get rid of them all. I don't because I can't, but when you can you should."

"We've already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves."

"I thought that it was the most predictable speech that we could have heard from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He may want to pose as the nice Dr. Jekyll, but we know that, deep down, he is still the same old Mr. Howard."

"It has been an unrelenting, but, I have to accept, at least partly successful campaign to persuade Britain that Europe is a conspiracy aimed at us, rather than a partnership designed for us and others to pursue our national interest properly in a modern, interdependent world. It is right to confront this campaign head on. Provided that the treaty embodies the essential British positions, we shall agree to it as a Government. Once agreed – either at the June Council, which is our preference, or subsequently – Parliament should debate it in detail and decide upon it. Then, let the people have the final say."

"What you can't do is have a situation where you get a rejection of the treaty and then you just bring it back with a few amendments and say we will have another go. You can't do that and I am not going to get drawn into speculating the way forward because I don't intend to lose the referendum."

"Today's strategy is the culmination of a journey of change both for progressive politics and for the country. It marks the end of the 1960s liberal, social consensus on law and order."

"But with this change in the 1960s came something else, not necessarily because of it but alongside it. It was John Stuart Mill who articulated the modern concept that with freedom comes responsibility. But in the 1960's revolution, that didn't always happen. Law and order policy still focussed on the offender's rights, protecting the innocent, understanding the social causes of their criminality. All through the 1970s and 1980s, under Labour and Conservative Governments, a key theme of legislation was around the prevention of miscarriages of justice. Meanwhile some took the freedom without the responsibility. The worst criminals became better organised and more violent. The petty criminals were no longer the bungling but wrong-headed villains of old; but drug pushers and drug-abusers, desperate and without any residual moral sense. And a society of different lifestyles spawned a group of young people who were brought up without parental discipline, without proper role models and without any sense of responsibility to or for others."

"Here, now, today, people have had enough of this part of the 1960s consensus. People do not want a return to old prejudices and ugly discrimination. But they do want rules, order and proper behaviour. They know there is such a thing as society. They want a society of respect. They want a society of responsibility. They want a community where the decent law-abiding majority are in charge; where those that play by the rules do well; and those that don't, get punished."

"Do I know I'm right? Judgements aren't the same as facts. Instinct is not science. I'm like any other human being, as fallible and as capable of being wrong. I only know what I believe."

"Don't say yes to that question, that would be difficult."

"It is not a sensible or intelligent response for us in Europe to ridicule American argument or parody their political leadership."

"Sir Michael Spicer: What are the characteristics of old Labour that he dislikes so much? Tony Blair: I am afraid that the Hon. Gentleman will have to repeat that. Sir Michael Spicer: What are the characteristics of old Labour that he dislikes so much? Tony Blair: Basically, that it never won two successive terms of Government and, perhaps, that it never put the Conservative party flat on its back, which is where it is now. Thankfully, we are running an economy with low inflation, low mortgage rates and low unemployment; fortunately, we are doing a darn sight better than the Government of whom the right hon. Gentleman was a Member, who had—I thank him for allowing me to mention this—interest rates at 10 per cent. for four years, 3 million unemployed and two recessions. Whether it is old Labour or new Labour, it is a darn sight better than the Tories."

"I fear my own conscience on Africa. I fear the judgement of future generations, where history properly calculates the gravity of the suffering. I fear them asking: but how could wealthy people, so aware of such suffering, so capable of acting, simply turn away to busy themselves with other things? What greater call to action could there be? Did they really know and yet do nothing? I feel that judgement of the future alongside the now. It gives me urgency. It fills me with determination."

"Yes, I did have to struggle very hard to get this [the vote on the Iraq war] through, but the reason I did it was because I thought it was the right thing to do. I didn't take this on myself... just because I thought, 'Let's give myself a really hard time for a couple of years!'"

"I understand there is a need for a stable and orderly transition to that leadership, but that people should give me the space to ensure that happens and that this debate is not best conducted in the pages of the Mail on Sunday."

"Ideals survive through change. They die through inertia in the face of challenge."

"It is important that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world."

"The spirit of our age is one in which the prejudices of the past are put behind us, where our diversity is our strength. It is this which is under attack. Moderates are not moderate through weakness but through strength. Now is the time to show it in defence of our common values."

"The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge."

"Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing."

"There were people who got me very involved in politics. But then there was also a book. It was a trilogy, a biography of Trotsky by Isaac Deutscher, which made a very deep impression on me and gave me a love of political biography for the rest of my life."

"This is not a clash between civilisations. It is a clash about civilisation."

"To state a timetable now would simply paralyze the proper working of government, put at risk the changes we are making for Britain and damage the country."

"He is honey."

"I condemn utterly these brutal and shameful attacks. There can never be any justification for terrorism. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families. We stand united with India, as the world's largest democracy who share our values and determination to defeat terrorism in all its forms."

"We can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world."

"He wants a Bill of Rights for Britain drafted by a Committee of Lawyers. Have you ever tried drafting anything with a Committee of Lawyers?"

"In this day and age if you've got the technology then it's vital to use that technology to track people down. The number on the database should be the maximum number you can get."

"That's the art of leadership. To make sure that what shouldn't happen, doesn't happen."

"I couldn't live with myself if I thought that these big strategic choices for my generation were there, and I wasn't even making them – or I was making them according to what was expedient rather than what I actually thought was right."

"In respect of knife and gun gangs, the laws need to be significantly toughened. There needs to be an intensive police focus on these groups. The ring-leaders need to be identified and taken out of circulation; if very young, as some are, put in secure accommodation. The black community – the vast majority of whom in these communities are decent, law-abiding people horrified at what is happening – need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids. But we won't stop this by pretending it isn't young black kids doing it."

"Economic inequality is a factor and we should deal with that, but I don't think it's the thing that is producing the most violent expression of this social alienation. I think that is to do with the fact that particular youngsters are being brought up in a setting that has no rules, no discipline, no proper framework around them."

"So, of course, the visions are painted in the colours of the rainbow, and the reality is sketched in duller tones of black and white and grey. But I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong. That is your call. But believe one thing, if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country."

"The British are special. The world knows it. In our innermost thoughts we know it. This is the greatest nation on earth. So it has been an honour to serve it. I give my thanks to you, the British people, for the times that I have succeeded, and my apologies to you for the times I have fallen short. But good luck."

"The fear of missing out means today's media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack. In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no-one dares miss out."

"The reason we are finding it hard to win this battle is that we're not actually fighting it properly. We're not actually standing up to these people and saying, "It's not just your methods that are wrong, your ideas are absurd. Nobody is oppressing you. Your sense of grievance isn't justified.""

"Some may belittle politics but we who are engaged in it know that it is where people stand tall. Although I know that it has many harsh contentions, it is still the arena that sets the heart beating a little faster. If it is, on occasions, the place of low skulduggery, it is more often the place for the pursuit of noble causes. I wish everyone, friend or foe, well. That is that. The end."

"Analogies with the past are never properly accurate and analogies especially with the rising fascism can be easily misleading, but in pure chronology I sometimes wonder if we're not in the 1920s or 1930s again... This ideology now has a state, Iran, that is prepared to back and finance terror in the pursuit of destabilising countries whose people wish to live in peace."

"I think this has gone beyond, as it were, Al Qaida as a specific network. I mean, this is -- there is no central command in this ideology, the way that, you know, you would normally describe one unit of -- that leads and operation. It's not like that. But the fact is that they are loosely linked by an ideology. They have very strong links with each other, right across the national boundaries. And you know, would be no surprise to me if the people that were engaged in the Mumbai attacks had links with other countries as well."

"Brexit reminds me a bit of the Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles where the sheriff, at one point during it, holds a gun to his own head and says: "If you don't do what I want I'll blow my brains out" - you want to watch that one of the 26 (other EU members) don't say just go ahead."

"We should engage with the new de facto power and help make the new government make the changes necessary, especially on the economy, so they can deliver for the people. The events that led to the Egyptian army's removal of President Mohamed Morsi confronted the military with a simple choice: intervention or chaos. Seventeen million people on the streets are not the same as an election. But it as an awesome manifestation of power. I am a strong supporter of democracy. But democratic government doesn't on its own mean effective government. Today efficacy is the challenge. This is a sort of free democratic spirit that operates outside the convention of democracy that elections decide the government. It is enormously fuelled by social media, itself a revolutionary phenomenon. And it moves very fast in precipitating crisis. It is not always consistent or rational. A protest is not a policy, or a placard a programme for government. But if governments don't have a clear argument with which to rebut the protest, they're in trouble."

"The battles of this century … are less likely to be the product of extreme political ideology—like those of the 20th century—but they could easily be fought around the questions of cultural or religious difference."

"I pay tribute to the campaign [Jeremy Corbyn] ran, I think that he showed a lot of character in the way that he ran that campaign. He generated a lot of enthusiasm. I buy all of that. But I also think that it's important and salutary for us to remember this government is in a greater degree of mess than any government I can remember. Even in the 1990s the Tory government was a paragon of stability compared with this, and yet we're a couple of points ahead and I think I'm right that [Corbyn] is not yet ahead of her as Prime Minister. So I pay tribute to all of that, but I still say 'Come on guys, we should be 15, 20 points ahead."

"Torture, encouraged from above, became a fact of life [in occupied Iraq]. Perhaps some good liberal apologist for Blair will soon explain how democratic torture is much nicer than authoritarian torture."

"A second-rate actor, he turned out to be a crafty and avaricious politician, but without much substance; bereft of ideas he eagerly grasped and tried to improve upon the legacy of Margaret Thatcher."

"The trouble with Tony is that he always believes what he is saying when he is saying it."

"[Blair] is a lightweight. I don't like his political morals and how he's been enriching himself since leaving office. He preaches high moral language but … I have a visceral contempt for Blair. Not dislike. Just contempt."

"He was the future, once..."

"Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's failures are still writ large on the public imagination – the Iraq War for example, or the racking up of astonishing national debt. But what is less well recognised is the last Labour government’s extraordinary success in using seemingly mundane pieces of legislation to profoundly – and, for conservatives, detrimentally – transform the culture of the United Kingdom. In its 2005 manifesto, the Labour Party pledged to bring forward a new Equality Bill, to "modernise and simplify" equality laws. A bland aim perhaps, but the resulting Equality Act 2010 became a flagship piece of New Labour legislation that would embed leftist identity politics into our public institutions, paving the way for the ideological capture of our schools, civil service and NHS."

"Don’t be shameless, Mr Blair. Don’t be immoral, Mr. Blair. You are one of those who have no morals. You are not one who has the right to criticize anyone about the rules of the international community. You are an imperialist pawn who attempts to curry favor with Danger Bush-Hitler, the number one mass murderer and assassin there is on the planet. Go straight to hell, Mr. Blair."

"Like anyone else who knows anything about the Middle East, you just pray that this man will shut the fuck up."

"Tony Blair had his finger on the modernising pulse of Britain in the 90s, identifying the UK as a country that was increasingly progressive and outward-looking, and with little time for passing judgement on the basis of gender, race, sexuality or disability. And it was this analysis which caught the public mood and helped sweep Labour to its historic landslide victory on 1 May 1997. As a party with equality at its core, the new government was eager to get on with advancing the fairness agenda and building on the work done by pioneers such as Barbara Castle."

"The righteous will evidently never tire of the pelting and taunting of Tony Blair, and perhaps those like him who choose to join the Roman choir of extreme unctuousness must expect their meed of abuse. But I cannot forget the figures of Slobodan Milošević, Charles Taylor and Saddam Hussein, who made terrified fiefdoms out of their "own" people and mounds of corpses on the territory of their neighbours. I was glad to see each of these monsters brought to trial, and think the achievement should (and one day will) form part of the battle‑honours of British Labour. Many of the triumphant pelters and taunters would have left the dictators and aggressors in place: they too will have their place in history."

"In November 2002, four months before the invasion of Iraq, Tony Blair had his only meeting with independent British experts. “We all pretty much said the same thing,” said George Joffe, a Middle East specialist from Cambridge University. “Iraq is a very complicated country, there are tremendous intercommunal resentments, and don’t imagine you’ll be welcomed.” Blair did not appear interested in this analysis and focused instead on Saddam Hussein: “But the man’s uniquely evil, isn’t he?” The experts tried to explain that thirty years of Hussein’s dictatorship had ground down Iraq’s civil society to the point that there were virtually no independent organized forces to serve as allies for the coalition. Blair remained uninterested. The Foreign Office showed no more interest in taking advantage of their considerable knowledge and expertise. A little more than five years later, in January 2008, the U.K. Ministry of Defence issued a report that was severely critical of the way in which British soldiers were prepared to serve in Iraq. There had been, the report said, a lack of information about the context the soldiers would be operating in and uncertainty about how the Iraqis might react to an invasion. The military, the report went on, failed to anticipate differences between Iraq and the Balkans and Northern Ireland where British forces had gained a great deal of their recent experience. In other words, they had not looked at the history of Iraq."

"Few talk or think about Iraq these days; the media ignores this important but demolished nation. Iraq, let us recall, was the target of a major western aggression concocted by George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Britain’s Tony Blair, and financed and encouraged by the Gulf oil sheikdoms and Saudi Arabia... We hear nothing about the billions of dollars of Iraqi oil being extracted by big US oil firms since 2003."

"Like millions of others, I now bitterly resent that a prime minister could use such a farrago of lies and manipulation to deceive us and to take the nation to war so dishonestly."

"Somebody who did it first and perhaps did it better than I will do. He has been an example for so many people around the world of what dedicated leadership can accomplish."

"I believe Tony Blair is an out-and-out rascal, terminally untrustworthy and close to being unhinged. I said from the start that there was something wrong in his head, and each passing year convinces me more strongly that this man is a pathological confidence-trickster. To the extent that he even believes what he says, he is delusional. To the extent that he does not, he is an actor whose first invention — himself — has been his only interesting role."

"What can we do? We can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can continue to build public opinion until it becomes a deafening roar. We can turn the war on Iraq into a fishbowl of the U.S. government's excesses. We can expose George Bush and Tony Blair-and their allies for the cowardly baby killers, water poisoners, and pusillanimous long-distance bombers that they are."

"I view him as the kind of air guitarist of political rhetoric. I don't think he's debased political debate because he lies, I actually sadly think he believes a lot of what he says, that's what's so depressing about it, for people who stand outside of politics. So my rather bizarre viewpoint — should he go? — it feels like he left a long time ago, leaving this Tony Blair shaped hole that carries on talking.""

"Blair likes to say that his party is best when it is bold. So is he--and when he has an unconflicted view of the right and wrong of an issue... Blair is not at his best when his vision of what is right is blurred."

"Among the many challenges you faced with great courage, may I just mention two. You stayed close to our American ally in difficult times. And because of you we saw an end to the horrors of genocide in the Balkans."

"Tony Blair, a passionate Christian, has expressed his conviction that WMDs will be found in almost directly religious terms of credo quia absurdum: despite the lack of evidence, he personally is deeply convinced that they will be found. ... The only appropriate answer to this conundrum is not the boring liberal plea for innocence until guilt is proved but, rather, the point made succintly by 'Rachel from Scotland' on the BBC website in September 2003: 'We know he had weapons; we sold him some of them.' This is the direction a serious investigation should have taken."

"In the early days of his government, Tony Blair liked to paraphrase the famous joke from Monty Python's Life of Brian ('All right, but apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?') in order ironically to disarm his critics: 'They betrayed socialism. True, they brought more social security, they did a lot for healthcare and education, and so on, but, in spite of all that, they betrayed socialism.' As it is clear today, it is, rather, the reverse which applies: 'We remain socialists. True, we practice Thatcherism in economics, we attack asylum-seekers, beggars and single mothers, we made a deal with Murdoch, and so on, but, none the less, we're still socialists.'"

"UK’s Prime Minister Tony Blair should hang with the U.S. gang, but who is calling for this? How much longer will the necessary prosecutions wait? Till after these international war-criminals have all gone honored to their graves? Although the International Criminal Court considered and dismissed possible criminal charges against Tony Blair’s UK Government regarding the invasion and military occupation of Iraq, the actual crime, of invading and militarily occupying a country which had posed no threat to the national security of the invader, was ignored, and the conclusion was that “the situation did not appear to meet the required threshold of the Statute” (which was only “Willful killing or inhuman treatment of civilians” and which ignored the real crime, which was “aggressive war” or “the crime of aggression” — the crime for which Nazis had been hanged at Nuremberg)... We... now have internationally a lawless world (or “World Order”) in which “Might makes right,” and in which there is really no effective international law, at all."

"I have already expressed my opinion that the interference of the noble Lord should have been for the suppression of the trade in opium, and that the war was not justified by any excesses committed on the part of the Chinese. I have already stated, that although the Chinese were undoubtedly guilty of much absurd phraseology, of no little ostentatious pride, and of some excess, justice, in my opinion, is with them, and, that whilst they, the Pagans, and semi-civilized barbarians, have it, we, the enlightened and civilized Christians, are pursuing objects at variance both with justice, and with religion."

"The right hon. Gentleman has argued, that the adoption of the plan proposed by the Government would confer advantage on the consumer, would increase the revenue, and would give increased scope to the industry of the manufacturer. We, Sir, argue, that with an amount of benefit to the revenue altogether inconsiderable, with a slight, nay an imperceptible relief to the consumer, and with detriment to the sure interests of the British manufacturer, you are asked to abandon what is nothing less than a great principle of humanity, that has received the most solemn sanction of the Legislature, the principle of hostility to the slave-trade and to slavery."

"I have clung to the notion of a conscience, and a Catholic conscience, in the State, until that idea has become in the general mind so feeble, as to be absolutely inappreciable in the movement of public affairs. I do not know whether there is one man opposing the Maynooth Bill upon that principle. When I have found myself the last man in the ship, I think that I am free to leave it."

"Ireland, Ireland! That cloud in the west! That coming storm! That minister of God's retribution upon cruel, inveterate, and but half-atoned injustice! Ireland forces upon us those great social and great religious questions—God grant that we may have courage to look them in the face, and to work through them."

"I believe the slave trade to be by far the foulest crime that taints the history of mankind in any Christian or pagan country."

"This is the negation of God erected into a system of Government."

"From the ancient strife of territorial acquisition we are labouring, I trust and believe, to substitute another, a peaceful and a fraternal strife among nations, the honest and the noble race of industry and art."

"[I]f it be true that, at periods now long past, England has had her full share of influence in stimulating by her example the martial struggles of the world, may she likewise be forward, now and hereafter, to show that she has profited by the heavy lessons of experience, and to be—if, indeed, in the designs of Providence, she is elected to that office—the standard-bearer of the nations upon the fruitful paths of peace, industry, and commerce."

"[W]hile we have sought to do justice to the great labouring community of England by further extending their relief from indirect taxation, we have not been guided by any desire to put one class against another; we have felt we should best maintain our own honour, that we should best meet the views of Parliament, and best promote the interests of the country, by declining to draw any invidious distinction between class and class, by adopting it to ourselves as a sacred aim, to diffuse and distribute—burden if we must; benefit if we may—with equal and impartial hand; and we have the consolation of believing that by proposals such as these we contribute, as far as in us lies, not only to develop the material resources of the country, but to knit the hearts of the various classes of this great nation yet more closely than heretofore to that Throne and to those institutions under which it is their happiness to live."

"When we speak of general war, we don't mean real progress on the road of freedom, the real, moral, and social advancement of man, achieved by force. This may be the intention, but how rarely is it the result of general war! We mean this:—That the face of nature is stained with human gore—we mean that taxation is increased and industry diminished—we know that it means that burdens unreasonable and untold are entailed on late posterity—we know that it means that demoralization is let loose, that families are broken up, that lusts become unbridled in every country to which that war is extended."

"All the terms that we demanded have, since the war began, been substantially conceded...My hon. Friend...[said] that we must obtain a success in order that we may secure better terms; but that is not the public and popular sentiment; the popular feeling is, that as to terms there is no great matter at issue, but that what you want is more military success...It is not only indefensible—it is hideous, it is anti-Christian, it is immoral, it is inhuman; and you have no right to make war simply for what you call success. If, when you have obtained the objects of the war, you continue it in order to obtain military glory...I say you tempt the justice of Him in whose hands the fates of armies are as absolutely lodged as the fate of the infant slumbering in its cradle; you tempt Him to launch upon you His wrath; and if this be courage, I, for one, have no courage to enter upon such a course. I believe it to be alike guilty and unwise."

"There is but one way of maintaining permanently what I may presume to call the great international policy and law of Europe—but one way of keeping within bounds any one of the Powers possessed of such strength as France, England, or Russia, if it be bent on an aggressive policy, and that is, by maintaining not so much great fleets, or other demonstrations of physical force, which I believe to be really an insignificant part of the case, but the moral union—the effective concord of Europe."

"There is a policy going a begging; the general policy that Sir Robert Peel in 1841 took office to support—the policy of peace abroad, of economy, of financial equilibrium, of steady resistance to abuses, and promotion of practical improvements at home, with a disinclination to questions of reform, gratuitously raised."

"To maintain a steady surplus of income over expenditure—to lower indirect taxes when excessive in amount for the relief of the people and bearing in mind the reproductive power inherent in such operations—to simplify our fiscal system by concentrating its pressure on a few well chosen articles of extended consumption—and to conciliate support to the income tax by marking its temporary character and by associating it with beneficial changes in the laws: these aims have been for fifteen years the labour of our life."

"Sir, there is not war with China, but what is there? There is hostility. There is bloodshed. There is a trampling down of the weak by the strong. There is the terrible and abominable retaliation of the weak upon the strong. You are now occupied in this House by revolting and harrowing details about a Chinese baker who has poisoned bread, by proclamations for the capture of British heads, and the waylaying of a postal steamer. And these things you think strengthen your case. Why, they deepen your guilt. They place you more completely in the wrong. War taken at the best is a frightful scourge to the human race; but because it is so the wisdom of ages has surrounded it with strict laws and usages, and has required formalities to be observed which shall act as a curb upon the wild passions of man, to prevent that scourge from being let loose unless under circumstances of full deliberation and from absolute necessity. You have dispensed with all these precautions. You have turned a consul into a diplomatist, and that metamorphosed consul is forsooth to be at liberty to direct the whole might of England against the lives of a defenceless people. While war is a scourge and curse to man it is yet attended with certain compensations. It is attended with acts of heroic self-sacrifice and of unbounded daring. It is ennobled by a consciousness that you are meeting equals in the field, and that while you challenge the issue of life or death you at least enter into a fair encounter. But you go to China and make war upon those who stand before you as women or children. They try to resist you; they call together their troops; they load their guns; they kill one man and wound another in action, but while they are doing so you perhaps slay thousands. They are unable to meet you in the field. You have no equality of ground on which to meet them. You can earn no glory in such warfare. And it is those who put the British flag to such uses that stain it. It is not from them that we are to hear rhetorical exaggerations on the subject of the allegiance that we owe to the national standard. Such is the case of the war in China. And what do these people — who have no means of offering you open resistance — who are women and children before you — what do they do when you make war with them? They resort to those miserable and detestable contrivances for the destruction of their enemies which their weakness teaches them. It is not the first time in the history of the world. Have you never read of those rebellions of the slaves which have risen to the dignity of being called wars, and which stand recorded in history as the servile wars? Is it not notorious that among all the wars upon record those have been the most terrible, ferocious, and destructive? And why? Because those who have been trampled upon have observed no limit in the gratification of their feeling of revenge against their oppressors; and however wrong may have been their excesses in the abstract, those excesses could not become a just subject of complaint on the part of those who had provoked them. Every account that reaches us of the cruelties and the atrocities to which this war gives rise only deepens the pain and the shame with which I look back, and with which I trust the majority of this House will look back, on the origin of this deplorable contest."

"At a time when sentiments are so much divided, every man I trust, will give his vote with the recollection and the consciousness that it may depend upon his single vote whether the miseries, the crimes, the atrocities that I fear are now proceeding in China are to be discountenanced or not. We have now come to the crisis of the case. England is not yet committed. But if an adverse vote be given...England will have been committed. With you then, with us, with every one of us, it rests to show that this House, which is the first, the most ancient, and the noblest temple of freedom in the world, is also the temple of that everlasting justice without which freedom itself would be only a name or only a curse to mankind. And I cherish the trust and belief that when you, Sir, rise in your place to-night to declare the numbers of the division from the chair which you adorn, the words which you speak will go forth from the walls of the House of Commons, not only as a message of mercy and peace, but also as a message of British justice and British wisdom, to the farthest corners of the world."

"Decision by majorities is as much an expedient, as lighting by gas."

"Economy is the first and great article (economy such as I understand it) in my financial creed. The controversy between direct and indirect taxation holds a minor, though important place."

"What has been the state of things since 1853? It is useless to blink the fact that not merely within the circle of the public departments and of Cabinets, but throughout the country at large, and within the precincts of this House—the guardians of the purse of the people—the spirit of public economy has been relaxed; charges upon the public funds of every kind have been admitted from time to time upon slight examination; every man's petition and prayer for this or that expenditure has been conceded with a facility which I do not hesitate to say you have only to continue for some five or ten years longer in order to bring the finances of the country into a state of absolute confusion."

"I am certain, from experience, of the immense advantage of strict account-keeping in early life. It is just like learning the grammar then, which when once learned need not be referred to afterwards."

"[T]he great aim—the moral and political significance of the act, and its probable and desired fruit in binding the two countries together by interest and affection. Neither you nor I attach for the moment any superlative value to this Treaty for the sake of the extension of British trade. ... What I look to is the social good, the benefit to the relations of the two countries, and the effect on the peace of Europe."

"Sir, there was once a time when close relations of amity were established between the Governments of England and France. It was in the reign of the later Stuarts; and it marks a dark spot in our annals, because it was an union formed in a spirit of domineering ambition on the one side, and of base and vile subserviency on the other. But that, Sir, was not an union of the nations; it was an union of the Governments. This is not be an union of the Governments; it is to be an union of the nations."

"Our proposals involve a great reform in our tariff, they involve a large remission of taxation, and last of all, though not least, they include that Commercial Treaty with France... By pursuing such a course as this it will be in your power to scatter blessings among the people, and blessings which are among the soundest and most wholesome of all the blessings at your disposal, because in legislation of this kind you are not forging mechanical helps for men, nor endeavouring to do that for them which they ought to do for themselves; but you are enlarging their means without narrowing their freedom, you are giving value to their labour, you are appealing to their sense of responsibility, and you are not impairing their sense of honourable self-dependence."

"For my own part I am deeply convinced that all excess in the public expenditure beyond the legitimate wants of the country is not only a pecuniary waste—for that is a comparatively trifling matter—but a great political and a great moral evil. It is a characteristic of the mischief which arise from financial prodigality, that they creep onwards with a noiseless and surreptitious step; that they are unseen and unfelt until they have reached a magnitude absolutely overwhelming, and then at length, we see them, as perhaps they now exist in the case of one at least among the great European nations, so fearful and menacing in their aspect that they seem to threaten the very foundations of national existence."

"[T]he right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud says of this Budget...[that] it is a mortal stab at the Constitution. I want to know to what Constitution does it give a mortal stab? In my opinion it gives no mortal stab, and no stab at all. But, on the contrary, so far as it alters anything in the most recent practice, it alters in the direction of restoring that good old Constitution which took its root in Saxon times, which grew under the Plantagenets, which endured the hard rule of the Tudors, and resisted the aggressions of the Stuarts, and which has now come to such perfect maturity under the rule of the House of Brunswick."

"We may have our own opinions about slavery; we may be for or against the South; but there is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and they have made what is more than either—they have made a Nation... We may anticipate with certainty the success of the Southern States so far as regards their separation from the North. I cannot but believe that that event is as certain as any event yet future and countingent can be."

"I mean this, that together with the so-called increase of expenditure there grows up what may be termed a spirit which, insensibly and unconsciously perhaps, but really, affects the spirit of the people, the spirit of parliament, the spirit of the public departments, and perhaps even the spirit of those whose duty it is to submit the estimates to parliament."

"But how is the spirit of expenditure to be exorcised? Not by preaching; I doubt if even by yours. I seriously doubt whether it will ever give place to the old spirit of economy, as long as we have the income-tax. There, or hard by, lie questions of deep practical moment."

"I venture to say that every man who is not presumably incapacitated by some consideration of personal unfitness or of political danger is morally entitled to come within the pale of the Constitution. ...fitness for the franchise, when it is shown to exist—as I say it is shown to exist in the case of a select portion of the working class—is not repelled on sufficient grounds from the portals of the Constitution by the allegation that things are well as they are. I contend, moreover, that persons who have prompted the expression of such sentiments as those to which I have referred, and whom I know to have been Members of the working class, are to be presumed worthy and fit to discharge the duties of citizenship, and that to admission to the discharge of those duties they are well and justly entitled."

"What are the qualities which fit a man for the exercise of a privilege such as the franchise? Self-command, self-control, respect for order, patience under suffering, confidence in the law, regard for superiors."

"As to his Goddess Reason, I understand by it simply an adoption of what are called on the continent the principles of the French Revolution. These we neither want nor warmly relish in England."

"At last, my friends, I am come amongst you. And I am come…unmuzzled."

"I am a member of a Liberal Government. I am in association with the Liberal party. I have never swerved from what I conceived to be those truly Conservative objects and desires with which I entered life. I am, if possible, more fondly attached to the institutions of my country than I was when as a boy I wandered among the sand-hills of Seaforth or the streets of Liverpool. But experience has brought with it its lessons. I have learnt that there is wisdom in a policy of trust, and folly in a policy of mistrust. I have not refused to receive the signs of the times. I have observed the effect that has been produced by Liberal legislation, and if we are told...that all the feelings of the country are in the best and broadest sense Conservative,—that is to say, that the people value the country and the laws and institutions of the country; if we are told that, I say honesty compels us to admit that result has been brought about by Liberal legislation."

"The position of England, gentlemen, is a peculiar position in the world. England has inherited from bygone ages more, perhaps, of what was most august and venerable in those ages than any other European country, and at the same time that her traditions of the past are so rich and fruitful that all our minds and all our characters have both within our knowledge and beyond our knowledge been largely moulded by them. ... [G]eographically she stands with Europe on one side of her and America on the other, so she stands between those feudal institutions in which European society was formed, and which have given her hierarchy of class, and on the other side those principles of equality forming the basis of society in America."

"It is sometimes said that the measure we propose is a democratic measure. The word “democracy” has very different senses, if by democracy be meant liberty—if by democracy be meant the extension to each man in his own sphere of every privilege and of every franchise that he can exercise with advantage to himself and with safety to the State,—then I must confess I don't see much to alarm us in the word democracy. (Cheers.) But if by democracy be meant the enthroning of ignorance against knowledge, the setting up of vice in opposition to virtue, the disregard of rank, the forgetfulness of what our fathers have done for us, indifference or coldness with regard to the inheritance we enjoy, then, Gentlemen, I for one—and I believe for all I have the honour to address—am in that sense the enemy of democracy."

"My position then, Sir, in regard to the Liberal party is in all points the opposite of Earl Russell's. ... I have none of the claims he possesses. I came among you an outcast from those with whom I associated, driven from them, I admit, by no arbitrary act, but by the slow and resistless forces of conviction. I came among you, to make use of the legal phraseology, in pauperis forma. I had nothing to offer you but faithful and honourable service. ... You received me with kindness, indulgence, generosity, and I may even say with some measure of confidence. And the relation between us has assumed such a form that you never can be my debtors, but that I must for ever be in your debt."

"[T]here appeared to me to have grown up under the present Government a system of what I called, in regard to the public expenditure, making things pleasant all round. That means going from town to town, granting what this community wants, granting what that community wants, granting what the other community wants, and leaving out of sight that huge public which unfortunately has not got the voices and the advocates ready always to defend it against these local and particular claims, but of which it is our highest boast that we seek to be the advocates and the champions."

"If you want to be served you must draw the distinction between those who want to serve you and those who don't, and if the electors of South Lancashire and of the country generally are contented to allow this method of expenditure to go on, this Continental system of feeding the desires of classes and portions of the community at the expense of the whole—it is idle for you to satisfy yourselves with vague and general promises. ... If that is to be the system on which public finance is to be administered you must be prepared to resign all hopes of remission of taxation, even in good years, and in bad years you must look for a steady augmentation of the income-tax."

"[W]e find and we know that this attempt in Ireland to make the power and influence of the State the means of supporting one creed against another has been the plague and the scourge of the country—has divided man from man, class from class, kingdom from kingdom, and in this great, and ancient, and noble empire has had the effect of now exhibiting us to the world as a divided country—three kingdoms, two of which we are indeed heartily united and associated, but the third of which offers to mankind a spectacle painful and full of schism and destruction within itself, and alienation and estrangement as regards the Throne and Constitution of this realm."

"The only means which have been placed in my power of "raising the wages of colliers" has been by endeavouring to beat down all those restrictions upon trade which tend to reduce the price to be obtained for the product of their labour, & to lower as much as may be the taxes on the commodities which they may require for use or for consumption. Beyond this I look to the forethought not yet so widely diffused in this country as in Scotland, & in some foreign lands; & I need not remind you that in order to facilitate its exercise the Government have been empowered by Legislation to become through the Dept. of the P.O. the receivers & guardians of savings."

"Hephaistos bears in Homer the double stamp of a Nature-Power, representing the element of fire, and of an anthropomorphic deity who is the god of art at a period when the only fine art known was in works of metal produced by the aid of fire."

"The transfer of the allegiance and citizenship, of no small part of the heart and life, of human beings from one sovereignty to another, without any reference to their own consent, has been a great reproach to some former transactions in Europe; has led to many wars and disturbances; is hard to reconcile with considerations of equity; and is repulsive to the sense of modern civilization."

"I am much oppressed with the idea that this transfer of human beings like chattels should go forward without any voice from collective Europe if it be disposed to speak."

"In moral forces, and in their growing effect upon European politics, I have a great faith: possibly on that very account, I am free to confess, sometimes a misleading one."

"On the whole, it seems reasonable to hope that the practical character of our Teutonic cousins [Germany], together with their huge actual mass of domestic sorrows, will assist them to settle down into a mood of peace and goodwill. But whether they do or not, it is idle to apprehend that they have before them a career of universal conquest or absolute predominance, and that the European family is not strong enough to correct the eccentricities of its pecant and obstreperous members."

"Certain it is that a new law of nations is gradually taking hold of the mind, and coming to sway the practice, of the world; a law which recognises independence, which frowns upon aggression, which favours the pacific, not the bloody settlement of disputes, which aims at permanent and not temporary adjustments; above all, which recognises, as a tribunal of paramount authority, the general judgment of civilised mankind. It has censured the aggression of France; it will censure, if need arise, the greed of Germany. “Securus judicat orbis terrarum.” It is hard for all nations to go astray. Their ecumenical council sits above the partial passions of those, who are misled by interest, and disturbed by quarrel. The greatest triumph of our time, a triumph in a region loftier than that of electricity and steam, will be the enthronement of this idea of Public Right, as the governing idea of European policy; as the common and precious inheritance of all lands, but superior to the passing opinion of any."

"I am inclined to say that the personal attendance and intervention of women in election proceedings, even apart from any suspicion of the wider objects of many of the promoters of the present movement, would be a practical evil not only of the gravest, but even of an intolerable character."

"In London it was not the interests of class which were specially concentrated. It was there that wealth was all-powerful; and wealth has taken desperate offence at their actions during the present year because the Government recommended to Parliament that power in the English army shall no longer be the prize of wealth, but the reward of merit."

"[T]he establishment of freedom of trade and of a general disposition to remove from trade every possible restriction and every possible burden...has been the main agent in raising the commerce of the United Kingdom to that extraordinary position it has now attained. I apprehend that I am stating the matter very moderately if I put it thus, that in the course of the last 30 years our population has increased somewhere about 25 or 30 per cent., while our trade in the same period has increased in the ratio of certainly something not much under 400 per cent."

"Not a drop of blood runs in my veins except Scotch blood, and a large share of my heart ever has belonged, and ever will belong, to Scotland."

"They are not your friends, but they are your enemies in fact, though not in intention, who teach you to look to the Legislature for the radical removal of the evils that afflict human life... It is the individual mind and conscience, it is the individual character, on which mainly human happiness or misery depends. (Cheers.) The social problems that confront us are many and formidable. Let the Government labour to its utmost, let the Legislature labour days and nights in your service; but, after the very best has been attained and achieved, the question whether the English father is to be the father of a happy family and the centre of a united home is a question which must depend mainly upon himself. (Cheers.) And those who...promise to the dwellers in towns that every one of them shall have a house and garden in free air, with ample space; those who tell you that there shall be markets for selling at wholesale prices retail quantities—I won't say are imposters, because I have no doubt they are sincere; but I will say they are quacks (cheers); they are deluded and beguiled by a spurious philanthropy, and when they ought to give you substantial, even if they are humble and modest boons, they are endeavouring, perhaps without their own consciousness, to delude you with fanaticism, and offering to you a fruit which, when you attempt to taste it, will prove to be but ashes in your mouths. (Cheers.)"

"The idea of abolishing Income Tax is to me highly attractive, both on other grounds & because it tends to public economy."

"[I]f these islands were to be annexed they would present to us, in the most aggravated form, the difficulty arising from marked differences of race, which occurred already in some of our colonial possessions. Where the superior race was very large in numbers, and the less developed and less civilized race were small, the difficulty was little felt. In Porto Rico, for example, although there was a very large number of negroes—now, happily, no longer slaves—yet the number of Whites was extremely large in comparison, and the slave emancipation had been effected without difficulty. Jamaica was not like Porto Rico. The Whites were very small in number in Jamaica compared with the less developed race."

"[Y]ours is an ancient language, and the language is connected with an ancient history, and it is connected with an ancient music and with an ancient literature. I say that...it is a venerable relic of the past, and there is no greater folly circulating upon the earth, either at this moment or at any other time, than the disposition to under value the past and to break those links which unite the human beings of the present day with the generations that have passed away and have been called to their account. If we wish really to promote the progress of civilization never let us neglect, never let us undervalue, never let us cease to reverence the past. Rely upon it the man who does not worthily estimate his own dead forefathers will himself do very little to add credit or honour to his country... [Y]our laudable and patriotic efforts will come to be more and more understood and regarded by the English people at large, and that prosperity and honour will attend the meetings by which you endeavour to preserve and to commemorate the ancient history, the ancient deeds, and the ancient literature of your country, the Principality of Wales."

"For myself, I said, not in education only but in all things, including education, I prefer voluntary to legal machinery, when the thing can be well done either way."

"Individual servitude, however abject, will not satisfy the Latin Church. The State must also be a slave."

"The history of nations is a melancholy chapter, that is, the history of their Governments. I am sorrowfully of opinion that, though virtue of splendid quality dwells in high regions with individuals, it is chiefly to be found on a large scale with the masses; and the history of nations is one of the most immoral parts of human history."

"A rational reaction against the irrational excesses and vagaries of scepticism may, I admit, readily degenerate into the rival folly of credulity. To be engaged in opposing wrong affords, under the conditions of our mental constitution, but a slender guarantee for being right."

"The operations of commerce are not confined to the material ends; that there is no more powerful agent in consolidating and in knitting together the amity of nations; and that the great moral purpose of the repression of human passions, and those lusts and appetites which are the great cause of war, is in direct relation with the understanding and application of the science which you desire to propagate."

"[T]he effect of that [Crimean] war was ... to substitute a European conscience, expressed by collective guarantee and the concerted and general action of the European Powers for the sole and individual action of one of them. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of that principle."

"I am delighted to see how many young boys and girls have come forward to obtain honourable marks of recognition on this occasion, — if any effectual good is to be done to them, it must be done by teaching and encouraging them and helping them to help themselves. All the people who pretend to take your own concerns out of your own hands and to do everything for you, I won't say they are imposters; I won't even say they are quacks; but I do say they are mistaken people. The only sound, healthy description of countenancing and assisting these institutions is that which teaches independence and self-exertion... When I say you should help yourselves — and I would encourage every man in every rank of life to rely upon self-help more than on assistance to be got from his neigbours — there is One who helps us all, and without whose help every effort of ours is in vain; and there is nothing that should tend more, and there is nothing that should tend more to make us see the beneficence of God Almighty than to see the beauty as well as the usefulness of these flowers, these plants, and these fruits which He causes the earth to bring forth for our comfort and advantage."

"Let the Turks now carry away their abuses, in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and Yuzbashis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province that they have desolated and profaned. This thorough riddance, this most blessed deliverance, is the only reparation we can make to those heaps and heaps of dead, the violated purity alike of matron and of maiden and of child; to the civilization which has been affronted and shamed; to the laws of God, or, if you like, of Allah; to the moral sense of mankind at large. There is not a criminal in a European jail, there is not a criminal in the South Sea Islands, whose indignation would not rise and over-boil at the recital of that which has been done, which has too late been examined, but which remains unavenged, which has left behind all the foul and all the fierce passions which produced it and which may again spring up in another murderous harvest from the soil soaked and reeking with blood and in the air tainted with every imaginable deed of crime and shame. That such things should be done once is a damning disgrace to the portion of our race which did them; that the door should be left open to their ever so barely possible repetition would spread that shame over the world!"

"Let me endeavour, very briefly to sketch, in the rudest outline what the Turkish race was and what it is. It is not a question of Mohammedanism simply, but of Mohammedanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mohammedans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went a broad line of blood marked the track behind them, and, as far as their dominion reached, civilization vanished from view. They represented everywhere government by force as opposed to government by law. – Yet a government by force can not be maintained without the aid of an intellectual element. – Hence there grew up, what has been rare in the history of the world, a kind of tolerance in the midst of cruelty, tyranny and rapine. Much of Christian life was contemptuously left alone and a race of Greeks was attracted to Constantinople which has all along made up, in some degree, the deficiencies of Turkish Islam in the element of mind!"

"There is an undoubted and smart rally on behalf of Turkey in the metropolitan press. It is in the main representative of the ideas and opinions of what are called the upper ten thousand. From this body there has never on any occasion within my memory proceeded the impulse that has prompted, and finally achieved, any of the great measures which in the last half century have contributed so much to the fame and happiness of England. They did not emancipate the dissenters, Roman catholics, and Jews. They did not reform the parliament. They did not liberate the negro slave. They did not abolish the corn law. They did not take the taxes off the press. They did not abolish the Irish established church. They did not cheer on the work of Italian freedom and reconstitution. Yet all these things have been done; and done by other agencies than theirs, and despite their opposition."

"There is, in fact, a great deal of resemblance between the system which prevails in Turkey and the old system of negro slavery. In some respects it is less bad than negro slavery, and in other respects a great deal worse. It is worse in this respect, that in the case of negro slavery, at any rate, it was a race of higher capacities ruling over a race of lower capacities; but in the case of this system, it is unfortunately a race of lower capacities which rules over a race of higher capacities."

"Sir, there were other days, when England was the hope of freedom. Wherever in the world a high aspiration was entertained, or a noble blow was struck, it was to England that the eyes of the oppressed were always turned—to this favourite, this darling home of so much privilege and so much happiness, where the people that had built up a noble edifice for themselves would, it was well known, be ready to do what in them lay to secure the benefit of the same inestimable boon for others. You talk to me of the established tradition and policy in regard to Turkey. I appeal to an established tradition, older, wider, nobler far—a tradition not which disregards British interests, but which teaches you to seek the promotion of those interests in obeying the dictates of honour and of justice."

"My opinion is and has long been that the vital principle of the Liberal party, like that of Greek art, is action, and that nothing but action will ever make it worthy of the name of a party."

"You will find, I think, that the predominating idea of Conservatism is the Egyptian principle of repose; but in our Liberal Party we have got the Greek idea of life and motion."

"Nonconformity...still supplies, to so great an extent, the backbone of British Liberalism."

"I feel with a peculiar sympathy all that relates to Scotland. The natives of Scotland, and all those who have Scotch blood in their veins—particularly if, like me, they only have Scotch blood in their veins—are not apt to forget the country from which they sprang. They know its great qualities. They know the solidity of its character."

"Liberty is never safe."

"[T]he argument of unequal capacity does not tell so uniformly against the more numerous classes of the community as might be supposed. Whether from moral causes, or for whatever other reason, the popular judgment, on a certain number of important questions, is more just than that of the higher order."

"As the British Constitution is the most subtile organism which has proceeded from the womb and the long gestation of progressive history, so the American Constitution is, so far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off by the brain and purpose of man."

"It is [America] alone who, at a coming time, can, and probably will, wrest from us that commercial primacy. We have no title, I have no inclination, to murmur at the prospect... We have no more title against her than Venice, or Genoa, or Holland, has had against us."

"The English people are not believers in equality; they do not, with the famous Declaration of July 4, 1776, think it to be a self-evident truth that all men are born equal. They hold rather the reverse of that proposition. At any rate, in practice they are what I may call determined inequalitarians; nay, in some cases, even without knowing it. Their natural tendency, from the very base of British society, and through all its strongly-built gradations, is to look upward... The sovereign is the highest height of the system; is, in that system, like Jupiter among the Roman gods, first without a second... It is the wisdom of the British Constitution to lodge the personality of its chief so high that none shall under any circumstances be tempted to vie, or to dream of vying, with it."

"National injustice is the surest road to national downfall."

"The disease of an evil conscience is beyond the practice of all the physicians of all the countries in the world."

"I think that the principle of the Conservative Party is jealousy of liberty and of the people, only qualified by fear; but I think the principle of the Liberal Party is trust in the people, only qualified by prudence."

"[T]he great duty of a Government, especially in foreign affairs, is to soothe and tranquillize the minds of the people, not to set up false phantoms of glory which are to delude them into calamity, not to flatter their infirmities by leading them to believe that they are better than the rest of the world, and so to encourage the baleful spirit of domination; but to proceed upon a principle that recognises the sisterhood and equality of nations, the absolute equality of public right among them; above all, to endeavour to produce and to maintain a temper so calm and so deliberate in the public opinion of the country, that none shall be able to disturb it."

"I wish to dissipate, if I can, the idle dreams of those who are always telling you that the strength of England depends, sometimes they say upon its prestige, sometimes they say upon its extending its Empire, or upon what it possesses beyond the seas. Rely upon it the strength of Great Britain and Ireland is within the United Kingdom."

"Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan among the winter snows, are as sacred in the eye of Almighty God as are your own. Remember that He who has united you together as human beings in the same flesh and blood, has bound you by the law of mutual love, that that mutual love is not limited by the shores of this island, is not limited by the boundaries of Christian civilisation, that it passes over the whole surface of the earth, and embraces the meanest along with the greatest in its wide scope."

"Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. My second principle of foreign policy is this—that its aim ought to be to preserve to the nations of the world—and especially, were it but for shame, when we recollect the sacred name we bear as Christians, especially to the Christian nations of the world—the blessings of peace. That is my second principle."

"In my opinion the third sound principle is this—to strive to cultivate and maintain, ay, to the very uttermost, what is called the concert of Europe; to keep the Powers of Europe in union together. And why? Because by keeping all in union together you neutralize and fetter and bind up the selfish aims of each. I am not here to flatter either England or any of them. They have selfish aims, as, unfortunately, we in late years have too sadly shown that we too have had selfish aims; but then common action is fatal to selfish aims. Common action means common objects; and the only objects for which you can unite together the Powers of Europe are objects connected with the common good of them all. That, gentlemen, is my third principle of foreign policy."

"My fourth principle is—that you should avoid needless and entangling engagements. You may boast about them, you may brag about them, you may say you are procuring consideration of the country. You may say that an Englishman may now hold up his head among the nations. But what does all this come to, gentlemen? It comes to this, that you are increasing your engagements without increasing your strength; and if you increase your engagements without increasing strength, you diminish strength, you abolish strength; you really reduce the empire and do not increase it. You render it less capable of performing its duties; you render it an inheritance less precious to hand on to future generations."

"My fifth principle is...to acknowledge the equal rights of all nations. You may sympathize with one nation more than another. Nay, you must sympathize in certain circumstances with one nation more than another. You sympathize most with those nations, as a rule, with which you have the closest connection in language, in blood, and in religion, or whose circumstances at the time seem to give the strongest claim to sympathy. But in point of right all are equal, and you have no right to set up a system under which one of them is to be placed under moral suspicion or espionage, or to be made the constant subject of invective. If you do that, but especially if you claim for yourself a superiority, a pharisaical superiority over the whole of them, then I say you may talk about your patriotism if you please, but you are a misjudging friend of your country, and in undermining the basis of the esteem and respect of other people for your country you are in reality inflicting the severest injury upon it."

"[My sixth principle is that] the foreign policy of England should always be inspired by the love of freedom. There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom you lay the firmest foundations both of loyalty and order; the firmest foundations for the development of individual character; and the best provision for the happiness of the nation at large."

"Of all the principles, gentlemen, of foreign policy which I attach the greatest value is the principle of the equality of nations; because, without recognising that principle, there is no such thing as public right, and without public international right there is no instrument available for settling the transactions of mankind except material force. Consequently, the principle of equality among nations lies, in my opinion, at the very basis and root of a Christian civilisation, and when that principle is compromised or abandoned, with it must depart our hopes of tranquillity and of progress for mankind."

"What did the two words "Liberty and Empire" mean in the Roman mouth? They meant simply this: liberty for ourselves, empire over the rest of mankind."

"The Chancellor of the Exchequer should boldly uphold economy in detail; and it is the mark of a chicken-hearted Chancellor when he shrinks from upholding economy in detail, when because it is a question of only two or three thousand pounds, he says it is no matter. He is ridiculed, no doubt, for what is called candle-ends and cheese-parings, but he is not worth his salt if he is not ready to save what are meant by candle-ends and cheese-parings in the cause of the country. No Chancellor of the Exchequer is worth his salt who makes his own popularity either his consideration, or any consideration at all, in administering the public purse. In my opinion, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the trusted and confidential steward of the public. He is under a sacred obligation with regard to all that he consents to spend."

"[T]hat Chancellor of the Exchequer is the very man who comes down to corrupt whatever there is of financial virtue in us, and to instil into our minds those seductive and poisonous ideas that it does not, after all, matter very much if there is a deficit, and that it is extremely disagreeable when commerce is not in the most flourishing state to call upon the people to pay. Was that the practice of Sir Robert Peel? ... he came to Parliament and stood at his place in the House of Commons, pointed out the figures as they stood, and said to them—I ask you, will you resort to the "miserable expedient" of tolerating deficit, and of making provision by loans from year to year? That which he denounced as the "miserable expedient" has become the standing law, has become almost the financial gospel of the Government that is now in power."

"The Government of India is the most arduous and perhaps the noblest trust ever undertaken by a nation."

"There was no instalment of Free Trade, which need be taken into our account, before 1842. ... I therefore take 1843 as the first operative year of the first instalment of Liberal legislation under what was called the new Tariff. The second instalment was the new Tariff of 1845. The third instalment was the repeal of the Corn Laws at the opening of 1849, together with the repeal of the Navigation Laws during the Parliamentary Session of that year. The fourth was the new Tariff of 1853, accompanied with the repeal of the Soap Duties and other changes. The fifth and last great instalment was granted by the Customs Act of 1860, which at length gave nearly universal effect to the following principles: 1. That neither on raw produce, nor on food, nor on manufactured goods, should any duty of a protective character be charged. 2. That the sums necessary to be levied for the purposes of revenue in the shape of Customs duty should be raised upon the smallest possible number of articles."

"Whether Protection is a universal poison, or whether it may be conceived to operate as food in cases where it is granted for a few years in order to shelter the first investments in a new industry, I do not now inquire. We at least have never seen or known it in that mitigated form. With us it has sheltered nothing but the most selfish instincts of class against the just demands of the public welfare. These it has supplied with strongholds, from whose portals our producers have too generally marched forth in the day of need, armed from head to foot with power and influence largely gotten at the expense of the community, to do battle with a perverted prowess, against nature, liberty, and justice."

"We must fall back upon the broad, the incorruptible power of national liberty; that we decline to recognise any class whatever, be they peers or be they gentry, be they what you like, as entitled to direct the destinies of this nation against the will of the nation."

"[T]he dispositions which led us to become parties to the arbitration on the Alabama case are still with us the same as ever; that we are not discouraged; that we are not damped in the exercise of these feelings by the fact that we were amerced, and severely amerced, by the sentence of the International Tribunal; and that, although we may think the sentence was harsh in its extent, and unjust in its basis, we regard the fine imposed on this country as dust in the balance compared with the moral value of the example set when these two great nations of England and America—which are among the most fiery and the most jealous in the world with regard to anything that touches national honour—went in peace and concord before a judicial tribunal to dispose of these painful differences, rather than to resort to the arbitrament of the sword."

"As he lived, so he died — all display, without reality or genuineness."

"I am not by any means much pained, but I am much surprised at this rapid development of a national sentiment and party in Egypt. ... ‘Egypt for the Egyptians’ is the sentiment to which I should wish to give scope: and could it prevail it would I think be the best, the only good solution of the ‘Egyptian question’."

"Sir, there are three principles, greater than all others, on which, in my opinion, all good finance should be based. The first of them is that there should always be a certainty that whatever the charge may be it can be paid. That, I believe, is of vital importance. The second is that, in times of peace and prosperity, the people of the country should reduce their Debt; and the third point is that they should reduce their Expenditure."

"What is meant by "Boycotting?" In the first place, it is combined intimidation. In the second place, it is combined intimidation made use of for the purpose of destroying the private liberty of choice by fear of ruin and starvation."

"I have had the honour to receive the resolutions passed at the meeting recently held in Willis's Rooms, which your lordship has been good enough to forward to me. I can assure your lordship that the subject of those resolutions is engaging the earnest attention of Her Majesty's Government, who will avail themselves of every opportunity for securing the suppression of slavery and the slave trade."

"What I hope for and desire, what I labour for and have at heart, is to decentralise authority in Ireland. We have disestablished the Church, we have relieved the tenant class of many grievances, and we are now going to produce a state of things which will make the humblest Irishman realise that he is a governing agency and that the government is to be carried on by him and for him."

"Do you suppose that we are ignorant that, in every contested election that has happened since the case of Mr. Bradlaugh came up, you have gained votes and we have lost them? You are perfectly aware of it. We are no less aware of it. But, if you are perfectly aware of it, is not some credit to be given to us who are giving you the same under circumstances rather more difficult — is not some credit to be given to us for presumptive integrity and purity of motive? Sir, the Liberal Party has suffered, and is suffering, on this account. It is not the first time in its history. It is the old story over again. In every controversy that has arisen about the extension of religious toleration, and about the abatement and removal of disqualifications, in every controversy relating to religious toleration and religious disabilities, the Liberal Party has suffered before, and it is now, perhaps, suffering again; and yet it has not been a Party which, upon the whole, has had, during the last half century, the smallest or the feeblest hold upon the affections and approval of the people. Who suffered from the Protestantism of the country? It was that Party — with valuable aid from individuals, but only individuals, who forfeited their popularity on that account — it was that Party who fought the battle of freedom in the case of the great Roman Catholic controversy, when the name of Protestantism was invoked with quite as great effect as the name of Theism is now, and the Petitions poured in quite as freely then as at present. Protestantism stood the shock of the Act of 1829. Then came on the battle of Christianity, and the Christianity of the country was said to be sacrificed by the Liberal Party. There are Gentlemen on the other side of the House who seem to have forgotten all that has occurred, and who are pluming themselves on the admission of Jews into Parliament, as if they had not resisted it with perfect honesty — I make no charge against their honour, and impute no unworthy motive — as if they had not resisted it with quite as much resolution as they are exhibiting on the present occasion. Sir, what I hope is this — that the Liberal Party will not be deterred, by fear or favour, from working steadily onward in the path which it believes to be the path of equity and justice. There is no greater honour to a man than to suffer for what he thinks to be righteous; and there is no greater honour to a Party than to suffer in the endeavour to give effect to the principles which they believe to be just."

"I am convinced that upon every religious, as well as upon every political ground, the true and the wise course is not to deal out religious liberty by halves, by quarters, and by fractions; but to deal it out entire, and to leave no distinction between man and man on the ground of religious differences from one end of the land to the other."

"I must painfully record my opinion that grave injury has been done to religion in many minds — not in instructed minds, but in those which are ill-instructed or partially instructed, which have a large claim on our consideration — in consequence of steps which have, unhappily, been taken. Great mischief has been done in many minds through the resistance offered to the man elected by the constituency of Northampton, which a portion of the community believe to be unjust. When they see the profession of religion and the interests of religion ostensibly associated with what they are deeply convinced is injustice, they are led to questions about religion itself, which they see to be associated with injustice. Unbelief attracts a sympathy which it would not otherwise enjoy; and the upshot is to impair those convictions and that religious faith, the loss of which I believe to be the most inexpressible calamity which can fall either upon a man or upon a nation."

"The reason why the foreign producer gets his produce to market cheaper, relatively, is this — that foreign produce is collected and brought in such large quantities and is sent in great masses to the market. That is the secret of cheap carriage... We must try to make our pounds of produce into tons — or must bring together a number of producers. If you small agriculturists can collectively offer a great bulk of merchandise to the railway companies, they will give you good terms."

"Ideal perfection is not the true basis of English legislation. We look at the attainable; we look at the practicable; and we have too much of English sense to be drawn away by those sanguine delineations of what might possibly be attained in Utopia, from a path which promises to enable us to effect great good for the people of England."

"The right hon. Gentleman quoted repeatedly this declaration...to keep [rebellion] out of Egypt it is necessary to put it down in the Soudan; and that is the task the right hon. Gentleman desires to saddle upon England. Now, I tell hon. Gentlemen this—that that task means the reconquest of the Soudan. I put aside for the moment all questions of climate, of distance, of difficulties, of the enormous charges, and all the frightful loss of life. There is something worse than that involved in the plan of the right hon. Gentleman. It would be a war of conquest against a people struggling to be free. ["No, no!"] Yes; these are people struggling to be free, and they are struggling rightly to be free."

"There is a process of slow modification and development mainly in directions which I view with misgiving. "Tory democracy," the favourite idea on that side, is no more like the Conservative party in which I was bred, than it is like Liberalism. In fact less. It is demagogism … applied in the worst way, to put down the pacific, law-respecting, economic elements which ennobled the old Conservatism, living upon the fomentation of angry passions, and still in secret as obstinately attached as ever to the evil principle of class interests. The Liberalism of to-day is better … yet far from being good. Its pet idea is what they called construction, — that is to say, taking into the hands of the State the business of the individual man. Both the one and the other have much to estrange me, and have had for many, many years."

"I have even the hope that...the sense of justice which abides tenaciously in the masses will never knowingly join hands with the Fiend of Jingoism."

"[An] Established Clergy will always be a tory Corps d'Armée."

"The rule of our policy is that nothing should be done by the state which can be better or as well done by voluntary effort; and I am not aware that, either in its moral or even its literary aspects, the work of the state for education has as yet proved its superiority to the work of the religious bodies or of philanthropic individuals. Even the economical considerations of materially augmented cost do not appear to be wholly trivial."

"I deeply deplore the oblivion into which public economy has fallen; the prevailing disposition to make a luxury of panics, which multitudes seem to enjoy as they would a sensational novel or a highly seasoned cookery; and the leaning of both parties to socialism, which I radically disapprove."

"Socialism. Here I am at one with you. I have always been opposed to it. It is now taking hold of both parties, in a way I much dislike: & unhappily Lord Salisbury is one of its leaders, with no Lord Hartington (see his speech at Darwen) to oppose him."

"I would tell them of my own intention to keep my counsel...and I will venture to recommend them, as an old Parliamentary hand, to do the same."

"The principle that I am laying down I am not laying down exceptionally for Ireland. It is the very principle upon which, within my recollection, to the immense advantage of the country, we have not only altered, but revolutionized our method of governing the Colonies. ... England tried to pass good laws for the Colonies at that period; but the Colonies said—"We do not want your good laws; we want our own." We admitted the reasonableness of that principle, and it is now coming home to us from across the seas. We have to consider whether it is applicable to the case of Ireland. ... I ask that in our own case we should practise, with firm and fearless hand, what we have so often preached—the doctrine which we have so often inculcated upon others—namely, that the concession of local self-government is not the way to sap or impair, but the way to strengthen and consolidate unity."

"On the side adverse to the Government are found...in profuse abundance, station, title, wealth, social influence, the professions, or the large majority of them—in a word, the spirit and power of class. These are the main body of the opposing host. Nor is that all. As knights of old had squires, so in the great army of class each enrolled soldier has, as a rule, dependents. The adverse host, then, consists of class and the dependents of class. But this formidable army is in the bulk of its constituent parts the same...that has fought in every one of the great political battles of the last 60 years, and has been defeated. We have had great controversies before this great controversy—on free trade, free navigation, public education, religious equality in civil matters, extension of the suffrage to its present basis. On these and many other great issues the classes have fought uniformly on the wrong side, and have uniformly been beaten by a power more difficult to marshal, but resistless when marshalled—by the upright sense of the nation."

"The difference between giving with freedom and dignity on the one side, with acknowledgment and gratitude on the other, and giving under compulsion—giving with disgrace, giving with resentment dogging you at every step of your path—this difference is, in our eyes, fundamental, and this is the main reason not only why we have acted, but why we have acted now. This, if I understand it, is one of the golden moments of our history—one of those opportunities which may come and may go, but which rarely return, or, if they return, return at long intervals, and under circumstances which no man can forecast."

"Ireland stands at your bar expectant, hopeful, almost suppliant. Her words are the words of truth and soberness. She asks a blessed oblivion of the past, and in that oblivion our interest is deeper than even hers. ...She asks also a boon for the future; and that boon for the future, unless we are much mistaken, will be a boon to us in respect of honour, no less than a boon to her in respect of happiness, prosperity, and peace. Such, Sir, is her prayer. Think, I beseech you, think well, think wisely, think, not for the moment, but for the years that are to come, before you reject this Bill."

"This I must tell you, if we are compelled to go into it—your position against us, the resolute banding of the great, and the rich, and the noble, and I know not who against the true genuine sense of the people compels us to unveil the truth; and I tell you this—that, so far as I can judge, and so far as my knowledge goes, I grieve to say in the presence of distinguished Irishmen that I know of no blacker or fouler transaction in the history of man than the making of the Union."

"I will venture to say that upon the one great class of subjects, the largest and the most weighty of them all, where the leading and determining considerations that ought to lead to a conclusion are truth, justice and humanity—upon these, gentlemen, all the world over, I will back the masses against the classes."

"For real dangers the people of England and Scotland form perhaps the bravest people in the world. At any rate, there is no people in the world to whom they are prepared to surrender or to whom one would ask them to surrender the palm of bravery. But I am sorry to say there is another aspect of the case, and for imaginary dangers there is no people in the world who in a degree is anything like the English in regard to being the victim of absurd and idle fancies. It is notorious all over the world. The French, we think, are an excitable people; but the French stand by in amazement at the passion of fear and fury into which an Englishman will get him when he is dealing with an imaginary danger."

"They [opponents of Home Rule] say what a dreadful case it will be that after all they predict has come to pass—it never will come to pass—but still, after all that has come to pass, there will be no remedy against Ireland except that of armed force. These gentlemen are extremely shocked at the idea of holding Ireland by armed force. (Laughter.) I want to know how you hold it now? (Prolonged cheering.) I want to know how you held it for these six and eighty years? (A voice. — "Coercison.") You have held it by armed force. Do not conceal from yourselves the fact, do not blind yourselves to the essential features of the cause upon which you have to judge. By force you have held it; by force you are holding it; by love we ask you to hold it. (Loud and prolonged cheering, during which the audience rose and waved their handkerchiefs, and three cheers were asked for and given "for the Grand Old Man.")"

"I affirm that Welsh nationality is as great a reality as English nationality. It may not be as big a reality in that it does not extend over so large a country, but with the traditions and history of Wales, with the language of Wales (hear, hear), with the religion of Wales (cheers), with the feelings of Wales, I maintain that the Welsh nationality is as true as the nationality of Scotland, to which by blood I exclusively belong."

"What is a public meeting? It is not an anarchical combination—it is not a mob—it is an assemblage of rational beings to which, if the invitation be general, every man has a right to go, and the Government reporter has a right to go, but only like others and subject to the ordinary law. But if instead of appealing to the promoters of the meeting...to afford the Government reporter facilities, if instead of that the method of violence is resorted to, then I say the law was broken by the agents of the law. It is idle to speak to the Irish people of the duty of obeying the law, or to bring in Coercion Bills to make them obey the law, if the very Government that so speaks and that brings in these Bills has agents who violate the law by violently breaking up orderly public meetings, and who are sustained by the Ministers of the Crown in this illegal action."

"I have said, and I say again, "Remember Mitchelstown"."

"Public economy is part of public virtue."

"The coercion which has been introduced has not been a coercion against crime...It has been a coercion against combination. And combination—it stands and glares upon us from every page in the history of Ireland—is the only arm by which a poor and destitute and feeble population are able to make good their ground, even in the slightest degree, against the domineering power of the State and of the wealthy with England at their back."

"This Coercion Act professes to be in the main an Act directed against conspiracy, and conspiracy is a bad thing. But under the name of conspiracy we say that it is directed against combination. Combination is not always a very good thing, but combination is very often the sole means by which the weak can protect themselves against the strong, the poor against the wealthy."

"Think, ladies and gentlemen, of your "Men of Harlech". In my judgment, for the purpose of a national air...and without disparagement of old "God save the Queen" or anything else, it is perhaps the finest national air in the world."

"...the principle of nationality and the principle of reverence for antiquity—the principle of what I may call local patriotism—is not only an ennobling thing in itself, but has a great economic value. ... The attachment to your country, the attachment among British subjects to Britain, but also the attachment among Welsh-born people to Wales, has in it, in some degrees, the nature both of an appeal to energy and an incentive to its development, and likewise, no few elements of a moral standard; for the Welshman, go where he may, will be unwilling to disgrace the name. It is a matter of familiar observation that even in the extremest east of Europe, wherever free institutions have supplanted a state of despotic government, the invariable effect has been to administer an enormous stimulus to the industrious activity of the country."

"The Welsh made a very good and a very hard fight against the English in self-defence, and what was the consequence? That the English were obliged to surround your territory with great castles; and the effect of this has been that, as far as I can reckon, more by far than one-half of the great remains of the castles in the whole island south of the Tweed are castles that surround Wales. That shows that Wales was inhabited by men, and by men who valued and were disposed to struggle for their liberties."

"As regards to the sincerity of the Liberal party...I...refer with some confidence to the labours of that party for the last 50 years in setting free both capital and handicraft of all kinds, both from much undue taxation and from restraints devised for the benefit of special interests at the cost of the people at large—labours which have resulted not in a uniform, but in a very general and a very large improvement of the condition of the working community."

"We are servants of the Crown as well as servants of the people... I am not ashamed to say that in my old age I rejoice in any opportunity which enables me to testify that, whatever may be thought of my opinions, whatever may be thought of my proposals in general politics, I do not forget the service which I have borne for so many years to the illustrious representative of the British Monarchy."

"The peculiarity of this strike...has been that a great number of separate trades, which have nothing to do with one another...have shown that they intend to make common cause. You may depend upon it that this is a social fact of the highest importance and of very general importance of the future. I believe that the lesson has been learnt from Ireland, and that it is due to the present Government and to its coercive laws in Ireland, and to the necessity which they have laid upon the people of Ireland in different parts of the country which have no connexion with one another to associate together for an object which they believe to be vital to all. I am much inclined to think that the working men of London have learnt this lesson from Ireland."

"An enlightened impartial observer...will be disposed to think that in the common interests of humanity this remarkable strike and the results of this strike, which have tended somewhat to strengthen the condition of labour in the face of capital, is the record of what we ought to regard as satisfactory, as a real social advance; that it tends to a greater, a more uniform, and a more firm establishment of just relations; that it tends to a fair principle of division of the fruits of industry."

"But let the working man be on his guard against another danger. We live at a time when there is a disposition to think that the Government ought to do this and that and that the Government ought to do everything. There are things which the Government ought to do, I have no doubt. In former periods the Government have neglected much, and possibly even now they neglect something; but there is a danger on the other side. If the Government takes into its hands that which the man ought to do for himself it will inflict upon him greater mischiefs than all the benefits he will have received or all the advantages that would accrue from them. The essence of the whole thing is that the spirit of self-reliance, the spirit of true and genuine manly independence, should be preserved in the minds of the people, in the minds of the masses of the people, in the mind of every member of the class. If he loses his self-denial, if he learns to live in a craven dependence upon wealthier people rather than upon himself, you may depend upon it he incurs mischief for which no compensation can be made."

"The serious disintegration of the Liberal party did not begin in 1886. For a long time the wealthy and the powerful had been detaching themselves from the body of the Liberal party, and finding their most natural associations in Toryism, in stagnation, and in resistance. For many of them it was a perfect godsend when Home Rule turned up and supplied them with a plausible excuse for doing ostensibly or even ostentatiously that which in their hearts they had been longing for an excuse to do."

"We are not to judge individuals hastily on account of social mischiefs, that may be due to them as a body, through their holding of a position inherited from their forefathers, the whole nature of which they have not had strength and depth of wisdom to detect."

"I think we certainly must recognise...how much ground has been lost by the doctrines of free trade within the last 25 years. It is a great and heavy disappointment. I have no doubt that the dreadful militarism which lies like an incubus, like a vampire upon Europe, is responsible for much of the mischief."

"Do not let us conceal from ourselves that this country is almost at the present time the solitary citadel of free trade. ... I confidently anticipate...that these doctrines of free trade will in the long run be found to mean nothing in the world except that each man and each country shall turn to the best account, without artificial interference or interruption, the powers and the gifts which God has given them. This is the sum and substance, the Alpha and the Omega, of our creed."

"I have been a learner all my life, and I am a learner still. ... I have some ideas that may not be thought to furnish good materials for a liberal politician. I do not like changes for their own sake, I only like a change when it is needful to alter something bad into something good, or something which is good into something better. ... [T]he basis of my liberalism is this. It is the lesson which I have been learning ever since I was young. I am a lover of liberty; and that liberty which I value for myself, I value for every human being in proportion to his means and opportunities. That is a basis on which I find it perfectly practicable to work in conjunction with a dislike to unreasoned change and a profound reverence for everything ancient, provided that reverence is deserved."

"All selfishness is the great curse of the human race, and when we have a real sympathy with other people less happy than ourselves that is a good sign of something like a beginning of deliverance from selfishness."

"[T]he practice of thrift is not one of the most distinguishing characteristics of the people of this country. It exists more beyond the border, in Scotland, undoubtedly, than it does in England, but it is increasing, and increasing very much, happily, in England itself. I rejoice to say that it has been in the power of the State to effect this by judicious legislation—not by what is called "grandmotherly legislation", of which I for one have a great deal of suspicion—but by legislation thoroughly sound in principle—namely, that legislation which like your savings bank, helps the people by enabling the people to help themselves."

"I am not slow to claim the name of Scotchman, and undoubtedly, even if I were slow to claim it, there is the fact staring me in the face that not a drop of blood runs in my veins except what is derived from a Scottish ancestry."

"[T]he finances of the country is intimately associated with the liberties of the country. It is a powerful leverage by which English liberty has been gradually acquired. Running back into the depths of antiquities for many centuries, it lies at the root of English liberty, and if the House of Commons can by any possibility lose the power of the control of the grants of public money, depend upon it your very liberty will be worth very little in comparison."

"I name next a word that it requires some courage to utter these days—the word of economy. It is like a echo from the distant period of my early life. The wealth of the country, and the vast comparative diffusion of comfort, has, I am afraid, put public economy, at least in its more rigid and severe forms, sadly out of countenance."

"There ought to be a great effort of the Liberal party to extend the labour representation in Parliament. ... And we affirm that it is among the high and indispensable duties of the party...to proceed to provide for the establishment of district councils and parish councils, and thereby to bring self-government to the very doors of the labouring men throughout the country. Further, I will add boldly that it will be their duty to enact compulsory powers for the purpose of enabling suitable bodies to acquire land upon fair and suitable terms, in order to place the rural population in nearer relations to the land, to the use and profit of the land which they have so long tilled for the benefit of others, but for themselves almost in vain."

"That reform of the land laws, that abolition of the present system of entail, together with just facilities for the transfer of land, is absolutely necessary in order to do anything like common justice to those who inhabit the rural parts of this country, and whom, instead of seeing them, as we now see them, dwindle from one census to another, I, for my part, and I believe you, along with me, would heartily desire to see maintained, not in their present number only, but in increasing numbers over the whole surface of the land."

"It is a lamentable fact if, in the midst of our civilization, and at the close of the nineteenth century, the workhouse is all that can be offered to the industrious labourer at the end of a long and honourable life. I do not enter into the question now in detail. I do not say it is an easy one; I do not say that it will be solved in a moment; but I do say this, that until society is able to offer to the industrious labourer at the end of a long and blameless life something better than the workhouse, society will not have discharged its duties to its poorer members."

"I think I can truly put up all the change that has come into my politics into a sentence; I was brought up to distrust and dislike liberty, I learned to believe in it. That is the key to all my changes."

"There is a saying of Burke's from which I must utterly dissent. "Property is sluggish and inert." Quite the contrary. Property is vigilant, active, sleepless; if ever it seems to slumber, be sure that one eye is open."

"Protectionism and militarism are united in an unholy but yet a valid marriage: and the one and the other are in my firm conviction alike the foes of freedom."

"You are told that education, that enlightenment, that leisure, that high station, that political experience are arrayed in the opposing camp, and I am sorry to say that to a large extent I cannot deny it. But though I cannot deny it, I painfully reflect that in almost every one, if not in every one, of the great political controversies of the last 50 years, whether they affected the franchise, whether they affected commerce, whether they affected religion, whether they affected the bad and abominable institution of slavery, or whatever subject they touched, these leisured classes, these educated classes, these wealthy classes, these titled classes, have been in the wrong."

"Let us go forward in the good work we have in hand and let us put our trust, not in squires and peers, and not in titles or in acres; I will go further and say, not in man, as such, but in Almighty God, who is the God of justice, and who has ordained the principle of right, of equity, and of freedom to be the guides and the masters of our lives."

"You are opposed...in your division of Nottingham, on the ground of your having declined to support the Compulsory Eight Hours Bill for all miners, by many miners in your county who desire it. ... The question...is whether the Nottinghamshire miners or a part of them will, for the sake of their eight hours question, elect in preference to you an enemy of the Liberals and of the Irish cause, with which throughout the country the people sympathize. I have long known it as characteristic of the English working class that it knew how to sacrifice its views and apparent interests to some wider and weightier cause. So it was during the American civil war the population of Lancashire cheerfully encountered the cotton famine because they hated slavery and because America was the home of labour."

"The county election was raging. ... I was circulating in the mob as a volunteer (like all the other undergraduates) on the side of Norreys. I held forth to a working man, possibly a forty shilling freeholder, on the established text, reform was revolution. To corroborate my doctrine I said, “Why, look at the revolutions in foreign countries”, meaning of course France and Belgium. The man looked hard at me and said these very words: “Damn all foreign countries: what has old England to do with foreign countries?” This is not the only time when I have received an important lesson from a humble source."

"[I was] a youth in his twenty third year, young of his age, who had seen little or nothing of the world, who resigned himself to politics, but whose desire had been for the ministry of God. The remains of this desire operated unfortunately. They made me tend to glorify in an extravagant manner and degree not only the religious character of the State, which in reality stood low, but also the religious mission of the Conservative party. There was, to my eyes, a certain element of AntiChrist in the Reform Act and that Act was cordially hated. ... It was only under the (second) Government of Sir Robert Peel that I learned how impotent [and] barren was the conservative office for the Church."

"I am vexed to see portions of the labouring class beginning to be corrupted by the semblance of power as the other classes have been tainted & warped by its reality; and I am disgusted by finding a portion of them ready to thrust Ireland, which is so far ahead in claim, entirely into the background. Poor, poor, poor human nature."

"I cannot help regretting that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has felt it his duty to put the question. It is put under circumstances that naturally belong to one of those fluctuations in the condition of trade which, however unfortunate and lamentable they may be, recur from time to time. Undoubtedly I think that questions of this kind, whatever be the intention of the questioner, have a tendency to produce in the minds of people, or to suggest to the people, that these fluctuations can be corrected by the action of the Executive Government. Anything that contributes to such an impression inflicts an injury upon the labouring population."

"George III in his private character shows to advantage when compared with Charles II or George II. But, if George III had succeeded in repressing freedom and parliamentary government, we should have had a Revolution, not probably so bad as the French, but resembling it in kind. From such a catastrophe we were preserved by that unworthy representative of good principles, Wilkes."

"I agree with you that a grave calamity overhangs the Liberal party in connection with the plan which I described to you in two peculiar monosyllabic epithets [mad and drunk]... Liberalism cannot put on the garb of Jingoism without suffering for it... [For sixty years my life has been] a constant effort to do all I could for economy & for peace; not the peace of this country only but of the world... it is not now economy but peace which supplies the key note of the situation... If the thing is to be done at all let it be done by those who think it right."

"I am thankful to have borne a part in the emancipating labours of the last sixty years; but entirely uncertain how, had I now to begin my life, I could face the very different problems of the next sixty years. Of one thing I am, and always have been, convinced—it is not by the State that man can be regenerated, and the terrible woes of this darkened world effectually dealt with. In some, and some very important, respects, I yearn for the impossible revival of the men and the ideas of my first twenty years, which immediately followed the first Reform Act."

"Now is the time for the true friend of his country to remind the masses that their present political elevation is owing to no principles less broad and noble than these—the love of liberty, of liberty for all without distinction of class, creed, or country, and the resolute preference of the interests of the whole to any interest, be it what it may, of a narrower scope."

"[W]hat I call the ‘mad and drunk’ scheme of my colleagues on the naval estimates. ... [T]hat scheme (the most wanton contribution in my view to accursed militarism that has yet been made in any quarter, unless possibly by the Crispian Italy)."

"In 1880, Midlothian leading the way, the nation nobly answered to the call of justice and [br]oadly recognised the brotherhood of man. It was the nation, not the classes."

"I am a Free Trader on moral no less than on economic grounds: for I think human greed and selfishness are interwoven with every thread of the Protective system."

"This means war!"

"I dislike the idea of its [vaccination] being compulsory. I don't like the notion of the State stepping in between parent and child when it is not absolutely necessary. The State is generally a very bad nurse."

"I am not so much afraid either of Democracy or of Science as of the love of money. This seems to me to be a growing evil. Also, there is a danger from the growth of that dreadful military spirit."

"[T]he idea that the colonies add to the strength of the mother country appears to me to be as dark a superstition as any that existed in the Middle Ages."

"To serve Armenia is to serve the Civilization."

"[The publication of The Jubilee of Free Trade is] an act of great gallantry for the Cobdenian faith is in all points at a heavy discount—Peace, Retrenchment, Free Trade and all the rest of it, to my great grief I must confess."

"[W]e do not prosecute the cause we have in hand upon the ground that they are our fellow Christians. This is no crusade against Mahomedanism. ... Nay, I will say it is no declaration of universal condemnation of the Mahomedans of the Turkish Empire. On the contrary...there have been good and generous Mahomedans, who have resisted these misdeeds to the uttermost of their power. ... Although it is true that those persons are Christians on whose behalf we move, I confidently affirm...that if, instead of being Christians, they were themselves Mahomedans, Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians—call them what you like—they would have precisely the same claims upon our support, and the motives which brought us here today would be incumbent upon us with the same force and with the same sacredness that we recognize at the present moment. ... The ground on which we stand here is not British nor European, but it is human. Nothing narrower than humanity could pretend for a moment justly to represent it. (Cheers.)"

"Great Assassin."

"I am fundamentally a dead man: one fundamentally a Peel–Cobden man."

"I venture on assuring you that I regard the design formed by you and your friends with sincere interest, and in particular wish well to all the efforts you may make on behalf of individual freedom and independence as opposed to what is termed Collectivism."

"The hopelessness of the Turkish Government should make me witness with delight its being swept out of the countries which it tortures. Next to the Ottoman Government nothing can be more deplorable and blameworthy than jealousies between Greek and Slav and plans by the States already existing for appropriating other territory. Why not Macedonia for the Macedonians as well as Bulgaria for the Bulgarians and Serbia for the Serbians?"

"[T]he House of Lords...had inflicted a deadly mutilation on the Parish Councils Bill, they (having also refused our measure on employers' liability) had placed themselves in sharp conflict with public opinion on great subjects. ... I was at Biarritz when this happened in January or February 1894. I suggested dissolution to my colleagues in London. ... But...I was compelled to let the matter drop. ... Thus there was let slip an opportunity in my opinion nothing less than splendid for raising decisively an issue of vital importance to popular government: an opportunity which if rightly used would have given the Liberal party a decisive preponderance for the full term of one or probably two Parliaments, quite apart from the vast public advantages within reach. The great controversy between Lords and Commons, terrible in 1831–32, formidable in 1860–1, happily averted with the Queen's wise aid in 1884...would have reached a practical settlement: and the yet graver controversy...of seven hundred years with Ireland would have come nearer to a complete settlement by a measure of Home Rule."

"In 1834 the Government...did themselves high honour by the new Poor Law Act, which rescued the English peasantry from the total loss of their independence."

"So long as there is this book, there will be no peace in the world."

"Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead. I will measure exactly the sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals."

"We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace."

"Nothing, that is morally wrong, can be politically right."

"The best way to see London is from the top of a bus."

"[Money should] fructify in the pockets of the people."

"If there were no Tories, I am afraid he would invent them."

"I can say that, as a working man, I think no man has stronger claims upon my sympathy, support, and affection than Mr. Gladstone. When the election of 1880 came we had him placed at the helm of affairs. Although I was twitted by weak-kneed Liberals and Tories that he would never concede the franchise, my faith in his honesty, in his sense of justice to the people, and in his love for the people, was not in the slightest degree shaken by these jeers. I was perfectly certain that he would enfranchise my class. In taking off this covering to unveil to you the bust of this great statesman I can say, fearless of contradiction, that he lives in the affections of thousands of men, aye, tens of thousands, who dwell in our rural villages in humble cottages, and who, I believe, whenever a wise Providence shall call him aside from this scene of action, will mourn his loss with a great and profound depth of feeling. I do not believe that Mr. Gladstone or any other living being is free from mistakes; but of this I am certain, that whenever he has made a mistake and has found it out, he has been honourable, he has been manly enough to acknowledge it, and has done his best to rectify it."

"Mr. Gladstone once said to me: “If you ever have to form a Government, you must steel your nerves, and act the butcher”: a piece of very sound advice (as I learned from experience)."

"He has — and it is one of the springs of great power — a real faith in the higher parts of human nature; he believes, with all his heart and soul and strength, that there is such a thing as truth; he has the soul of a martyr with the intellect of an advocate."

"Mr. Gladstone's personal popularity was such as has not been seen since the time of Mr. Pitt, and such as may never be seen again. Certainly it will very rarely be seen. A bad speaker is said to have been asked how he got on as a candidate. “Oh,” he answered, “when I do not know what to say, I say ‘Gladstone,’ and then they are sure to cheer, and I have time to think.” In fact, that popularity acted as a guide both to constituencies and to members. The candidates only said they would vote with Mr. Gladstone, and the constituencies only chose those who said so. Even the minority could only be described as anti-Gladstone, just as the majority could only be described as pro-Gladstone."

"Mr. Gladstone [w]as the greatest member of the greatest deliberative assembly which, so far, the world has seen."

"Many of those who figured prominently in the counsels of the Labour party in the twentieth century bore eloquent testimony to the "uplifting power" of Gladstone's "matchless voice and superb vitality", and confessed how "the thrill of his splendid oratory" bound them to the Liberal party in the old man's twilight years. Frederick Rogers, Arthur Henderson, Robert Smillie, and especially George Lansbury, all acknowledged the debt which they owed to Gladstone. "I can hear his voice and see him now," Lansbury wrote in the 1930s after he had retired from the leadership of the Labour party. These enduring emotions suggest that the presence of Gladstone at the head of the Liberal party constituted the principal obstacle to the emergence of a coherent and independent labour movement."

"Gladstone was the political god."

"He was the first major British statesman to consider seriously the implications of the parliamentary union between Great Britain and Ireland, and to realize that if Ireland were indeed an integral part of the United Kingdom, it must be governed on the same principles as the rest; and it was this realization that prepared him to accept the policy of home rule. His importance in the history of Anglo-Irish relations lies less in the measures that he actually carried, far-reaching though they were, than in the immense influence that his concern for Ireland had on British public opinion. It was he, more than anyone else, who made the state of Ireland an issue in British politics."

"Who's the Liberal leader? he Who for us has stood, Stood through triumph and defeat For the people's good; We, the people, have a mind, Well it shall be known, Gladstone, he shall lead us still, He, and he alone. We have votes and let them heed us; Gladstone, he alone shall lead us. Why? because our wrongs he feels And our rights would win; Why? because for us he fights Out of power and in. [...] Voters tell them, they who'll need us, Gladstone, he alone shall lead us."

"Always there was this huge concentration of force; purpose at white heat roared like a furnace in every action of his life. When once he had convinced himself on any subject, it ceased to be his opinion, and became a cosmic truth, which it was the duty of every right-minded person to uphold... he was convinced, and said so, that the will of the English people was set on giving Home Rule to Ireland, and that he was the appointed instrument to accomplish their will for them: God gave him his health and vitality for that. Thus his conscience was invariably clear of personal ambition: he was working not for his own idea but for some great cause external to him. Never, so Mrs. Gladstone told my mother, did the estrangement and execrations of those who had been his friends cause him to say "I wish I had never done it!" He might regret the bitterness he had aroused, but he never regretted those measures which had caused it."

"Among the peoples of that Continent [North America] your personality has become identified with the cause of freedom, and you are to them the embodiment of their highest ideal of the statesman."

"Who is there in the House of Commons who equals him in knowledge of all political questions? who equals him in earnestness? who equals him in eloquence? who equals him in courage and fidelity to his convictions? If these gentlemen who say they will not follow him have any one who is equal, let them show him. If they can point out any statesman who can add dignity and grandeur to the stature of Mr. Gladstone, let them produce him."

"The soul of the country was stirred to its very depths by the marvellous eloquence, the touching pathos, and the burning passion of the great Liberal leader's speeches. I shall not be guilty of exaggeration if I say that the Nonconformists of Great Britain to a man, ay, and a woman, had ranged themselves on his side. They looked upon him as the deliverer of nations, the inspired leader of peoples, as a giant of unsurpassed strength wrestling with and conquering the powers of injustice and oppression. His country was the world; mankind of every colour and creed were his brothers. Not once in many centuries does a nation possess a son who commands such universal and almost inexhaustible admiration as was lavished upon William Ewart Gladstone in those days. I have often felt that at this period many a man would have esteemed it an honour and counted it a happy martyrdom to die for the great Chieftain."

"[H]is [voice] was rich, sonorous and exquisitely modulated in its tones... with the grace and variety of his gesture and the flashing glance of his eye... it was only in watching him as he spoke that one received a due impression of the easy power he showed in dealing with any interruption that came from the audience, or in following up on the spur of the moment some line or argument suggested by expressions of assent or dissent. His readiness was amazing. Those of us who listened to him in Parliament used to think that the short speeches he made on the spur of the moment when some question arose suddenly in debate, revealed the swiftness of his mind and the combative force of his whole nature better than did the more elaborate discourses on which he had reflected beforehand. There was a fire, a passion, a concentrated energy of diction, in these extempore outbursts which roused his followers and cowed his opponents... Indignation there often is—burning indignation at injustice, falsehood or cruelty—but no personal acrimony, no note of malignity or vindictiveness."

"His arguments may be sometimes finedrawn or oversubtle. They are never petty or niggling. He is like an eagle soaring high in the air and seeing the far-off things as well as the near things, and seeing them all in truer relation to one another than the man standing on the ground can see them. In following his thoughts one feels in particular the power he possesses of testing views and proposals by permanent moral standards. To him the ethical values were always the real and final values, and moral principles the true searchlight to be turned on every question."

"He was the first leading Englishman to win for the sufferers in the cause of Italian freedom the sympathy of the Western nations. He was the statesman who brought to a close the differences with America which had arisen out of the Civil War, and made possible a better feeling between the nations than had ever existed before. Little credit was given to him at the time for either of these services, any more than for his action in the Eastern Question. But History will not forget them."

"Free trade, a commercial treaty with France, the abolition of the paper duties, the reduction of expenditure and taxation, the disestablishment of the Irish Church, the Education Act of 1870, the Ballot Act, the opening of the Universities to Nonconformists and of the Civil Service to competitive examination, Cardwell's Army reforms, the Alabama arbitration and neutrality in the Franco-Prussian War—it was an impressive record, but all well within the canon of accepted Liberal ideas."

"Throughout his life Gladstone felt a passionate sympathy for peoples struggling to achieve national independence. This provides the other foundation of his views on foreign policy. "The powers of self-government", this was his answer alike to the problems of the Balkans and those of Ireland. "Give those people freedom and the benefits of freedom", he said of Turkey's Christian subjects in 1880, "that is the way to make a barrier against despotism. Fortresses may be levelled to the ground; treaties may be trodden under foot—the true barrier against despotism is in the human heart and mind." From this sympathy it followed for Gladstone that all nations should enjoy equality of rights... From this in turn sprang his condemnation of imperialism which proclaimed supremacy, not equality, and in its eagerness for aggrandisement brushed aside the rights of other nations to bring them under alien rule."

"Your life has been grand – the noblest and best I have ever known. It has been an inspiration and a triumph; fruitful in untold benefits to millions of men and women. And indeed I feel that the fitting word is neither condolence nor congratulations, but gratitude; – devout thankfulness that such a man has been given to us, and that he knew so well how to direct and use his gifts to the highest service of humanity."

"His wonderful genius enabled him to make Finance popular; to be understanded of the People. He taught the Country to appreciate its importance. His work was based on the solid rock of a substantial annual Surplus, and on the less easily secured foundation of strict Economy. The Customs Tariff was completely and finally purged. The remaining duties on food were repealed. Commercial relations with other countries were extended. The last remaining Excise duties, other than those on Intoxicants, were abolished... Taxation was placed on a Revenue basis; and was concentrated on a few articles consumed by all classes. In a word, by simplifying taxation and by narrowing its basis, its foundation was strengthened; it was lightened to the Consumer and made less a of a burden on the Taxpayer; less restrictive to Trade and to Industry; cheaper and less vexatious of Collection; more recuperative, and more profitable to the Exchequer."

"[T]he prodigious intensity of his personality is even harder for our debased generation to comprehend. The stupendous physical and intellectual energy, the spiritual and sexual anguish, the high moral seriousness which determined the use of every God-given minutes of his time were astonishing to his contemporaries, but are almost literally inconceivable to us, raised as we are on cynicism and pap... Just thinking about Gladstone is for the modern reader deeply humbling."

"His speeches can still astonish by their social radicalism and sheer moral force."

"An almost spectral kind of phantasm of a man — nothing in him but forms and ceremonies and outside wrappings."

"I too am reading the 2nd volume [of Garvin's Joseph Chamberlain] ... I particularly admire the way Gladstone is treated. The wickedness of the old man, his cunning and treachery, and his determination to get his own way while he has time, are plain to see. I feel my old resentments burn up again as I read."

"[T]hey told me how Mr. Gladstone read Homer for fun, which I thought served him right"

"I even managed to squeeze into the Distinguished Strangers’ Gallery when Mr. Gladstone wound up the second reading of the Home Rule Bill. Well do I remember the scene and some of its incidents. The Grand Old Man looked like a great white eagle at once fierce and splendid. His sentences rolled forth majestically and everyone hung upon his lips and gestures, eager to cheer or deride. He was at the climax of a tremendous passage about how the Liberal Party had always carried every cause it had espoused to victory. He made a slip. “And there is no cause,” he exclaimed (Home Rule), “for which the Liberal Party has suffered so much or descended so low.” How the Tories leapt and roared with delight! But Mr. Gladstone, shaking his right hand with fingers spread claw-like, quelled the tumult and resumed, “But we have risen again...”"

"He became the prophet as statesman: the Ayatollah of Victorian Christianity."

"Speech from Gladstone of singular lucidity and power on the Irish question. His manner most earnest. The trend of his mind majestic, penetrating, victorious and irresistible. He is a commander of men. Plain of speech and simple, clear and aggressive. The moral momentum immense. It was a contest. The hearer felt he was witnessing a fight for righteousness, for humanity, for God."

"I have told you before that Gladstone has shown much heart in this business. He has a strong aversion to the waste of money on our armaments. He has much more of our sympathies. He has more in common with you and me than any other man of his power in Britain."

"By far the greatest orator whom I personally heard in the House of Commons—indeed almost the only orator—was Mr. Gladstone... While this great and famous figure was in the House of Commons the House had eyes for no other person. His movements on the bench, restless and eager, his demeanour when on his legs, whether engaged in answering a simple question, expounding an intricate Bill, or thundering in vehement declamation, his dramatic gestures, his deep and rolling voice with its wide compass and marked northern accent, his flashing eye, his almost incredible command of ideas and words, made a combination of irresistible fascination and power. We who sat opposite him in his later years saw in him the likeness, now of an old eagle, fearless in his gaze and still exultant in his strength, now of some winged creature of prey, swooping down upon a defenceless victim, now of a tiger, suddenly aroused from his lair and stalking abroad in his anger. Mr. Gladstone seemed to me to be master of every art of eloquence and rhetoric. He could be passionate or calm, solemn or volatile, lucid or involved, grave or humorous (with a heavy sort of banter), persuasive or denunciatory, pathetic or scornful, at will. It is true that his copiousness was sometimes overpowering and his subtlety at moments almost Satanic."

"[A]s an Irishman I feel that I have a special right to join in paying a tribute to the great Englishman who died yesterday, because the last and, as all men will agree, the most glorious years of his strenuous and splendid life were dominated by the love which he bore to our nation, and by the eager and even passionate desire to serve Ireland and give her liberty and peace. By virtue of the splendid quality of his nature, which seemed to give him perpetual youth, Mr. Gladstone's faith in a cause to which he had once devoted himself never wavered, nor did his enthusiasm grow cold. Difficulties and the weight of advancing years were alike ineffectual to blunt the edge of his purpose, or to daunt his splendid courage, and even when racked with pain, and when the shadow of death was darkening over him, his heart still yearned towards the people of Ireland, and his last public utterance was a message of sympathy for Ireland, and of hope for her future. His was a great and deep nature. He loved the people with a wise and persevering love. His love of the people and his abiding faith in the efficacy of liberty and of government based on the consent of the people, as an instrument of human progress, was not the outcome of youthful enthusiasm, but the deep-rooted growth of long years, and drew its vigour from an almost unparalleled experience of men and of affairs. Above all men I have ever known or read of, in his case the lapse of years seemed to have no influence to narrow his sympathies or to contract his heart. Young men felt old beside him. And to the last no generous cause, no suffering people, appealed to him in vain, and that glorious voice which had so often inspirited the friends of freedom and guided them to victory was to the last at the service of the weak and the oppressed of whatever race or nation. Mr. Gladstone was the greatest Englishman of his time. He loved his own people as much as any Englishman that ever lived. But through communion with the hearts of his own people he acquired that wider and greater gift, the power of understanding and sympathising with other peoples. He entered into their sorrows and felt for their oppressions. And with splendid courage he did not hesitate, even in the case of his much-loved England, to condemn her when he thought she was wronging others, and in so doing he fearlessly faced odium and unpopularity amongst his own people, which it must have been bitter for him to bear; and so he became something far greater than a British statesman, and took a place amidst the greatest leaders of the human race. Amidst the obstructions and the cynicism of a materialistic age he never lost his hold on the "ideal." And so it came to pass that wherever throughout the civilised world a race or nation of men were suffering from oppression, their thoughts turned towards Gladstone, and when that mighty voice was raised in their behalf, Europe and the civilised world listened, and the breathing of new hopes entered into the hearts of men made desperate by long despair."

"Posterity will do justice to that unprincipled maniac Gladstone—extraordinary mixture of envy, vindictiveness, hypocrisy, and superstition; and with one commanding characteristic—whether Prime Minister, or Leader of Opposition, whether preaching, praying, speechifying, or scribbling—never a gentleman!"

"Which do you believe most likely to enter an insane convention, a body of English gentlemen honoured by the favour of their Sovereign and the confidence of their fellow-subjects, managing your affairs for five years, I hope with prudence, and not altogether without success, or a sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself?"

"Lord Palmerston's "dangerous man" has at length verified that statesman's prophecy of his ultimate insanity."

"What you say about Gladstone is most just. What restlessness! What vanity! And what unhappiness must be his! Easy to say he is mad. It looks like it. My theory about him is unchanged: A ceaseless Tartuffe from the beginning. That sort of man does not get mad at 70."

"I saw in the face of Mr. Gladstone a blending of opposite qualities. There were the peace and gentleness of the lamb, with the strength and determination of the lion. Deep earnestness was expressed in all his features. He began his speech in a tone conciliatory and persuasive. His argument against the bill was based upon statistics which he handled with marvelous facility. He showed that the number of crimes in Ireland for which the Force Bill was claimed as a remedy by the Government was not greater than the great class of crimes in England, and that therefore there was no reason for a Force Bill in one country more than in the other. After marshaling his facts and figures to this point, in a masterly and convincing manner, raising his voice and pointing his finger directly at Mr. Balfour, he exclaimed, in a tone almost menacing and tragic, "What are you fighting for?" The effect was thrilling. His peroration was a splendid appeal to English love of liberty. When he sat down the House was instantly thinned out. There seemed neither in members nor spectators any desire to hear another voice after hearing Mr. Gladstone's."

"At dinner we talked of Newman, whose Dream of Gerontius Gladstone puts very high, so high that he speaks of it in the same breath with the Divina Commedia. At length he asked, "Which of his writings will be read in a hundred years?" "Well," said Henry Smith, "certainly his hymn, 'Lead kindly Light,' and 'The Parting of Friends,' the sermon he preached before leaving Littlemore." "I go further," said Gladstone. "I think all his parochial sermons will be read.""

"W. E. Gladstone used various tactics to unify the party which he led between 1868 and 1894. He consolidated Nonconformist support, for example, by disestablishing the Irish Church and eliminating some of the remaining privileges of the Church of England. Yet free trade was his most persistent theme. He firmly linked the economic case against protectionist tariffs with the liberal ideal of a society of autonomous citizens who were equal in their possession of basic rights."

"To myself, and to many thousands, the assumption by Mr. Gladstone of the leadership of the Liberal party in the House of Commons seemed to promise the inauguration of a new era. It was known that he was as favourable to the revision and enlargement of the representation of the people in Parliament as Palmerston had been opposed to such changes, and the working classes hailed his accession to the Premiership with gladness and hope."

"What fools we were not to have accepted Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. The Empire now would not have had the Irish Free State giving us so much trouble and pulling us to pieces."

"Gladstone could do in four hours what it took any other man sixteen to do, and he worked sixteen hours a day."

"Last night I met Gladstone — it will always be a memorable night to me; Stubbs was there, and Goldwin Smith and Humphrey Sandwith and Mackenzie Wallace whose great book on Russia is making such a stir, besides a few other nice people; but one forgets everything in Gladstone himself, in his perfect naturalness and grace of manner, his charming abandon of conversation, his unaffected modesty, his warm ardour for all that is noble and good. I felt so proud of my leader — the chief I have always clung to through good report and ill report — because, wise or unwise as he might seem in this or that, he was always noble of soul. He was very pleasant to me, and talked of the new historic school he hoped we were building as enlisting his warmest sympathy. I wish you could have seen with what a glow he spoke of the Montenegrins and their struggle for freedom; how he called on us who wrote history to write what we could of that long fight for liberty! And all through the evening not a word to recall his greatness amongst us, simple, natural, an equal among his equals, listening to every one, drawing out every one, with a force and a modesty that touched us more than all his power."

"I begin to see that there may be a truer wisdom in the "humanitarianism" of Gladstone than in the purely political views of Disraeli. The sympathies of peoples with peoples, the sense of a common humanity between nations, the aspirations of nationalities after freedom and independence, are real political forces; and it is just because Gladstone owns them as forces, and Disraeli disowns them that the one has been on the right side, and the other on the wrong in parallel questions such as the upbuilding of Germany or Italy. I think it will be so in this upbuilding of the Sclave."

"The greatest statesman in whose presence I have ever been."

"The talent for which Mr. Gladstone will always be most renowned is that of the orator and debater... He spoke straight from the heart. He was sure that, if his audience knew what he knew, they would feel as he felt, and believe as he believed. Equally if not still more telling was the ardour which he threw into his subject, and the earnestness with which he pleaded his cause. The effect was to kindle extraordinary enthusiasm among those to whom he was addressing himself, to thrill them with emotion, and to hold them spellbound."

"Great though his political courage was, he possessed a courage of a still higher quality—the courage of his convictions. With him right was might. If he had once convinced himself of the rectitude and justice of a particular course, his intrepidity knew no bounds... This strength of conviction, amounting almost to a sense of infallibility, carried with it conviction in others, and constituted one of the principal reasons why he had so great a hold over his fellow-creatures."

"He deplored what he considered to be undue expenditure of public money on armaments... Analogously he had a deep-rooted aversion to annexations of territory. It was...because...he felt that there was a limit to the responsibilities which a government could prudently undertake—that there was a point at which the strength of administration would be overtaxed."

"It was religion that inspired the deepest motives which actuated his conduct. Indeed, it animated his whole life, public as well as private. It was with him a great controlling force and the leading principle of his actions... The truth of Christianity was to him the most assured reality... He had a robust belief in the life and mission of the English Church, regarding her as the most faithful representative of the Church of Christ. He was devoid of bigotry and sectarianism. Wherever the fundamental doctrines of Christianity were conscientiously held, he was ready to express his sympathy with members of all denominations... Few laymen ever studied their Bible with more assiduous and reverent care... The moral teachings of Christianity were not only professed by Mr. Gladstone, but they were practised by him. It was due to this profession, followed by practice, that he displayed such intolerance of wrong and cruelty, such sympathy with the suffering and oppressed, such love for peace and freedom."

"[H]e was unquestionably imbued with high principles; and to high principles he appealed. The furtherance of liberty, toleration, and progress, the amendment of the lot of his fellow-creatures, the relief of suffering, the wise husbanding of the nation's resources—in short, the promotion of better government—were his aims. What he desired most to find in men was character; in measures, equity."

"God bless him! May he be spared to accomplish the great work to which he has put his hand."

"Gladstone's work has made Socialism possible—nay, has been the necessary, the indispensable pioneer of the Socialist movement."

"[I]n the last twenty years England has travelled on the German path... Perhaps nothing shows this change more clearly than that, while there is no lack of sympathetic treatment of Bismarck in contemporary English literature, the name of Gladstone is rarely mentioned by the younger generation without a sneer over his Victorian morality and naive utopianism."

"It seems to me that the best name for this kind of naïve rationalism is rationalist constructivism... If it be thought that by labelling this view 'constructivism' I am once again presenting my opponents with a good word, I should plead that this term was used in precisely this sense already by one of the greatest of the nineteenth-century liberals, W. E. Gladstone. He used it as a name for the attitude for which in the past I had no better term than the 'engineering type of mind'."

"At that time there emerged also in Britain, as the leading figure of the liberal movement, W. E. Gladstone who, first as Chancellor of the Exchequer and then as liberal Prime Minister, came to be widely regarded as the living embodiment of liberal principles, especially, after Palmerston's death in 1865, with regard to foreign policy, with John Bright as his chief associate. With him also the old association of British liberalism with strong moral and religious views revived."

"[Gladstone] appeared to unite in his person a timeless integrity with modern enlightenment."

"After Mr. Gladstone's death there was found in his own hand the following note: "Rules of Finance: (1) to pay your way; (2) to reduce your debt; (3) to practise economy.""

"The Gladstonian principle may be defined by antithesis to that of Machiavelli, and to that of Bismarck, and to the practice of every Foreign Office. As that practice proceeds on the principle that reasons of State justify everything, so Gladstone proceeded on the principle that reasons of State justify nothing that is not justified already by the human conscience. The statesman is for him a man charged with maintaining not only the material interests but the honour of his country. He is a citizen of the world in that he represents his nation, which is a member of the community of the world. He has to recognize rights and duties, as every representative of every other human organization has to recognize rights and duties. There is no line drawn beyond which human obligations cease. There is no gulf across which the voice of human suffering cannot be heard, beyond which massacre and torture cease to be execrable. Simply as a patriot, again, a man should recognize that a nation may become great not merely by painting the map red, or extending her commerce beyond all precedent, but also as the champion of justice, the succourer of the oppressed, the established home of freedom. From the denunciation of the Opium War, from the exposure of the Neapolitan prisons, to his last appearance on the morrow of the Constantinople massacre this was the message which Gladstone sought to convey. He was before his time. He was not always able to maintain his principle in his own Cabinet, and on his retirement the world appeared to relapse definitely into the older ways."

"When Mr Gladstone visited the North, you well remember when word passed from the newspaper to the workman that it circulated through mines and mills, factories and workshops, and they came out to greet the only British minister who ever gave the English people a right because it was just they should have it...and when he went down the Tyne, all the country heard how twenty miles of banks were lined with people who came to greet him. Men stood in the blaze of chimneys; the roofs of factories were crowded; colliers came up from the mines; women held up their children on the banks that it might be said in after life that they had seen the Chancellor of the People go by. The river was covered like the land. Every man who could ply an oar pulled up to give Mr Gladstone a cheer. When Lord Palmerston went to Bradford the streets were still, and working men imposed silence upon themselves. When Mr Gladstone appeared on the Tyne he heard cheer that no other English minister ever heard...the people were grateful to him, and rough pitmen who never approached a public man before, pressed round his carriage by thousands...and thousands of arms were stretched out at once, to shake hands with Mr Gladstone as one of themselves."

"My profound faith in our great liberal leader, Mr Gladstone, makes me feel all the more secure as to our future. He evidently regards hustings pledges as promises to be faithfully kept and redeemed."

"If you were to put that man on a moor with nothing on but his shirt, he would become whatever he pleased."

"Gladstone is very fascinating—his urbanity extreme—his eye that of a man of genius—& his apparent self-surrender to what he is talking of, without a flaw. He made a great impression on me—greater than anyone I have seen here: tho' 'tis perhaps owing to my naïveté, & unfamiliarity with statesmen."

"In such a world community, he insisted, Britons should view the actions of other nations not so much with jealousy as with understanding. The human family must be judged by the same standards applicable to one's own country... Britons should look upon war in the same way. They should care about what happens to their human brethren on the other side of the lines. They should take to their hearts the real meaning of the universality of human experience and of human dignity. Britain's burden, he said to the women gathered in Foresters' Hall in Dalkeith, was the result of having deluged many a hill and valley with blood. The Zulus were doing no more than would patriotic Britons, defending their own country. In Afghanistan, the Tories' wanton attack had spread wild destruction."

"The Christian theologian, of course, would simply say that Gladstone preached anew the old message of brotherhood, that he sought to give the British a Christian foreign policy. In any case, Gladstone was acutely perceptive of the power of group feeling, for he sought to arouse the response he desired precisely by insisting that all men belonged to the same community. He felt first of all that the group feeling of awakening nationalities must be given expression in self-government, and then that unless these group feelings were expanded to include all of mankind they would inevitably unleash jealousy, pride, envy, passion, and war—as they did... Universalism and inclusiveness was the keynote. He always explained by reference to the large picture, by including all things within an interdependent whole. For this reason, his adversary whether at home or abroad was always that class or that government which was committed to exclusiveness, which denied the unity of mankind."

"I don't object to Gladstone always having the ace of trumps up his sleeve, but merely to his belief that the Almighty put it there."

"Mr. Gladstone was entirely different from any politician I have known. He was much older in years than most of those he acted with, but was the youngest in body, soul and spirit... I can hear his voice and see him now; though nothing that I can write will convey to a reader the tremendous emotional effect of his words...that word alone [‘inspired’] gives the impression that was left on the mind of the eighteen year old boy who was listening to him."

"[F]or years I worshipped at the political shrine of Mr. Gladstone."

"The greatest Chancellor of all time."

"Gladstone had not realised the difficulties of the poor, but Disraeli had. Gladstone could not come down to the level of the common people; that had been his trouble."

"[David Lloyd George] talked of Gladstone, and how he [Lloyd George] had attacked him in his very early days in the House of Commons on the Clergy Discipline Bill... When [Lloyd George] went down to Wales afterwards, & the more proper folk reproached him for his attack on Gladstone, he said: 'I give you the same reply that Cromwell gave, "If I meet the King in battle, I will fire my pistol at him".' [Lloyd George] says that he thinks Gladstone as a Churchman had a fundamental dislike for Dissenters... 'I admire him, but I never liked him', is [Lloyd George]'s qualifying comment always."

"It is my boast that for the first four years of my membership of the House of Commons Gladstone was my leader... Gladstone was the greatest and most vital figure which ever appeared in British politics, and there will be a glorious resurrection for the memory, character, and the achievement and inspiration of that old man. We are suffering today largely from the complete neglect of the doctrines to which he devoted his life – the doctrines of peace."

"He has one gift most dangerous to a spectator, a vast command of a kind of language, grave and majestic, but of vague and uncertain import."

"The man who had led Liberalism for nearly thirty years retired from active life into the strenuous ease which is his idleness... Politics knew him no more. This loss to Liberalism it is impossible adequately to measure. Nor can we at this moment attempt any final judgment on what he has done for Liberalism. Only we can say, that of all the great statesmen of England there is not one who has accomplished as much as he in destroying unjust privileges, in establishing for the people their just rights. Can we say more? Is it possible for a ruler of men to leave behind him a nobler or greater record than this? Perhaps it is only now that the leader is gone that we can see how commanding a place he held in the life of the nation, and how great a loss the cause of progress has suffered from his retirement."

"Mr. Gladstone ... was an absolutely unique personality. His gestures, his astonishing dexterity in debate, his power of stirring the deepest emotions, the impression he conveyed of single-mindedness, of desire to do the right thing and to preserve a good conscience before God, to whose direction he essayed to submit himself, all worked together to render him a great moral and intellectual influence in the House of Commons—a fact of which every member, irrespective of creed or party, was justly proud. I was then—and I am now—no worshipper of men, but the expression “great man,” so often applied to persons of very modest rank in conduct and in abilities, is, in my judgment, pre-eminently applicable to Mr. Gladstone, whose claim to that title, while he was still with us, was acknowledged as unreservedly by his political opponents as by his supporters."

"No body of men have ever been so "un-English" as the great Englishmen, Nelson, Shelley, Gladstone: supreme in war, in literature, in practical affairs; yet with no single evidence in the characteristics of their energy that they possess any of the qualities of the English blood. But in submitting to the leadership of such perplexing variations from the common stock, the Englishman is merely exhibiting his general capacity for accepting the universe, rather than for rebelling against it."

"In March 1880 he returned for the actual election contest and in crowded halls, uncomfortable, dimly lighted, he held spell-bound the miners and workers who came to hear him with the loyalty of disciples. The image of Gladstone which was then established in the popular mind, as the old man eloquent, the righteous prophet, the friend of liberty and justice, lasted long after his death and was often more potent than the whole array of his gifted colleagues and all the party's nostrums and policies... [I]n 1955 an old lady left her house in Shetland to vote Conservative but returning to her house for her purse saw her father's photograph of Mr. Gladstone and went to the poll to vote for Mr. Grimond."

"I think I may take it for granted that Mr. Gladstone is the greatest English statesman who has appeared during the reign of Queen Victoria. This, indeed, seems to me a statement of fact and not a subject for criticism."

"Respecting Mr. Gladstone (Cheers). What was the use to speak of him on a question of sincerity? (Cheers). Every year of his official life had been marked by a succession of measures – no year being without them – some great, some small, but all aiming at the public good – to the good of the people of this country, and especially of the poorer classes. These measures were not even suggested to him: they were the offspring of his own mind, will and purpose – the free gift from him to his countrymen, unprompted, unsuggested. (Loud cheers) ... Mr. Gladstone seemed to be the first statesman who has come up to the idea of a great modern statesman: ... If we do not stand by him...we shall not easily find another to serve us in the same way. (Loud cheers)."

"Talk of the Liberal party? Why it consists of Mr. G. After him it will disappear & all will be chaos."

"On the afternoon of the first of December [1868], he received at Hawarden the communication from Windsor. “I was standing by him,” says Mr. Evelyn Ashley, “holding his coat on my arm while he in his shirt sleeves was wielding an axe to cut down a tree. Up came a telegraph messenger. He took the telegram, opened it and read it, then handed it to me, speaking only two words, ‘Very significant,’ and at once resumed his work. The message merely stated that General Grey would arrive that evening from Windsor. This of course implied that a mandate was coming from the Queen charging Mr. Gladstone with the formation of his first government... After a few minutes the blows ceased, and Mr. Gladstone resting on the handle of his axe, looked up and with deep earnestness in his voice and with great intensity in his face, exclaimed, ‘My mission is to pacify Ireland.’ He then resumed his task, and never said another word till the tree was down.”"

"He often seemed to the observer "possessed." If he had not been a very good man, he would have been a very bad one."

"I said that Mr. Gladstone deserved well of Ireland, adding, “Almost all that has been done for Ireland in my time has been done by Mr. Gladstone—Gladstone plus Fenianism, and plus you.”"

"The men of this generation will be agreed in ranking him as the greatest Member of Parliament that the House of Commons has ever seen."

"Such then he was – a marvel and a portent in every one of his qualities; in his vast intellectual powers, in his indomitable courage, in his incessant energy, in his tremendous physical activity and strength, in the vehemence and fervour of his political passion, in the tenacity and tempest of his purpose he was more like an embodied cyclone rushing tempestuous, irresistible, merciless through his times, than a single and solitary human being. And every man who has seen and known him, whether in love or in hate, can say to himself that never in this world will we look upon his like again."

"Gladstone will soon have it all his own way; and, whenever he gets my place, we shall have strange doings... He is a dangerous man, keep him in Oxford, and he is partially muzzled; but send him elsewhere, and he will run wild."

"[A]s these letters show, the man whom above all others Lord Acton esteemed and revered was Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone, with characteristic humility, always deferred to Lord Acton's judgment in matters historical. On the other hand, Lord Acton, the most hypercritical of men, and the precise opposite of a hero-worshipper, an iconoclast if ever there was one, regarded Mr. Gladstone as the first of English statesmen, living or dead."

"You probably have heard that we have concluded the discussions...on the subject of the tariff. I cannot resist the temptation, if it be only for the satisfaction of my own feelings, of congratulating you most warmly and sincerely, on the distinction which your son has acquired, by the manner in which he has conducted himself throughout those discussions and all others since his appointment to office. At no time in the annals of parliament has there been exhibited a more admirable combination of ability, extensive knowledge, temper and discretion. Your paternal feelings must be gratified in the highest degree by the success which has naturally and justly followed the intellectual exertions of your son, and you must be supremely happy as a father in the reflection that the capacity to make such exertions is combined in his case with such purity of heart and integrity of conduct."

"Once Gladstone at luncheon was indulging in a scathing attack on the rising generation, pouring scorn on their lack of all knowledge of the classics; and in order to illustrate his point and show the lamentable ignorance that now prevailed, he suddenly turned on me. I was thirteen and at Eton, but my knowledge of the classics was nil. He asked me what the quantity was of some syllable in a quotation from Horace. I had never heard of the quotation and had no idea whether it was long or short, but as I was clearly expected to say something I said "long". He thumped the table and cried triumphantly, "That is what everyone says", and I felt like a man who has backed a winner by mistake. Then in his grand manner he continued, "But that is wrong, quite wrong; it is short, not long", and after giving very conclusive reasons for this he proceeded: "Next time you are doing Horace's Odes you will stand up and ask the master whether it is short or long, and when he replies, as he undoubtedly will, that it is long, you will say "No, sir, you are wrong", and you will repeat the reasons I have just given." I could see myself, a pallid youth of thirteen, standing up and laying a trap for the classical master, and then making a muck of the explanation. I could also foresee the quite inevitable result, which would be a sound flogging for impertinence; I never carried out the suggestion."

"Mr Gladstone's long and energetic labours in the cause of Suffering and Oppressed Nationalities show that his grand gifts have not been used exclusively for his own countrymen, but for common humanity."

"Without an effort—so it seemed to me—the great orator held his audience for nearly two hours. I stood so far off that the features were indistinct, but was spellbound by the music and the magnetism of the wonderful voice... I had never heard a speaker like this man. I knew little and cared less of the merits of the case he discussed. I was only conscious of the presence of a great human personality under whose spell I was, and from whom I could in no way escape. The magic of sound was in the wonderful voice, and if the things he said were unintelligible to me, the voice brought with it something of inspiration and of uplifting power."

"The defects of his strength grow on him. All black is very black, all white very white."

"Something like a little amicable duel took place at one time between Ruskin and Mr. G., when Ruskin directly attacked his host as a “leveller.” “You see you think one man is as good as another and all men equally competent to judge aright on political questions; whereas I am a believer in an aristocracy.” And straight came the answer from Mr. Gladstone, “Oh dear, no! I am nothing of the sort. I am a firm believer in the aristocratic principle—the rule of the best. I am an out-and-out inequalitarian,” a confession which Ruskin treated with intense delight, clapping his hands triumphantly."

"A game was played (if that is the right phrase) at Hawarden at a visitor's suggestion. Each person had to say what day in past or future he would choose to live, it being stipulated that he should have his present knowledge, and that he should afterwards return to the present existence. Mr. Gladstone said a day in ancient Greece when Athens was in its highest glory. The visitor said he would choose the day of Pentecost. On this Mr. Gladstone seemed rather ashamed and withdrew his former choice, and said he would select "a day with the Lord.""

"He was the first Chancellor of the Exchequer who ever made the Budget interesting. "He talked shop," it was said, "like a tenth muse." He could apply all the resources of a glowing rhetoric to the most prosaic questions of cost and profit; could make beer romantic and sugar serious. He could sweep the widest horizon of the financial future, and yet stoop to bestow the minutest attention on the microcosm of penny stamps and the monetary merits of half-farthings."

"The most distinguished political name in this century has been withdrawn from the roll of the living... What he sought was the achievement of great ideals, and whether they were based upon sound convictions or not, they could have issued from nothing but the greatest and the purest moral aspirations; and he is honoured by his countrymen because through so many years, because through so many vicissitudes and conflicts, they have recognised this one characteristic of his action which has never left it, never ceased to colour it. He will leave behind him, especially to those who have followed with deep interest the history of his later years...the memory of a great Christian statesman, set up necessarily on high, from which the sight of his character, his motives, and his intentions was situated so that it could strike all the world. It will have left a deep and most salutary influence on the political thought and the social thought of the generation in which he lived, and he will be long remembered, not so much for the causes in which he was engaged, or the political projects which he favoured, but as a great example of which history hardly furnishes a parallel, of a great Christian man."

"[T]here was one man who not only united high ability with unparalleled opportunity but also knew how to turn budgets into political triumphs and who stands in history as the greatest English financier of economic liberalism, Gladstone... Gladstonian finance was the finance of the system of 'natural liberty,' laissez-faire, and free trade... [T]he most important thing was to remove fiscal obstructions to private activity. And for this, in turn, it was necessary to keep public expenditure low. Retrenchment was the victorious slogan of the day... Equally important was...to raise the revenue that would still have to be raised in such a way as to deflect economic behaviour as little as possible from what it would have been in the absence of all taxation ('taxation for revenue only'). And since the profit motive and the propensity to save were considered of paramount importance for the economic progress of all classes, this meant in particular that taxation should as little as possible interfere with the net earnings of business... As regards indirect taxes, the principle of least interference was interpreted by Gladstone to mean that taxation should be concentrated on a few important articles, leaving the rest free... Last, but not least, we have the principle of the balanced budget."

"I cannot doubt that the right hon. Gentleman, the champion of free-trade, will ere long become the advocate of the most unrestricted liberty of thought."

"I envy you even that little glimpse of Gladstone which you had when he came to Aberystwyth. I am sure you have no idea what Gladstone meant to me as a Canadian lad back in those historic days. My grandfather...was a stern Presbyterian and an equally stern Liberal, to whom I am sure Gladstone's speeches were almost on a par with the Bible. I was brought up in that atmosphere and have never really got over the early training. In fact, I did not want to get over it for it is a magnificent outlook, rich in its sense of humanity and justice."

"As I stood on Saturday afternoon at Greenwich listening to the glowing word of the grandest orator and statesman of modern times, I felt lifted into a holy region of politics, where Tories cannot corrupt or Jingoes break through and yell."

"[T]he almost universal ‘general impression’ that Gladstonianism is the natural creed of the working man."

"We can all agree that the failure to relieve Gordon was the most discreditable episode in Gladstone's career."

"Sir, I can only tell you that profoundly as I distrust him, and lightly as, on the whole, I value the external qualities of his eloquence, I have never listened to him even for a few minutes without ceasing to marvel at his influence over men. That white-hot face, stern as a Covenanter's, yet mobile as a comedian's; those restless flashing eyes; that wondrous voice, whose richness its northern burr enriches as the tang of the wood brings out the mellowness of a rare old wine; the masterly cadences of his elocution; the vivid energy of his attitudes; the fine animation of his gestures—sir, when I am assailed through eye and ear by this compacted phalanx of assailants, what wonder that the stormed outposts of the senses should spread the contagion of their own surrender through the main encampment of the mind, and that against my judgment, in contempt of my conscience, nay, in defiance of my very will, I should exclaim: "This is indeed the voice of truth and wisdom. This man is honest and sagacious beyond his fellows. He must be believed; he must be obeyed.""

"He speaks to me as if I was a public meeting."

"Poor man he was very clever & full of ideas for the bettering & advancement of the country, always most loyal to me personally, & ready to do anything for the Royal Family, but alas!, I am sure involuntarily, he did at times a good deal of harm. He had a wonderful power of speaking & carrying the masses with him."

"Reading Gladstone's Life. Interesting to note that when, after ten years' political experience, he became convinced that the state had to be an infidel state, and could not be used to promote religious truth—he turned straight away into a laisser-faire democrat holding persistently to the policy of diminishing the function of government and doing nothing but what every individual consented to in advance. Hence, his doctrine of nationalities and, in the end, Irish Home Rule. Add to this genuine alteration of intellectual creed, the heady emotion of feeling himself in accord with crude democracy and, owing to his superlative talent as a revivalist preacher, leading it; and you have the Gladstone of 1869–80. After 1880, he was out of sympathy with the collectivist trend of the newer democracy of town workmen, and became a reactionary, appealing pathetically to the Nonconformist middle-class in terror of the new creed and hating the new apostles. His soul was wrapped up in his own principles—religious and economic—each set in a water-tight compartment; he never realised the new order of ideas. Moreover, he was socially an aristocrat and disliked the parvenu in riches and political power—such as Chamberlain."

"Ah, Oxford on the surface, but Liverpool below."

"If Gladstone failed to solve the Irish Problem – though he did a good deal to cool it – no politician of my time is in a position to criticise him... He devoted a great deal of time and effort to much-needed institutions – for example opening up the Civil Service to competition in place of patronage: abolishing the system of purchasing Army commissions... The judicial system, at his instance, was dramatically reformed; entrance to our great universities on the basis of university religious tests was ended; he master-minded the great advance in national education with Forster's Education Act – for the first time making elementary education compulsory... He was outraged by Disraeli's Eastern policy – and the Midlothian Campaign, perhaps the greatest series of political speeches in our history, not only transfixed audience after audience, but created a new approach to the problem of the rights of emergent nationalities – it is arguable that no previous or subsequent Prime Minister ever achieved so much in international terms."

"That is the greatest statesman who ever lived and when I grow to be a man, I mean to be a great statesman too."

"The fact is, I believe, that political questions generally presented themselves to his mind as ethical questions of right and wrong, and that he found it at the first blush difficult to realize that an opinion, contrary to his own, could be held without some slight tinge of moral obliquity."

"I think that Mr. Gladstone was the strongest anti-socialist that I have ever known among persons who gave any serious thought to social and political questions. It is quite true, as has been often said, that “we are all socialists up to a certain point”; but Mr. Gladstone fixed that point lower, and was more vehement against those who went above it, than any other politician or official of my acquaintance... His strong belief in Free Trade was only one of the results of his deep-rooted conviction that the Government's interference with the free action of the individual, whether by taxation or otherwise, should be kept at an irreducible minimum. It is, indeed, not too much to say that his conception of Liberalism was the negation of Socialism."

"The essential fact was the extraordinary intensity and vehemence of all his impulses. If we think for a moment of human beings as actuated by an internal force measurable in units of horse-power, and if we take the figure of an ordinary man to be 100, and that of an exceptionally energetic person to be 200, then Mr. Gladstone's horse-power was at least 1,000. And this tremendous force could be turned on in any direction and for any purposes great or small... The various and innumerable motives which impel ordinary men sluggishly and feebly towards their respective aims and objects, were in him fiery swords, driving him with almost irresistible force towards the goal on which for the moment his whole mind was concentrated... [I]t is hardly necessary to add that this intense natural vehemence, thus effectively curbed and guided, was the secret of his ascendancy, and of the unbounded enthusiasm which he kindled in nearly all who knew him, and in many hundreds of thousands who had never seen his face or heard his voice."

"As a man, Mr. Gladstone was in a class by himself. He was an extraordinarily good man, but I think I may have known others as good; his intellectual gifts were wonderful, but for pure intellect I have known others whom I should place as high, if not higher. What differentiated him from the rest of the human race was, first, the combination of these qualities with the stupendous driving power of which I have spoken; second, the stern and effective control which he maintained over this mighty force; and, third, the amazingly serviceable quality of his mind, which was always at his command, always rose to the occasion, and unfailingly supplied him with an endless flow of thoughts, arguments, and words upon any topic under heaven with which he had to deal. There were, perhaps, some spheres of thought in which he did not move easily or freely, but they were such that he very rarely had to concern himself with them; and in quickness of apprehension, and insight into the heart of a difficult matter, provided that it was one that came within his normal field of vision, he was unrivalled."

"I think it might be said that the only two [Departments of State] in whose business he was naturally and genuinely interested were the Treasury and the Board of Trade. As Prime Minister he was...obliged to think about foreign affairs...but this to him was generally task-work, and, except in cases when his generous and laudable interest in the "oppressed nationalities," in Turkey or elsewhere, took effect, his criticism and suggestions were few, and nearly always in the direction of peace, non-intervention, and laissez-faire... I never heard him say a word which showed the slightest interest in the Navy or the Army, except in so far as their cost, which he was always anxious to cut down, affected the Estimates; nor can I remember his ever referring with pride or satisfaction to any British feat of arms, ancient or modern, though he was often eloquent about the "Montene-greens," as he always called them, in their wars with the Turks. If ever there was a statesman who deserved to be called "a man of peace," Mr. Gladstone was that man."

"I will not say but that I eyed the assembly in a spirit similar to that in which William the Conqueror eyed England on his visit to Edward the Confessor, as the region of his future domain. Oh, vanity!"

"A free religion and a free people in a free land."

"Why had Wales made sacrifices in the face of unexampled difficulties and intimidation from squires and agents? It was not to install one statesman in power. It was not to deprive one party of power in order to put another party in power. It was not to transfer the emoluments of office from one statesman to another. No; it was done because Wales had by an overwhelming majority demonstrated its determination to secure its own progress. ... Welsh members wanted nothing for themselves but something for their country, and I do not think they would support a Liberal Ministry, I do not care how illustrious the Minister might be who led it, unless it pledged itself to concede to Wales those great measures of reform on which Wales had set its heart."

"[I believe in Oliver Cromwell] because he was a great fighting Dissenter. He was perhaps the first statesman to recognize that as soon as the Government became a democracy the Churches became directly responsible for any misgovernment. His great idea was to make Christ's law the law of the land, and any obstacle to this he ruthlessly swept away. How he would have dealt with Romish practices now! He said to the priest who babbled his Paternosters in Peterborough Cathedral, "Leave off your fooling and come down, sir." There was the man for the Ritualists (cheers)—worth a wagon-load of Bishops. How he would have dealt with the House of Lords! From the House of Commons he would have removed many a bauble, and he would have shaken his head and said, "The Lord deliver us from Joseph Chamberlain.""

"Mr. Chamberlain is right in so far as he says that things are not well in this country. We cannot feed the hungry with statistics of national prosperity, or stop the pangs of famine by reciting to a man the prodigious number of cheques that pass through the clearing-house. We must therefore propose something better than Mr. Chamberlain."

"As our fathers had freed our trade there was another work to accomplish. This was to free the land from the chains of feudalism, the schools from the dominion of the priest, and the people from the deadly grip of drink."

"I believe there is a new order coming for the people of this country. It is a quiet but certain revolution."

"[The House of Lords] is the right hon. Gentleman's poodle. It fetches and carries for him. It barks for him. It bites anybody that he sets it on to. And we are told that this is a great revising Chamber, the safeguard of liberty in the country. Talk about mockeries and shams. Was there ever such a sham as that?"

"Free Trade is a great pacificator. We have had many quarrels, many causes of quarrels, during the last fifty years, but we have not had a single war with any first-class Power. Free Trade is slowly but surely cleaving a path through the dense and dark thicket of armaments to the sunny land of brotherhood amongst nations."

"Free Trade may be the alpha, but it is not the omega, of Liberal policy."

"When I talk about trade and industry, it is not because I think trade and industry are more important than social reform. It is purely because I know that you must make wealth in the country before you can distribute it."

"I am a man of the people, bred amongst them, and it has been the greatest joy of my life to have had some part in fighting the battles of the class from whom I am proud to have sprung."

"[T]he question of civil equality. We have not yet attained to it in this country—far from it. You will not have established it in this land until the child of the poorest parent shall have the same opportunity for receiving the best education as the child of the richest. ... It will never established so long as you have 500 men nominated by the lottery of birth to exercise the right of thwarting the wishes of the majority of 40 millions of their countrymen in the determination of the best way of governing the country."

"British Liberalism is not going to repeat the errors of Continental Liberalism. The fate of Continental Liberalism should warn them of that danger. It has been swept on one side before it had well begun its work, because it refused to adapt itself to new conditions. The Liberalism of the Continent concerned itself exclusively with mending and perfecting the machinery which was to grind corn for the people. It forgot that the people had to live whilst the process was going on, and people saw their lives pass away without anything being accomplished. But British Liberalism has been better advised. It has not abandoned the traditional ambition of the Liberal party to establish freedom and equality; but side by side with this effort it promotes measures for ameliorating the conditions of life for the multitude."

"We all value too highly the immunity which this country has so long enjoyed from the horrors of an invaded land to endanger it for lack of timely prevision. That immunity at its very lowest has been for generations, and still is, a great national asset. It has undoubtedly given us the tranquillity and the security which has enabled us to build up our great national wealth. It is an essential part of that wealth. At the highest it means an inviolable guarantee for our national freedom and independence... We do not intend to put in jeopardy the naval supremacy which is so essential not only to our national existence, but, in our judgment, to the vital interests of Western civilisation."

"This, Mr. Emmot, is a war Budget. It is for raising money to wage implacable warfare against poverty and squalidness. I cannot help hoping and believing that before this generation has passed away, we shall have advanced a great step towards that good time, when poverty, and the wretchedness and human degradation which always follows in its camp, will be as remote to the people of this country as the wolves which once infested its forests."

"I do not agree with you that we ought never to have introduced the land clauses in the fourth session. The Party had lost heart. On all hands I was told that enthusiasm had almost disappeared at meetings, and we wanted something to rouse the fighting spirit of our own forces. This the land proposals have undoubtedly succeeded in doing."

"There have been two or three meetings held in the City of London...attended by the same class of people, but not ending up with a resolution promising to pay. On the contrary, we are spending the money, but they won't pay. What has happened since to alter their tone? Simply that we have sent in the bill. We started our four Dreadnoughts. They cost eight millions of money. We promised them four more; they cost another eight millions. Somebody has got to pay, and then these gentlemen say: "Perfectly true; somebody has got to pay, but we would rather that somebody were somebody else". We started building; we wanted money to pay for the building; so we sent the hat round. We sent it round amongst workmen, and the miners and weavers of Derbyshire and Yorkshire, and the Scotchmen of Dumfries, who, like all their countrymen, know the value of money, they all dropped in their coppers. We went round Belgravia, and there has been such a howl ever since that it has well-nigh deafened us."

"But they say, "It is not so much the Dreadnoughts we object to, it is pensions". If they objected to pensions, why did they promise them? They won elections on the strength of their promises. It is true they never carried them out. Deception is always a pretty contemptible vice, but to deceive the poor is the meanest of all."

"The Budget...is introduced not merely for the purpose of raising barren taxes, but taxes that are fertile, taxes that will bring forth fruit—the security of the country which is paramount in the minds of all. The provision for the aged and deserving poor—was it not time something was done? It is rather a shame for a rich country like ours—probably the richest in the world, if not the richest the world has ever seen—should allow those who have toiled all their days to end in penury and possibly starvation. It is rather hard that an old workman should have to find his way to the gates of the tomb, bleeding and footsore, through the brambles and thorns of poverty. We cut a new path for him—an easier one, a pleasanter one, through fields of waving corn. We are raising money to pay for the new road—aye, and to widen it, so that 200,000 paupers shall be able to join in the march. There are so many in the country blessed by Providence with great wealth, and if there are amongst them men who grudge out of their riches a fair contribution towards the less fortunate of their fellow-countrymen they are very shabby rich men."

"There is another little tax called the increment tax. For the future what will happen? We mean to value all the land in the kingdom. And here you can draw no distinction between agricultural land and other land, for the simple reason that East and West Ham was agricultural land a few years ago. And if land goes up in the future by hundreds and thousands an acre through the efforts of the community, the community will get 20 per cent. of that increment."

"Take cases like Golder's Green and other cases of a similar kind where the value of land has gone up in the course, perhaps, of a couple of years through a new tramway or a new railway being opened. ... A few years ago there was a plot of land there which was sold at £160. Last year I went and opened a tube railway there. What was the result? This year that very piece of land has been sold for £2,100—£160 before the railway was opened—before I was there—£2,100 now. My Budget demands 20 per cent. of that."

"There are many cases where landlords take advantage of the needs of municipalities and even of national needs and of the monopoly which they have got in land in a particular neighbourhood in order to demand extortionate prices. Take the very well-known case of the Duke of Northumberland, when a county council wanted to buy a small plot of land as a site for a school to train the children who in due course would become the men labouring on his property. The rent was quite an insignificant thing; his contribution to the rates I think it was on the basis of 30s. an acre. What did he demand for it for a school? £900 an acre. All we say is this—if it is worth £900, let him pay taxes on £900."

"Now, all we say is this: "In future you must pay one halfpenny in the pound on the real value of your land. In addition to that, if the value goes up, not owing to your efforts—if you spend money on improving it we will give you credit for it—but if it goes up owing to the industry and the energy of the people living in that locality, one-fifth of that increment shall in future be taken as a toll by the State"."

"Who is the landlord? The Landlord is a gentleman … who does not earn his wealth. He does not even take the trouble to receive his wealth. He has a host of agents and clerks that receive it for him. He does not even take the trouble to spend his wealth. He has a host of people around him to do the actual spending for him. He never sees it until he comes to enjoy it. His sole function, his chief pride is stately consumption of wealth produced by others."

"The landlords are receiving eight millions a year by way of royalties. What for? They never deposited the coal in the earth. It was not they who planted these great granite rocks in Wales. Who laid the foundations of the mountains? Was it the landlord? And yet he, by some divine right, demands as his toll—for merely the right for men to risk their lives in hewing these rocks—eight millions a year."

"[Y]et when the Prime Minister and I knock at the door of these great landlords, and say to them: "Here, you know these poor fellows who have been digging up royalties at the risk of their lives, some of them are old, they have survived the perils of their trade, they are broken, they can earn no more. Won't you give them something towards keeping them out of the workhouse?" they scowl at us. We say, "Only a ha'penny, just a copper". They retort, "You thieves!" And they turn their dogs on to us, and you can hear their bark every morning. If this is an indication of the view taken by these great landlords of their responsibility to the people who, at the risk of life, create their wealth, then I say their day of reckoning is at hand."

"They go on threatening that if we proceed, they will cut down their benefactions and discharge labour. What kind of labour? What is the labour they are going to choose for dismissal? Are they going to threaten to devastate rural England by feeding and dressing themselves? Are they going to reduce their gamekeepers? Ah, that would be sad! The agricultural labourer and the farmer might then have some part of the game that is fattened by their labour. Also what would happen to you in the season? No week-end shooting with the Duke of Norfolk or anyone."

"The ownership of land is not merely an enjoyment, it is a stewardship. It has been reckoned as such in the past, and if the owners cease to discharge their functions in seeing to the security and defence of the country, looking after the broken in their villages and in their neighbourhoods, the time will come to reconsider the conditions under which land is held in this country."

"We are placing burdens on the broadest shoulders. Why should I put burdens on the people? I am one of the children of the people. I was brought up amongst them. I know their trials; and God forbid that I should add one grain of trouble to the anxieties which they bear with such patience and fortitude. When the Prime Minister did me the honour of inviting me to take charge of the National Exchequer at a time of great difficulty, I made up my mind, in framing the Budget which was in front of me, that at any rate no cupboard should be barer, no lot would be harder. By that test I challenge you to judge the Budget."

"I lay down as a proposition that most of the people who work hard for a living in the country belong to the Liberal Party. I would say, and I think, without offence, that most of the people who never worked for a living at all belong to the Tory Party."

"A fully equipped Duke costs as much to keep up as two Dreadnoughts, and Dukes are just as great a terror, and they last longer."

"When I come along [to the landlords] and say, "Here, gentlemen, you have escaped long enough, it is your turn now, I want you to pay just 5 per cent. on the £10,000 odd," they reply:—"Five per cent? You are a thief; you are worse, you are an attorney; worst of all, you are a Welshman." That always is the crowning epithet. I do not apologize, and I do not mind telling you that if I could, I would not; I am proud of the little land among the hills... Whenever they hurl my nationality at my head, I say to them, "You Unionists, you hypocrites, Pharisees, you are the people who in every peroration...always talk about our being one kith and kin throughout the Empire...and yet if any man dares to aspire to any position, if he does not belong to the particular nationality which they have dignified by choosing their parents from, they have no use for him." Well, they have got to stand the Welshman now."

"Landlords have no nationality; their characteristics are cosmopolitan."

"We want money for the defence of the country, to provide pensions for the old people who have been spending their lives tilling the soil at a very poor pittance, in sinking those mines, and risking their lives, and when they are old we do not want to starve them or humiliate them—and we say what better use can you make of wealth than to use it for the purpose of picking up the broken, healing, curing the sick, bringing a little more light, comfort, and happiness to the aged? These men ought to feel honoured that Providence has given them the chance to put a little into the poor box. And since they will not do it themselves we have got to do it for them."

"If there is one thing more than another better established about the British Constitution it is this, that the Commons, and the Commons alone, have the complete control of supply and ways and means. And what our fathers established through centuries of struggles and of strife, even of bloodshed, we are not going to be traitors to. Who talks about altering and meddling with the Constitution? The Constitutional Party... As long as the Constitution gave rank and possession and power it was not to be interfered with. As long as it secured even their sports from intrusion, and made interference with them a crime; as long as the Constitution forced royalties and ground-rents and fees, premiums and fines, the black retinue of extraction; as long as it showered writs, and summonses, and injunctions, and distresses, and warrants to enforce them, then the Constitution was inviolate, it was sacred, it was something that was put in the same category as religion, that no man ought to touch, and something that the chivalry of the nation ought to range in defence of. But the moment the Constitution looks round, the moment the Constitution begins to discover that there are millions of people outside the park gates who need attention, then the Constitution is to be torn to pieces. Let them realize what they are doing. They are forcing revolution."

"The question will be asked, "Should 500 men, ordinary men, chosen accidentally from among the unemployed, override the judgment...of millions of people who are engaged in the industry which makes the wealth of the country?""

"Who ordained that a few should have the land of Britain as a perquisite, who made 10,000 people owners of the soil and the rest of us trespassers in the land of our birth?"

"Who is it who is responsible for the scheme of things whereby one man is engaged through life in grinding labour to win a bare and precarious subsistence for himself, and when, at the end of his days, he claims at the hands of the community he served a poor pension of eightpence a day, he can only get it through a revolution, and another man who does not toil receives every hour of the day, every hour of the night, whilst he slumbers, more than his poor neighbour receives in a whole year of toil? Where did the table of that law come from? Whose finger inscribed it? These are the questions that will be asked. The answers are charged with peril for the order of things the Peers represent; but they are fraught with rare and refreshing fruit for the parched lips of the multitude who have been treading the dusty road along which the people have marched through the dark ages which are now merging into the light."

"[Y]et we are told that this great nation, with such a record of splendid achievements in the past and in the present, is unfit to make its own laws, is unfit to control its own finance, and that it is to be placed as if it were a nation of children or lunatics, under the tutelage and guardianship of some other body—and what body? Who are the guardians of this mighty people? Who are they? With all respect, I shall have to make exceptions; but I am speaking of them as a whole. ... They are men who have neither the training, the qualifications, nor the experience which would fit them for such a gigantic task. They are men whose sole qualification—speaking in the main, and for the majority of them—they are simply men whose sole qualification is that they are the first born of persons who had just as little qualification as themselves."

"To invite this Imperial race; this, the greatest commercial nation in the world; this, the nation that has taught the world in the principles of self-government and liberty; to invite this nation itself to sign the decree that declares itself unfit to govern itself without the guardianship of such people, is an insult which I hope will be flung back with ignominy. This is a great issue. It is this: Is this nation to be a free nation and to become a freer one, or is it for all time to be shackled and tethered by tariffs and trusts and monopolies and privileges? That is the issue, and no Liberal will shirk it."

"You must handle [the House of Lords] a little more firmly, and the time has come for unflinching and resolute action. For my part, I would not remain a member of a Liberal Cabinet one hour unless I knew that the Cabinet had determined not to hold office after the next General Election unless full powers are accorded to it which would enable it to place on the Statute Book of the realm a measure which will ensure that the House of Commons in future can carry, not merely Tory Bills, as it does now, but Liberal and progressive measures in the course of a single Parliament either with or without the sanction of the House of Lords."

"But they have not rejected the Budget; they have only referred it to the people. On what principle do they refer Bills to the people? I remember the election of 1900, when a most powerful member of the Tory Cabinet said that the Nonconformists could vote with absolute safety for the Government, because no question in which they were interested would be raised. In two years there was a Bill destroying the School Boards. There was a Bill which drove Nonconformists into the most passionate opposition. What did the House of Lords do? Did they refer it to the people? Oh no, there was a vast difference between protecting the ground landlords in towns and protecting the village Dissenter. After all, the village Dissenter is too low down in the social scale for such exalted patronage, so he was left to the mercy of a Tory House of Commons without any of this high and powerful protection. Well, the Dissenters, despised as they may be, once upon a time taught a lesson to the House of Lords, and ere another year has passed they will be able to say, "Here endeth the second lesson" ."

"Four spectres haunt the Poor — Old Age, Accident, Sickness and Unemployment. We are going to exorcise them. We are going to drive hunger from the hearth. We mean to banish the workhouse from the horizon of every workman in the land."

"Personally I am a sincere advocate of all means which would lead to the settlement of international disputes by methods such as those which civilization has so successfully set up for the adjustment of differences between individuals. But I am also bound to say this — that I believe it is essential in the highest interests, not merely of this country, but of the world, that Britain should at all hazards maintain her place and her prestige amongst the Great Powers of the world. Her potent influence has many a time been in the past, and may yet be in the future, invaluable to the cause of human liberty. It has more than once in the past redeemed Continental nations, who are sometimes too apt to forget that service, from overwhelming disaster and even from national extinction. I would make great sacrifices to preserve peace. I conceive that nothing would justify a disturbance of international good will except questions of the gravest national moment. But if a situation were to be forced upon us in which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement, by allowing Britain to be treated where her interests were vitally affected as if she were of no account in the Cabinet of nations, then I say emphatically that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure."

"I don't know exactly what I am, but I'm sure I'm not a Liberal. They have no sympathy with the people... All down History, nine-tenths of mankind have been grinding the corn for the remaining one-tenth, been paid with the husks and bidden to thank God they had the husks... As long as I was settling disputes with their workmen, which they had not got enough sense to settle themselves, these great Business Men said I was the greatest Board of Trade President of modern times. When I tried to do something for the social welfare of their workmen, they denounced me as a Welsh thief."

"What has happened to the monastery? There it was planted in the hills, not merely looking after the spiritual needs of the people, but also their temporal needs... They have all gone. One of these parishes I find to-day with a tithe, and probably the land was owned by gentlemen who, when I was down there twenty years ago, was the anti-disestablishment candidate for that district. What is the good of talking about it? Whoever else has got a right to complain of Parliament not being authorised to deal with this trust; the present Establishment has no right, and the present House of Lords has no right. Property which was used for the sick, for the lame, for the poor, and for education, where has it gone to? ...[T]he bulk of it went to the founders of great families. It is one of the most disgraceful and discreditable records in the history of this country."

"The Duke of Devonshire issues a circular applying for subscriptions to oppose this Bill, and he charges us with the robbery of God. Why, does he not know—of course he knows—that the very foundations of his fortune are laid deep in sacrilege, fortunes built out of desecrated shrines and pillaged altars... I say that charges of this kind brought against a whole people...ought not to be brought by those whose family trees are laden with the fruits of sacrilege. I am not complaining that ancestors of theirs did it, but they are still in the enjoyment of the same property, and they are subscribing out of that property to leaflets which attack us and call us thieves. What is their story? Look at the whole story of the pillage of the Reformation. They robbed the Catholic Church, they robbed the monasteries, they robbed the altars, they robbed the almshouses, they robbed the poor, and they robbed the dead. Then they come here when we are trying to seek, at any rate to recover some part of this pillaged property for the poor for whom it was originally given, and they venture, with hands dripping with the fat of sacrilege, to accuse us of robbery of God."

"Ah! there is a great task in front of us... Do you know what is in front of you? A bigger task than democracy has never yet undertaken in this land. You have got to free the land—to free the land that is to this very hour shackled with the chains of feudalism. We have got to free the people from anxieties, the worries, the terrors—terrors that they ought never to be called upon to face—terrors that their children may be crying for bread in this land of plenty. It is our shame. It is a disgrace to this the richest land under the sun that they should want—a contingency which no honest, thrifty man in this land should have to face."

"They were now as a party engaged in carrying laboriously uphill the last few columns out of the Gladstonian quarry. ... Foremost among the tasks of Liberalism in the near future was the regeneration of rural life and the emancipation of the land of this country from the paralysing grip of an effete and unprofitable system. ... [The reports into rural life] were startling. When they were published they would prove conclusively that there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of men, women, and children dependent upon the land in this country and engaged in cultivating it, hardworking men and women, who were living under conditions with regard to wages, to housing, as well as hours of labour—conditions which ought to make this great Empire hang its head in shame that such things could be permitted to happen in any corner of its vast dominions, let alone in this country, the centre and source of all its glory."

"This rich, proud Empire did not pay its children, who had maintained and built up its glory and upon whom they had to depend in future against every foe, enough to keep themselves, their wives, and their children above a state of semi-starvation. (Cries of "Shame.") The land of Britain, which ought to be rearing a virile, healthy, independent, prosperous people, was held under conditions which positively discouraged capital, enterprise, and brains, sapped independence and undermined vitality. The condition of things was one which demanded the immediate attention of every man who loved his native land and who had any heart to sympathize with humanity in despair."

"I could multiply instances of men, women, and children who have been just snatched from the jaws of the grave by this Act of Parliament, and yet whilst it is walking the streets, hurrying about on its errand of mercy, visiting the sick, healing those who are afflicted with disease, feeding hungry children whose parents have been prostrated by sickness and cannot look after them—whilst it is doing the work of the Man of Nazareth in the stricken homes of Britain, it is being stoned by Tory speakers, reviled, insulted, and spat upon. Their reckoning is piling up. It will soon be demanded at their hands to the last penny by a people who have been misled by them into disdaining one of the greatest gifts the Imperial Parliament has ever delivered to the people of this land."

"Success to your meetings. Future of this country depends on breaking up the land monopoly—it withers the land, depresses wages, destroys independence, and drives millions into dwellings which poison their strength. Godspeed to every effort to put an end to this oppression."

"Labourers had diminished, game had tripled. The landlord was no more necessary to agriculture than a gold chain to a watch."

"Even if Germany ever had any idea of challenging our supremacy at sea, the exigencies of the military situation must necessarily put it completely out of her head. Under these circumstances it seems to me that we can afford just quietly to maintain the superiority we possess at present, without making feverish efforts to increase it any further. The Navy is now, according to all impartial testimony, at the height of its efficiency. If we maintain that standard no one can complain, but if we went on spending and swelling its strength, we should wantonly provoke other nations."

"There are always clouds in the international sky. You never get a perfectly blue sky in foreign affairs. And there are clouds even now. But we feel confident that the common sense, the patience, the good-will, the forbearance which enabled us to solve greater and more difficult and more urgent problems last year will enable us to pull through these difficulties at the present moment."

"The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham said, in future what are you going to tax when you will want more money? He also not merely assumed but stated that you could not depend upon any economy in armaments. I think that is not so. I think he will find that next year there will be substantial economy without interfering in the slightest degree with the efficiency of the Navy. The expenditure of the last few years has been very largely for the purpose of meeting what is recognised to be a temporary emergency. ... It is very difficult for one nation to arrest this very terrible development. You cannot do it. You cannot when other nations are spending huge sums of money which are not merely weapons of defence, but are equally weapons of attack. I realise that, but the encouraging symptom which I observe is that the movement against it is a cosmopolitan one and an international one. Whether it will bear fruit this year or next year, that I am not sure of, but I am certain that it will come. I can see signs, distinct signs, of reaction throughout the world. Take a neighbour of ours. Our relations are very much better than they were a few years ago. There is none of that snarling which we used to see, more especially in the Press of those two great, I will not say rival nations, but two great Empires. The feeling is better altogether between them. They begin to realise they can co-operate for common ends, and that the points of co-operation are greater and more numerous and more important than the points of possible controversy."

"I am fighting hard for peace. All the bankers and commercial people are begging us not to intervene. The Governor of the Bank of England said to me with tears in his eyes, “Keep us out of it. We shall all be ruined if we are dragged in!”"

"The world owes much to little nations and to little men. This theory of bigness—you must have a big empire and a big nation and a big man—well, long legs have their advantage in a retreat. Frederick the Great chose his warriors for their height, and that tradition has become a policy in Germany. Germany applies that ideal to nations. She will only allow six-feet-two nations to stand in the ranks. But all the world owes much to the little five-feet-high nations."

"The Prussian Junker is the road hog of Europe. Small nationalities in his way hurled to the roadside, bleeding and broken; women and children crushed under the wheels of his cruel car; Britain ordered out of his road. All I can say is this. If the old British spirit is alive in British hearts that bully will be torn from his seat. Were he to win it would be the greatest catastrophe that befell democracy since the days of the Holy Alliance and its ascendancy. They think we cannot beat them. It will not be easy. It will be a long job. It will be a terrible war. But in the end we shall march through terror to triumph."

"I should like to see a Welsh Army in the field. I should like to see the race who faced the Normans for hundreds of years in a struggle for freedom, the race that helped to win Crecy, the race that fought for a generation under Glendower, against the greatest captain in Europe—I should like to see that race go and give a taste of its quality in this great struggle in Europe."

"The stern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the great everlasting things that matter for a nation—the great peaks of honour we had forgotten—Duty, Patriotism, and—clad in glittering white—the great pinnacle of Sacrifice, pointing like a rugged finger to Heaven."

"What are ten, twenty, or thirty millions when the British Empire is at stake? This is an artillery war. We must have every gun we can lay hands upon."

"A ramshackle old empire."

"[Lloyd George] was still pessimistic about the war—said we were fighting better brains than our own—that there was not one really first-class man on our side. The Germans had shown that they had better training than we, and he knew the value of training—he had seen examples of it in the House of Commons, when Labour members competed against men of better education than themselves—they were just as good fellows, but they hadn't the training. And [Lloyd George] says that it is training that is wanting on our side—among the generals. He says our soldiers are the best in Europe, but they are being wantonly sacrificed because those in authority do not know how to make the best use of them."

"I do not believe Great Britain has ever yet done anything like what she could do in the matter of increasing her war equipment. Great things have been accomplished in the last few months, but I sincerely believe that we could double our effective energies if we organised our factories thoroughly. All the engineering works of the country ought to be turned on to the production of war material. The population ought to be prepared to suffer all sorts of deprivations and even hardships whilst this process is going on. As to America, I feel confident from what I have heard that we have tapped only a small percentage of this great available reserve of supply."

"The Government were on the look-out for a good, strong business man, with some push and go in him, who will be able to put the thing through."

"We won and saved our liberties in this land on more than one occasion by compulsory service. France saved the liberty she had won in the great Revolution from the fangs of tyrannical military empires purely by compulsory service; the great Republic of the West won its independence and saved its national existence by compulsory service, and two of the greatest countries of Europe to-day—France and Italy—are defending their national existence and liberties by means of compulsory service. It has been the greatest weapon in the hands of Democracy many a time for the winning and preservation of freedom."

"We are a very individualistic nation. ... Individualism has its merits in producing strong, independent, virile nations; but in war individualism has its manifold defects. ... [T]he nation has not yet concentrated one-half of its industrial strength on the problem of carrying this great conflict through successfully. It is a war of munitions. We are fighting against the best organized community in the world—the best organized, whether for war or for peace—and we have been employing too much of the haphazard, leisurely, go-as-you-please methods which, believe me, would not have enabled us to maintain our place as a nation, even in peace, very much longer."

"The Government can lose the war without you; they cannot win it without you."

"You have practically taken over the whole of the engineering works of this country and controlled them by the State. I have seen resolutions passed from time to time at Trade Union Congresses [laughter] about nationalising the industries of this country. We have done it. [Cheers and laughter.]"

"What we stint in materials we squander in lives... What you spare in money you spill in blood."

"I wonder whether it will not be too late? Ah! two fatal words of this War! Too late in moving here. Too late in arriving there. Too late in coming to this decision. Too late in starting with enterprises. Too late in preparing. In this War the footsteps of the Allied forces have been dogged by the mocking spectre of "Too Late"; and unless we quicken our movements damnation will fall on the sacred cause for which so much gallant blood has flowed."

"It is a strange irony, but no small compensation, that the making of weapons of destruction should afford the occasion to humanise industry. Yet such is the case. Old prejudices have vanished, new ideas are abroad; employers and workers, the public and the State, are favourable to new methods. This opportunity must not be allowed to slip. It may well be that, when the tumult of war is a distant echo, and the making of munitions a nightmare of the past, the effort now being made to soften asperities, to secure the welfare of the workers, and to build a bridge of sympathy and understanding between employer and employed, will have left behind results of permanent and enduring value to the workers, to the nation and to mankind at large."

"I have been told that I am a traitor to Liberal principles because I supported Conscription. ... Every great democracy which has been challenged, which has had its liberties menaced, has defended itself by resort to compulsion, from Greece downwards. Washington won independence for America by compulsory measures; they defended it in 1812 by compulsory measures. Lincoln...proclaimed the principle of "Government of the People, by the People, for the People," and he kept it alive by Conscription. In the French Revolution the French people defended their newly-obtained liberties against every effort of the Monarchists by compulsion. ... France is defending her country to-day by Conscription. In Italy the Italian Democracy are seeking to redeem their enthralled brethren by compulsion."

"I have always been sympathetic to the claims of Ulster, and as a Protestant Nonconformist I have a thorough appreciation of the Ulster anxieties about Home Rule."

"The British soldier is a good sportsman. He enlisted in this war in a sporting spirit—in the best sense of that term. He went in to see fair play to a small nation trampled upon by a bully. He is fighting for fair play. He has fought as a good sportsman. By the thousands he has died a good sportsman. He has never asked anything more than a sporting chance. He has not always had that. When he couldn't get it, he didn't quit. He played the game. He didn’t squeal, and he has certainly never asked anyone to squeal for him. Under the circumstances the British, now that the fortunes of the game have turned a bit, are not disposed to stop because of the squealing done by Germans or done for Germans by probably well-meaning but misguided sympathizers and humanitarians... During these months when it seemed the finish of the British Army might come quickly, Germany elected to make this a fight to a finish with England. The British soldier was ridiculed and held in contempt. Now we intend to see that Germany has her way. The fight must be to a finish—to a knock-out."

"Any intervention now would be a triumph for Germany! A military triumph! A war triumph! Intervention would have been for us a military disaster. Has the Secretary of State for War no right to express an opinion upon a thing which would be a military disaster? That is what I did, and I do not withdraw a single syllable. It was essential. I could tell the hon. Member how timely it was. I can tell the hon. Member it was not merely the expression of my own opinion, but the expression of the opinion of the Cabinet, of the War Committee, and of our military advisers. It was the opinion of every ally. I can understand men who conscientiously object to all wars. I can understand men who say you will never redeem humanity except by passive endurance of every evil. I can understand men, even—although I do not appreciate the strength of their arguments—who say they do not approve of this particular war. That is not my view, but I can understand it, and it requires courage to say so. But what I cannot understand, what I cannot appreciate, what I cannot respect, is when men preface their speeches by saying they believe in the war, they believe in its origin, they believe in its objects and its cause, and during the time the enemy were in the ascendant never said a word about peace; but the moment our gallant troops are climbing through endurance and suffering up the path of ascendancy begin to howl with the enemy."

"As you are aware, on several occasions during the last two years I have deemed it my duty to express profound dissatisfaction with the Government's method of conducting the War. Many a time, with the road to victory open in front of us, we have delayed and hesitated whilst the enemy were erecting barriers that finally checked the approach. There has been delay, hesitation, lack of forethought and vision; I have endeavoured repeatedly to warn the Government of the dangers, both verbally and in written memoranda and letters, which I crave your leave now to publish if my action is challenged; but I have either failed to secure decisions or I have secured them when it was too late to avert the evils... We have thrown away opportunity after opportunity, and I am convinced, after deep and anxious reflection, that it is my duty to leave the Government in order to inform the people of the real condition of affairs, and to give them an opportunity, before it is too late, to save their native land from a disaster which is inevitable if the present methods are longer persisted in. As all delay is fatal in war, I place my office without further parley at your disposal."

"He won't fight the Germans but he will fight for Office."

"Haig does not care how many men he loses. He just squanders the lives of these boys. I mean to save some of them in the future. He seems to think they are his property. I am their trustee. I will never let him rest. I will raise the subject again & again until I nag him out of it—until he knows that as soon as the casualty lists get large he will get nothing but black looks and scowls and awkward questions... I should have backed Nievelle against Haig. Nievelle has proved himself to be a Man at Verdun; & when you get a Man against one who has not proved himself, why, you back the Man!"

"The old hide-bound Liberalism was played out; the Newcastle programme [of 1891] had been realised. The task now was to build up the country."

"Do these things for the sake of your country during the war. Do them for the sake of your country after the war. When the smoke of this great conflict has been dissolved in the atmosphere we breathe there will reappear a new Britain. It will be the old country still, but it will be a new country. Its commerce will be new, its trade will be new, its industries will be new. There will be new conditions of life and of toil, for capital and for labour alike, and there will be new relations between both of them and for ever. (Cheers.) But there will be new ideas, there will be a new outlook, there will be a new character in the land. The men and women of this country will be burnt into fine building material for the new Britain in the fiery kilns of the war. It will not merely be the millions of men who, please God! will come back from the battlefield to enjoy the victory which they have won by their bravery—a finer foundation I would not want for the new country, but it will not be merely that—the Britain that is to be will depend also upon what will be done now by the many more millions who remain at home. There are rare epochs in the history of the world when in a few raging years the character, the destiny, of the whole race is determined for unknown ages. This is one. The winter wheat is being sown. It is better, it is surer, it is more bountiful in its harvest than when it is sown in the soft spring time. There are many storms to pass through, there are many frosts to endure, before the land brings forth its green promise. But let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. (Loud cheers.)"

"[Lloyd George] was very pleased last night, for he had given the soldiers a dressing-down in the morning. He was dealing with Haig's demand for more men & informed them that Haig would get no more than had already been decided upon. 'He does not make the best use of his men. Let him learn to make better use of them. There is no danger now on land. The danger is on sea'."

"Twenty years after the Corn Laws were abolished in this country we produced twice as much wheat as we imported... Since then four or five million acres of arable land have become pasture, and about half the agricultural population—the agricultural labouring population—has emigrated to the Colonies. No doubt the State showed a lamentable indifference to the importance of the agricultural industry and to the very life of the nation, and that is a mistake which must never be repeated. No civilised country in the world spent less on agriculture, or even spent so little on agriculture, either directly or indirectly, as we did."

"The country is alive now as it has never been before to the essential value of agriculture to the community, and whatever befalls it will never again be neglected by any Government. The War, at any rate, has taught us one lesson—that the preservation of our essential industries is as important a part of the national defences as the maintenance of our Army or our Navy. So much will I say about food production."

"[I]n the northeastern portion of Ireland you have a population as hostile to Irish rule as the rest of Ireland is to British rule, yea, and as ready to rebel against this as the rest of Ireland is against British rule. ... As alien in blood, in religious faith, in traditions, in outlook—as alien from the rest of Ireland in this respect as the inhabitants of Fife or Aberdeen. It is no use mincing words. Let us have a clear understanding. To place them under national rule against their will would be as glaring an outrage on the principles of liberty and self-government as the denial of self-government would be for the rest of Ireland."

"It is impossible in words to describe our sense of gratitude and the thrill of pride with which we always think about the way in which the Empire came to our assistance when we risked the life of these islands upon the struggle for liberty in Europe."

"To be ready for 1918 means victory, and it is a victory in which the British Empire will lead. It will easily then be the first Power in the world. And I rejoice in that not merely for selfish reasons, but because with all its faults, the British Empire is the truest representative of freedom—in the spirit even more than in the letter, of its institutions. We are here representing a great many races. Even in the United Kingdom there are three or four different races, and the Dominions and more especially India, represent a very considerable number of races. Of their free will they have come together to tender spontaneously their assistance to the Empire in this great struggle. That I regard as the triumph of the spirit and tradition of British institutions; and therefore, when I foresee that in 1918, with a special effort on the part of all of us, we shall be able to win not merely a great triumph, but to win it through the agency of the British Empire, I feel that it is worth our while to take steps to organise the Empire now, and to enable it to attain the heights of noble achievement and influence in the glorious task which is set before it."

"[Proportional representation is a] device for defeating democracy, the principle of which was that the majority should rule, and for bringing faddists of all kinds into Parliament, and establishing groups and disintegrating parties."

"If anything were required to convert me to the need for Scottish Home Rule, I think it was that solitary experience I had upon a Private Bill Committee... [P]urely local, and if I may say purely provincial questions ought to be delegated to purely provincial and—I am not afraid to use the word—national assemblies."

"I warn you", said Lloyd George, "that I am in a very pacifist temper". I listened last night, at a dinner given to Philip Gibbs on his return from the front, to the most impressive and moving description from him of what the war really means that I have heard. Even an audience of hardened politicians and journalists was strongly affected. The thing is horrible and beyond human nature to bear and "I feel I can't go on with this bloody business: I would rather resign."

"The statistics given me by Sir Auckland Geddes are most disquieting. They show that the physique of the people of this country is far from what it should be, particularly in the agricultural districts where the inhabitants should be the strongest. That is due to low wages, malnutrition and housing. It will have to be put right after the war. I have always stood during the whole of my life for the under-dog. I have not changed, and am going still to fight his battle."

"[W]e must profit by the lessons of the war. ... [T]he first lesson it has taught is the immense importance of maintaining the solidarity of the British Empire. (Cheers.) It has rendered a service to humanity the magnitude of which will appear greater and greater as this generation recedes into the past. ... This Empire has never been such a power for good. To suggest that such an organization could fall to pieces after the war would be a crime against civilization. ... The British Empire will be needed after peace to keep wrongs in check. Its mere word will count more next time than it did the last. For the enemy know now what they have got to deal with."

"What is the next great lesson of the war? It is that if Britain has to be thoroughly equipped to meet any emergencies of either war or peace it must take a more constant and a more intelligent interest in the health and fitness of the people. ... I solemnly warn my fellow-countrymen that you cannot maintain an A1 Empire with a C3 population. (Cheers.) Unless this lesson is learned the war is in vain. Remember that the health of the people is the secret of national efficiency and national recuperation."

"The State must help to promote and encourage production. ... There must be none of that shrinking from national organization, national production, and national assistance. Germany never made that mistake. Take the most important of national industries, agriculture. Agriculture in the past has been overlooked in this country. It has been neglected, with the result that we have been dependent very largely on lands across the seas for our food. We have realized during the war the perils of this position. ... It is in the highest interests of the community that the land in this country should be cultivated to its fullest capacity, and I doubt whether there is a civilized country in the whole world where agriculture has received less attention at the hands of the State. ... The cultivation of the land is the basis of national strength and prosperity."

"[T]he shielding of industries which have been demonstrated by the war to be essential to the very life of the nation. I remember when I was appointed Minister of Munitions I found there were industries essential to national defence which had been very largely captured by our enemies. ... [T]hese essential key industries shall be preserved after the war, not because we anticipate another war, but because we are less likely to have another war if they know that we are quite ready for any challenge on a just ground."

"Wilson is adopting a dangerous line. He wants to pose as the great arbiter of the war. His Fourteen Points are very dangerous. He speaks of the freedom of the seas. That would involve the abolition of the right of search and seizure, and the blockade. We shall not agree to that. Such a change would not suit this country. Wilson does not see that by laying down terms without consulting the Allies, he is making their position very difficult. He had no right to reply to the German Note without consultation, and I insisted upon a cablegram being sent to him. The position is very disturbing."

"I have already accepted the policy of Imperial preference...to the effect that a preference will be given on existing duties and on any duties which may subsequently be imposed. On this subject I think there is no difference of opinion between us. ... I am prepared to say that the key industries on which the life of the nation depends must be preserved. I am prepared to say also that, in order to keep up the present standard of production and develop it to the utmost extent possible, it is necessary that security should be give against the unfair competition to which our industries have been in the past subjected by the dumping of goods below the actual cost of production. ... I shall look at every problem simply from the point of view of what is the best method of securing the objects at which we are aiming without any regard to theoretical opinions about Free Trade or Tariff Reform."

"Great Britain would spend her last guinea to keep a navy superior to that of the United States or any other power."

"At eleven o’clock this morning came to an end the cruellest and most terrible War that has ever scourged mankind. I hope we may say that thus, this fateful morning, came to an end all wars."

"Diplomats were invented simply to waste time."

"What is our task? To make Britain a fit country for heroes to live in."

"[W]hat about those people whom we received without question for years to our shores (Voices.—“Send them back”), who, after we did so and gave them equal rights with the sons and daughters of our own households, abused hospitality to betray the land that received them; to plot against its security, to spy upon it, and to supply information and weapons that enabled the Prussian War Lords to inflict, not punishment, but to inflict damage and injury, on the land which had received them. Never again! (Mr. Lloyd George here banged the table in front of him, and the audience cheered vociferously.)"

"There is one point I had overlooked as to the question of the responsibility for the invasion of Belgium and the conduct of the war. The Government asked the Attorney-General to refer the question to some of the greatest jurists in this country. They have investigated it, and have come finally to the conclusion quite unanimously that in their judgment the Kaiser was guilty of an indictable offence for which he ought to be held responsible."

"Trial of the Kaiser; punishment of those responsible for atrocities; fullest indemnities from Germany; Britain for the British, socially and industrially; rehabilitation of those broken in the war; and a happier country for all."

"[T]he question of indemnity. (Cheers.) Who is to foot the bill? (A voice—“Germany.”) I am again going to talk to you quite frankly about this. By the jurisprudence of every civilized country in the world, in any lawsuit the loser pays. It is not a question of vengeance, it is a question of justice."

"I have always said we will exact the last penny we can out of Germany up to the limit of her capacity, but I am not going to mislead the public on the question of the capacity until I know more about it, and I am not going to do it in order to win votes. It is not right; it is not fair; it is not straightforward; and it is not honest. If Germany has a greater capacity, she must pay to the very last penny."

"The Labour Party is being run by the extreme pacifist, Bolshevist group... What they really believed in was Bolshevism... I named one or two of them—Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Mr. Snowden, Mr. Smillie, and others... [S]upposing they had had their way? (Cries of "Ah!") What would have happened? (A voice:—"We should have lost the war.") Belgium would have been overrun, France would have been overrun, Germany now would have had the whole Continent of Europe right under its cruel heel, the Channel ports would have been in the hands of the Germans...we should have been the slaves and the bondmen of Germany if we had listened to these men—and they are the real Labour Party at the present moment... I venture to say it would not be safe to entrust the destinies of a great Empire to their charge."

"The finest eloquence is that which gets things done; the worst is that which delays them."

"By these atrocities, almost unparalleled in the black record of Turkish rule, the Armenian population was reduced in numbers by well over one million… If we succeeded in defeating this inhuman empire, one essential condition of the peace we should impose was the redemption of the Armenian valleys forever from the bloody misrule with which they had been stained by the infamies of the Turk."

"I am making a good fight for the old country & there is no one but me who could do it."

"We must make, if we can, an enduring peace. That is why I feel so strongly regarding the proposal to hand over two million Germans to the Poles, who are an inferior people so far as concerns the experience and capacity for government. We do not want to create another Alsace-Lorraine."

"The truth is that we have got our way. We have got most of the things we set out to get. If you had told the British people twelve months ago that they would have secured what they have, they would have laughed you to scorn. The German Navy has been handed over; the German mercantile shipping has been handed over, and the German colonies have been given up. One of our chief trade competitors has been most seriously crippled and our Allies are about to become her biggest creditors. That is no small achievement. In addition, we have destroyed the menace to our Indian possessions."

"I had to tell him quite plainly that the Belgians had lost only 16,000 men in the war, and that, when all was said, Belgium had not made greater sacrifices than Great Britain. The truth is that we are always called upon to foot the bill. When anything has to be done it is "Old England" that has to do it. If the Rumanians have to be supplied with food and credits have to be given, in the final result England has to stand the racket. It is time that we again told the world what we have done. These things tend to be forgotten. Our policy is quite clear but imperfectly understood. We mean that the French shall have coal in the Saar Valley and that the Poles shall have access to the sea through Danzig; but we don't want to create a condition of affairs that will be likely to lead to another war. We don't want to place millions of Germans under the domination of the French and the Poles. That would not be for their benefit, and what is the use of setting up a lot of Alsace-Lorraines?"

"Those insolent Germans made me very angry yesterday. I don't know when I have been more angry. Their conduct showed that the old German is still there. Your Brockdorff-Rantzaus will ruin Germany's chances of reconstruction. But the strange thing is that the Americans and ourselves felt more angry than the French and Italians. I asked old Clemenceau why. He said, "Because we are accustomed to their insolence. We have had to bear it for fifty years. It is new to you and therefore it makes you angry"."

"In so far as territories have been taken away from Germany, it is a restoration. Alsace-Lorraine—forcibly taken away from the land to which its population were deeply attached. Is it an injustice to restore them to their country? Schleswig-Holstein—the meanest of the Hohenzollern frauds; robbing a poor, small, helpless country, with a pretence that you are not doing it, and then retaining that land against the wishes of the population for fifty or sixty years. I am glad the opportunity has come for restoring Schleswig-Holstein. Poland—torn to bits, to feed the carnivorous greed of Russian, Austrian, and Prussian autocracy. This Treaty has re-knit the torn flag of Poland, which is now waving over a free and a united people; and it will have to be defended, not merely with gallantry, but with wisdom. For Poland is indeed in a perilous position, between a Germany shorn of her prey and an unknown Russia which has not yet emerged. All these territorial adjustments of which we have heard are restorations. Take Danzig—a free city, forcibly incorporated in the Kingdom of Prussia. They are all territories that ought not to belong to Germany, and they are now restored to the independence of which they have been deprived by Prussian aggression."

"I ask anyone to point to any territorial change we made in respect to Germany in Europe which is in the least an injustice, judged by any principle of fairness."

"I come now to the question of reparation. Are the terms we have imposed unjust to Germany? If the whole cost of the War, all the costs incurred by every country that has been forced into war by the action of Germany, had been thrown upon Germany, it would have been in accord with every principle of civilised jurisprudence in the world. There was but one limit to the justice and the wisdom of the reparation we claimed, and that was the limit of Germany's capacity to pay. ... Is there anything unjust in imposing upon Germany those payments? I do not believe anyone could claim it to be unjust. Certainly no one could claim that it was unjust unless he believed that the justice of the War was on the side of Germany."

"Having regard to the use which Germany made of her great army, is there anything unjust in scattering that army, disarming it, making it incapable of repeating the injury which it has inflicted upon the world?"

"[P]unishment for offences against the laws of war. There is a longer category than the House may imagine. Some of them are incredible—I could not have believed it had it not been that the evidence was overwhelming. I should not have thought any nation with a pretence to civilisation could have committed such atrocities. I am not going into the categories, and I should not care to enumerate them, but they ought to be punished. Officers who are guilty of these things in a moment of arrogance, feeling that their power to do what they please is irresistible, ought to know in future that they will be held personally responsible. War is horrible enough without committing these unlicensed infamies upon rules which are quite cruel enough as they are. ... They will get fair play, and they have no right to more. What injustice is there in that? What undue harshness is there in it? It is the averting of it, and making it impossible for the future."

"Is it unjust that we should, in our economic terms, make it clear that Germany is not to take advantage of wanton destruction of the trade machinery of her rivals in Belgium and in France, in order to get ahead in the competitive race for business? Money does not put that right. You cannot get machinery in a year or, perhaps, two years, and meanwhile Germany, which has never been devastated, would be going a head. We had to put in clauses for protection against that. What injustice is there in that?"

"We were determined, at any rate, that this Treaty should not be a scrap of paper. What are the guarantees? The first is the disarmament of Germany. The German Army was the foundation and corner stone of Prussian policy. You had to scatter it, disperse it, disarm it—to make it impossible for it to come together again, to make it impossible to equip such an army. ... Those who have read the Treaty know the steps we have taken to make it impossible for Germany to have great factories and arsenals which at any moment she could turn on for the equipment of a great force. ... We, therefore, regard the disarmament of Germany—the reduction of her army, the destruction of her arsenals, the taking away of her guns—as one of the foremost guarantees for peace which you could exact in the Treaty."

"[T]he League of Nations will be of no value unless it has behind it the sanction of strong nations, prepared at a moment's notice to stop aggression. Otherwise the League of Nations will be a scrap of paper."

"I come to the last and the greatest guarantee of all—that is, the League of Nations. ... [This] great and hopeful experiment is only rendered possible by the other conditions. ... Without disarmament, without the indication which this War has given that the nations of the world are determined at all costs to enforce respect for treaties, the League of Nations would be just like other Conventions in the past—something that would be blown away by the first gust of war or of any fierce dispute between the nations. It is this War, it is the Treaty that concludes this War, which will make the League of Nations possible. ... There are many things the world has realised and is prepared to take into account and to provide against. This League of Nations is an attempt to do it by some less barbarous methods than war. Let us try it. I beg this country to try it seriously, and to try it in earnest. It is due to mankind that we should try it. Anything except the horror of the last four and a half years!"

"Take Article 12 of this Covenant: "The Members of the League"—which means the nations of the earth—"agree that if there should arise between them any dispute likely to lead to a rupture, they will submit the matter either to arbitration or to inquiry." ... Supposing that had been in existence in 1914, it would have been difficult for Germany and Austria to have gone to War. They could not have done it, and, if they had, America would have been in on the first day, not three years afterwards, which would have...made all the difference. You could not have had the War in 1914 had the League of Nations been in existence. With this machinery I am not going to say you will never have war. Man is a savage animal. ... If it avert one war, the League of Nations will have justified itself. If you let one generation pass without the blood of millions being spilt, and without the agony which fills so many homes, the League of Nations will have been justified. I beg no one to sneer at the League of Nations. Let us try it. I believe it will succeed in stopping something. It may not stop everything. The world has gone from war to war, until at last we have despaired of stopping it. But society with all its organisations has not stopped every crime. What it does is that it makes crime difficult or unsuccessful, and that is what the League of Nations will do. Therefore I look to it with hope and with confidence."

"Dumping is the exporting to this country of goods from a foreign land under the cost—beneath the price at which they are sold in their own country. There could be only one object in doing that, and that is to make war upon a particular industry in our country. That is unfair. ... In the interests of fairness, as well as in the interests of British industry as a whole, the Government have decided to submit to Parliament proposals which will effectively deal with dumping in the sense in which I have defined it."

"Many of the young Conservatives, particularly the young officers who have returned from the Front, are most democratic in their views and anxious for reform. The so-called Liberal Party consists mostly of plutocrats like Runciman and Cowdray who have no sympathy whatever with the aspirations of the mass of the people."

"I sometimes wish that I were in the Labour Party. I would tear down all these institutions!"

"Not badly, considering I was seated between Jesus Christ and Napoleon."

"Winston [Churchill] is the only remaining specimen of a real Tory."

"You do not declare war on rebels."

"We ought not to stint anything that is necessary in order to crush the rebellion."

"If it is a question of setting up an independent Irish Republic in this small group of islands, that is a thing we could only accept if we were absolutely beaten to the ground. We take the same view exactly of the position as President Lincoln took of the attempt of the Southern States to claim secession. There were men in this country who thought he ought to have recognised the Southern States. Lincoln, one of the greatest democratic figures who ever lived in the world, took a different view. History has justified Lincoln. I have met Southerners whose fathers fought and suffered for what they regarded as liberty, who now admit that Lincoln was right. Therefore it is no use my giving any hope that it is even possible to discuss any policy of reconciliation which involves the recognition of an independent Republic of Ireland."

"The Turks very nearly brought about our defeat in the war. It was a near thing. You cannot trust them and they are a decadent race. The Greeks, on the other hand, are our friends, and they are a rising people... We must secure Constantinople and the Dardanelles. You cannot do that effectively without crushing the Turkish power."

"You cannot in the existing state of Ireland punish a policeman who shoots a man whom he has every reason to suspect is concerned with the police murders. This kind of thing can only be met by reprisals."

"Let us be fair to these gallant men who are doing their duty in Ireland. Here you stand by your police and you protect them against any uniforms, and you are right. It is all very well for people who are sitting comfortably at home here, secured from assassins and depredators through the protection of the police, to turn round and pompously criticise them about outrages and discipline when they are defending themselves."

"The police feel that the time has come for them to defend themselves, and that is what is called reprisals in Ireland."

"Do you know that Ireland was our worry during the war? ... Ireland was a real peril. They were in touch with German submarines. There it stands at the gateway of Britain... And we are to hand over Ireland to be made a base of the submarine fleet, and we are to trust to luck in our next war. Was there ever such lunacy proposed by anybody? ... Don't you take these risks. This is a great country, a great country; it has done more for human freedom than any other country; don't risk its destinies and its future through any folly or through any fear of any gang in Ireland. We saw the great country through at gigantic cost. We are not going to quail before a combination of a handful of assassins in any part of the British Empire. Hand our ports over in Ireland, the gateway of Great Britain? They might starve us. No!"

"I happen to belong to a little nationality. So do you, and we are a real nationality. I have been listening to Welsh music... I have been listening to a Welsh address which every one of you understands. Go to a County Council in Ireland and, I have no doubt, Mr. Arthur Griffith would be presented with an address written in Gaelic which neither he nor anybody else in the place would understand... It is a sham and a fraud, the whole of this nationality."

"There we have witnessed a spectacle of organised assassination, of the most cowardly character. Firing at men who were unsuspecting, firing from men who were dressed in the garb of peaceable citizens, and who are treated as such by the officers of the law; firing from behind—cowardly murder. Unless I am mistaken, by the steps we have taken we have murder by the throat."

"There will be no real peace in Ireland, there will be no conciliation until this murder conspiracy is scattered... In vast tracts of Ireland the police were practically interned in their barracks. They dared not come out. Terror was triumphant! ... When the Government were ready, we struck the terror, and the terrorists are now complaining of terror."

"The men who indulge in these murders say it is war. If it is war, they, at any rate, cannot complain if we apply some of the rules of war... Until this conspiracy is suppressed there is no hope of real peace or conciliation in Ireland, and every one desires peace and conciliation—on fair terms; fair to Ireland, yes, but fair to Britain... You must break the terror before you get peace."

"We are offering Ireland not subjection but equality, not servitude but partnership—an honourable partnership, a partnership in the greatest Empire in the world—a partnership in that Empire in the greatest day of its glory."

"Beaverbrook suggests that we should withdraw from Ireland. I think I shall have to go for him in the House. I don't believe that the British people would tolerate such pusillanimous conduct!"

"The League of Nations is the greatest humbug in history. They cannot even protect a little nation like Armenia. They do nothing but pass useless resolutions."

"[Lloyd George] said that Harding's speech on American naval aspirations made him feel that he would pawn his shirt rather than allow America to dominate the seas. If this was to be the outcome of the League of Nations propaganda, he was sorry for the world and in particular for America."

"The question is whether the people of this country are prepared to go on for twelve months... I see no alternative but to fight it out... A republic at our doors is unthinkable."

"[Lloyd George] then went on to say that the Imperial Conference had had a meeting that morning, and that he, Smuts, Hughes and Massey did not intend to allow the British Empire to take a back seat. Gt Britain had won the war. She had made enormous sacrifices in men and money, and they were quite determined that she should not be overshadowed by America."

"The B[ritish] E[mpire] is a sisterhood of nations—the greatest in the world. Look at this table: There sits Africa—English and Boer; there sits Canada—French, Scotch & English; there sits Australia, representing many races—even Maoris; there sits India; here sit the representatives of England, Scotland & Wales; all we ask you to do is to take your place in this sisterhood of free nations. It is an invitation, Mr. De Valera: we invite you here."

"[Lloyd George] saw [Eamon de Valera] again on Friday [15 July]... He (DeV.) insisted that what the people of Ireland wanted was a republic, & asked [Lloyd George] if the name of republic could not be conceded at any rate. [Lloyd George] replied that that was just what they cold not have—that the people of this country would not tolerate it after all that had happened. 'There must be some other word', said [Lloyd George]. 'After all, it is not an Irish word. What is the word for republic in Irish?' 'Poblacht', was DeV.'s reply. 'That merely means "people",' said [Lloyd George]. 'Isn't there another word?' 'Saorstaat', said DeV. 'Very well', said [Lloyd George]. 'Why do you insist upon Republic? Saorstaat is good enough!' [Lloyd George] said that for the first time DeV. simply roared with laughter."

"[Lloyd George] had a not too satisfactory interview with Eamon de Valera] yesterday. ... After DeV. had read the terms he told [Lloyd George] he could not advise his people to accept them. 'Very well, Mr. DeV.', was [Lloyd George]'s answer, 'then there is only one thing more left for us to discuss'. 'What is that?', asked DeV. 'The time for the truce to come to an end', said [Lloyd George]. [Lloyd George] says DeV. went perfectly white, and had difficulty controlling his agitation. ... [Lloyd George] says that if they refuse there is only one thing to be done—to reconquer Ireland."

"When trade is slack, you paint your factory and get it ready for new business. That is what we ought to be doing."

"I am not going to bind myself to the cart-tail of a lot of capitalists. It may be unpleasant to take the money of one plutocrat in exchange for an honour, but when all is said, nothing very serious happens. Whereas if a political party is financed by great trade interests, who want something for their money, the result is certain to be very serious, as no public question would be considered on its merits."

"I shall make it quite plain that if there is to be an enquiry, it will have to begin with Lord Salisbury's administration, or at any rate with Arthur Balfour's. ... I don't defend the system, but I have done merely what other Prime Ministers have done, and I am going to make it clear that if I am going down, I am going to bring the temple down with me. I am not going to be sacrificed by people and the descendants of people who have been engaged in carrying on precisely the same system."

"The position is most serious... You say that the country will not stand for a fresh war. I disagree. The country will willingly support our action regarding the Straits by force of arms if need be."

"He is the best living embodiment of the Liberal doctrine that quality is not hereditary."

"It is always a mistake to threaten unless you mean it, and it is because not merely we threatened, but we meant it, and the Turks knew that we meant it, that you have peace now."

"I have had many friends—Conservatives, Liberals, yes, and multitudes of those who hold no attachment to any party. I cast myself on the people whose cause I have never betrayed during the thirty-two years of a strenuous public life. They are a just and generous people, and to those who have done their best to render them service, and I claim to have rendered them service, they will see fair play. I am not afraid of the future."

"I have never concealed...that my sympathies were always democratic and progressive... [M]y upbringing, my sympathy, my whole bent of mind is democratic... I was concerned for the difficulties of this land, education for the people, housing difficulties, disarmament, peace with Ireland, liberty to Irishmen, and more liberty in India. These are not things that sound well in Mayfair, and they do not make especial appeal to Belgravia. And the revolt began. You have only got to follow out what I have said, and you will see the revolt began there."

"This reactionary mutiny, which culminated at the Carlton Club this week, if it received a majority of the votes of this country...whatever they may say before the election, they will want to carry out their "Diehard" programme. That is what they went out for... I stand where I was—I stand for some sound progress."

"I stand as a Liberal pure and simple... I go for Free Trade pure and simple... If Bonar Law gets a majority we shall have five years of reaction."

"I have been in favour of all men who believe in the principle upon which our prosperity has been built—free, private enterprise—of men who are opposed to revolutionary proposals, and who are equally opposed to reactionary proposals, because, believe me, they are only the reverse of the same medal, acting together for the purpose of bearing the country through the gigantic difficulties which have been left as an inheritance by the war."

"They have got rid of me for a time...but it will only be for a time. I am out to fight in exactly the same cause to which I have consecrated my strength during the whole of my life—the cause of the people, the downtrodden and the oppressed. I hope that the people will stand with me in fighting the great battle of liberty and progress."

"In the war we had got out of the danger of the military spirit in Europe trampling upon human liberty, and were now confronted with a menace from inside our own country—such a menace as had destroyed Russia. That menace was an attack upon the very life-blood of Britain, and unless it was arrested at the start, the whole fabric of the commerce, trade, and prosperity of this country would come down and Britain the mighty, whose name ringed round the earth, would become a poor thing."

"I am against class government, whether it is high or low. You have one party today that puts class first; there is another that puts party first, and there is not a pin to choose between them. Let us put the country first. Reaction is as dangerous as revolution because it leads to revolution."

"When you are out on a voyage, the tranquillity does not depend upon the ship, but upon the sea... It is not a policy, it is a yawn."

"Avoid the extremists and Socialists, but do let us avoid the extreme of "standstillism." You want a strong group of independent men, freed from party ties, strong enough to insist on a steady middle course, free from all extremes. Pursue the steady middle course."

"[I appeal to Labour supporters] to vote against themselves; it will be the greatest service to their class in getting their minds away from false ideals. Russia is a wreck. For God's sake do not let us do the same thing in this country."

"There is no British minister who has ever devoted so much energy, made more liberal provision for the misfortunes of the wage-earning class than I have done."

"The issue was whether they were going to maintain our present economic structure, with improvements ameliorating its asperities gradually and cautiously, or whether they were going to pull the whole thing down, to put the whole of our commerce and industry into the melting-pot, at a moment when everything depended on credit and confidence, and absolutely destroy these things by committing the country to a wild series of proposals. Put compendiously, the proposal of the Labour Party was, "The nation is suffering from lack of capital; let us take what there is." (Laughter.) The old idea of bleeding a patient, abandoned by the medical profession, was taken up by the Labour Party. Even the doctors never bled a patient who was suffering from anaemia, yet that was what the Labour Party proposed. It was the stupidest programme ever put before the electorate."

"I prefer to call them [Labour] the Socialist Party, because I consider we are a better Labour Party than they are. I don't believe their programme is to the interests of Labour, but to its detriment."

"Asquith and his party have no positive policy, no fighting policy. That came out at the election. But for the Liberal party a fighting policy is essential... The real ground of attack is the Land. On that the Tories would be bound to make a stand and you would have a real battle with an unanswerable case."

"The British interests in the straits are supreme and it seems to me they are being given away for a frog-pie. I prefer the good old British beef!"

"Of all the bigotries that savage the human temper there is none so stupid as the anti-Semitic. It has no basis in reason; it is not rooted in faith; it aspires to no ideal; it is just one of those dank and unwholesome weeds that grow in the morass of racial hatred."

"There is a growing feeling among the masses of the people that what they regard as the "comfortable" classes have not been in a great hurry to rescue the under dog... You have got this enormous electorate behind asking "What are you going to do?" If Liberalism won't do it they will find their instrument. They are finding it. While we are slinging poisoned arrows at each other Labour is walking off with the ark of the covenant."

"The mission of Liberalism is to hurry up redress. "Sunshine for your grandchildren" is a bad electoral programme. People want to feel and see the light and warmth before their lives are past, and they mean to have what they want. If Liberalism cannot supply it they will get it from some other party."

"They may criticise my Government as much as they like, but as long as we were in office we prevented the Turks from going to Constantinople, the French from going into the Ruhr, and the American hand from coming into our till. Now they have all got there."

"I have come here just to give my view of the task of Liberalism... I put it in one simple sentence, "Fair play for the under dog"."

"There must be a greater co-partnership between Capital and Labour if you are to get the best out of both."

"Capital has been made for man, and not man for Capital."

"Slums must be eliminated. They ought to have no place in modern civilisation. They are an eyesore, a corruption. They putrefy and poison the air. A great Empire like ours ought to be too proud to have them among us, and therefore I put that amongst the first duties of Liberalism—to have a housing policy which will not merely complete the deficiency in the number of houses which are available, but which will eradicate slumdom out of British civilisation, and in order to do that we have to take a bold step forward and to run risks which in the end will be the salvation of the people of this country."

"We have the most fertile soil in Europe. In spite of that, there is not a civilised country in Europe that makes as little use of its land for enriching the people as Great Britain... [T]he first duty of Liberalism is to undertake the task of so reforming our land system that the inheritance of the people in the soil should be utilised for the benefit of the people to the fullest extent."

"The brains of the people are the most productive of all soils, and cultivated very unequally... There is more class favouritism here than in almost anything... A highly educated community is a community that enriches the whole of the land... One of the things that Liberalism has to see to is that education, opportunities and facilities for the development of the brain and intellect of the best should be without regard to their origin."

"We are wasting our Empire. It is the richest Empire in the world...but it is an undeveloped Empire... There is no party that has such interest in developing the Empire as the Liberal Party. The strength and unity of the Empire were due to Liberal ideals. But for Liberalism there would have been no Empire... The British Empire stands in the world for peace, for right, for freedom, for fair play. It is the great fair-play Empire of the world... It ought to be the special task of Liberalism to make this Empire stronger, and stronger, and stronger, because it is the hope of mankind today."

"As far as I can see, it is the only Empire that takes risks for humanity. There are men who fight for the flag, and rightly should do it for their national interest, but this is the one Empire that goes out armed for right, for freedom. It is the interest of Liberalism to make it strong. That I put as one of the chief items of any Liberal policy I would have anything to do with."

"The other dangers are from Socialism and Fascism. The menace of the latter is not an obvious one, but it is a very real one. You just look at the newspapers which practically created the present Government. You listen to the whispers that are going on—the admiration for Fascism, for its leadership, for its policy, the sort of hint that this is the way, that Signor Mussolini has shown the path for us here, not by concessions, not by giving way to the working classes, but by force—in the words of Signor Mussolini, "The people are tired of liberty." Are they? If they are, then God help them, and their children will live to regret it. There is nothing which is worth selling your freedom for."

"If you want to know what Socialism is, I think you can get it for 1½d.—a copy of that legislation which is known as "Dora"—a most severe and repellent lady, and we are well rid of her."

"Nothing struck me so much in the war as the disappearance of the individual, of the human being... I saw what the State machine was, that it destroyed the individual, absorbed him to itself, and I said, "Give me Liberty." That is what a complete Socialistic State would mean, once you carried it out. That is why I am a Liberal and not a Socialist. Socialism would enslave labour. For its own benefit, its own advantage, Socialism would in the end enslave labour. Liberalism has made labour free, and it is its business to preserve the freedom of labour."

"Luckily, you have Britain up to its armpits in salt water, and therefore alone remaining cool."

"The white sheet of repentance is a very poor substitute for a mainsail."

"You do not deal with these evils by saying, "Let us unite together and fight Socialism". This a poor, sorry, sterile and selfish policy."

"Industrial countries are...engaged in improving their machinery, in order to save labour and increase production... The moment peace is restored in Europe, and the exchanges are stabilised...[y]ou will then be face to face with the real rivalry and the competition... I fear that the period of depression is going to be prolonged... we are in for a long period of depression such as we have not seen in our lifetime."

"The French would never have dared to do what they have done had it not been for the fall of the Coalition."

"He had always felt that they thought that in him they had a kindred spirit. That was true. Their great men were the men he admired; some of their greatest men were the men from whom he had drawn inspiration, notably Abraham Lincoln. The next day he was to start on a journey to see a country which he regarded as the great miracle of the West, where man had risen from the dead past to a new hope."

"I think it is an insult to the intelligence of the nation to feed starving industries with the mildewed straw of last century, out of which, so far as I can see, every grain of statesmanship has been beaten."

"Liberalism stands for the safe middle course."

"The hope of the future would be found in a party of sane progress. The present danger was to identify progress with the Socialist Party... It was important, therefore, that they had revived a party which represented sound, sensible, rational progress."

"It was a dire alternative for a country to have a choice between tariff reform, which destroyed its industries, and Socialism and Communism, which destroyed the whole fabric upon which prosperity was based... It amounted to a choice of which they were going to cut—the carotid artery of foreign trade or the jugular vein of capital."

"In this election we have killed Protection and destroyed reaction. It now remains to us to make sure that at the next election, which cannot be long delayed, we shall put before the people a programme of well-considered and soundly-constructed social reform which shall kill the crudities of Socialism."

"The Western skies are already black with the flight of capital seeking safety beyond the Atlantic. The fright is real. There has been nothing like it since horror filled the streets of Rome at the approach of Attila."

"He repeated the view...that the only possible course, under present conditions, for the Liberal party was to back the Labour party whole-heartedly to the full extent open to it, and in concert with it to reap a full harvest of Radical reform."

"The cant of it was nauseating. Even the petrol fumes of the quenched revolutionary torch will serve our nostrils well by cleansing the air of the sickening incense burnt by those departed worshippers of their own image."

"My right hon. Friend says she [Germany] is in such a condition that she cannot possibly pay [reparations]. No, she cannot pay us. She is to pay France in full. Everything goes to France, everything goes to Italy, everything goes to Belgium; but, forsooth, she has not the capacity to pay Great Britain. I object. We were equal in the sacrifices we had to make, and I think it is about time that someone should stand up for the rights of Great Britain."

"It was a treaty which might have been signed by a vanquished Power as far as British interests were concerned."

"A far-seeing manufacturer utilizes periods of slackness to repair his machinery, to re-equip his workshop, and generally to put his factory in order; so that when prosperity comes he will be in as good a position as his keenest competitor to take advantage of the boom. I suggest that the nation ought to follow that wise example, and that this is the time to do so. Let us overhaul our national equipment in all directions—men and material—so as to be ready...to meet any rival on equal or better terms in the markets of the world."

"We are not taking full advantage of the assets at our command. Capital and labour are alike strangled by vested prejudices and traditions. Both are capable of producing infinitely more wealth for the benefit of the community than they are now creating. It is of no avail to spend time on distribution if production lags behind the common need. The best means of achieving production seems to be the most urgent task of our industrial and political leaders at this hour."

"The question was whether the Liberal Party was going to be merely a political party which is "the Keeper of the Doctrines." Its sole business would be to see that no man should stray. It would become purely a political sect, strictly, sternly, severely, painfully orthodox, and painfully select. If that was to be its rôle it would dwindle from generation to generation and decade to decade, until it would only have representation amongst the more tenacious races, to one of which he belonged."

"If Toryism stands alone, fighting the extremists of the Socialist Party, it will not be long before the existing order is overthrown."

"Before they [Labour] came in unemployment was gradually improving year by year. Since they have been in it has gone up. Before they came in the cost of living was going down. It has gone up. Since they came in the number of houses that had been built for the workmen had gone down and their cost gone up. Before they came in the export trade of this country was gradually but steadily improving. Have you seen the last returns? They are going down. If this is what Mr. Ramsay MacDonald means by a Labour success, Heaven save this country any more Socialist triumphs."

"The time has come for Liberalism to resume the leadership of progress—to lead away the masses from the chimeras of Karl Marx and the nightmares of Lenin, and to carry on the great task to which Gladstone and Bright devoted their noble lives."

"[The Labour government] flung away the opportunity. They flung away a Heaven-given opening. What for? Not in order to emancipate the land, not in order to find work for the unemployed, not in order to build homes for the houseless, but in order to commit the taxation of this country to a gigantic loan to a number of fanatical visionaries who are ruining the great land of Russia."

"This is a Government of to-morrow. ... It is all swagger and pose, and no action. Let it be done. No, he cannot do it, he is too busy doing other things. Russia must come first. No time to carry schemes for the unemployed, no time to deal with profiteering in food and in materials for building. ... Yet there was time for a Russian loan. Moscow first, and Camberwell afterwards."

"Toryism would confiscate, in the interests of a private monopoly, the produce of the industry, the toil, the capital, the risk and the effort of others. Socialism would also confiscate, in the interests of a State monopoly, the efforts of the individual. Liberalism stands for a free opportunity for the individual to do the best for himself and the nation."

"Britain is Liberal; Britain is not Tory; Britain is not Socialist; Britain is not standstill; Britain is not revolutionary; Britain is sanely progressive. It means to go on, but not to go over. Therefore the temper of Britain is Liberal."

"If you scratch a Conservative, you find a Fascist."

"The one thing this country would not stand from a Tory Government was Toryism."

"Socialism means the community in bonds. If you establish a Socialist community it means the most comprehensive, universal, and pervasive tyranny that this country has ever seen, the flaw that enters into everything in all the relations of life. It is like the sand of the desert. It gets into your food, your clothes, your machinery, the very air you breathe. They are all gritty with regulations, orders, decrees, rules. That is what Socialism means. You cannot trust liberty to Socialism. The only hope of liberty is in Liberalism, for Liberalism alone believes in it."

"The world year by year is spinning rapidly away from that evil environment and the frenzy, carnage, and savagery. The firmament is clearing. The springtime of Liberalism is at hand, and with due labour we shall reap the harvest in season."

"It is no use simply saying, "Little children, love one another," if one set of children can get nearly all the toffee and the others have very little."

"Honestly, I cannot see how you are going to overcome these factors unless there is some determination by the nation as a whole to grip the problem and face it and deal with it as we dealt with the problems of the War, with courage, with initiative and, above all, without fear of departing from the ordinary channels. The thing that saved us in the War was that we were not afraid of doing something that had never been done before, and you will never get away from it... Honestly, if I had been there another three years, I should have learned something new. I am sick of this slavish adhesion to the Coalition policy."

"The action of the Government which had had the most disastrous effect on British trade was their premature and precipitate restoration of the gold standard before our credit was ripe for that departure. It had made sterling dearer and thus artificially put up the price of British goods in the neutral markets, where we were already competing on very narrow margins with our trade rivals. At this very hour coalowners and miners had been driven to the brink of a yawning chasm of strife, largely through this deed of egregious recklessness by the Chancellor of the Exchequer."

"The [Conservative] Government seemed hopeless and confused and without purpose... Unfortunately, the men who ought to be awake were slumbering, and in their dreams they babbled incoherencies about good will and subsidies... There had never been a more pitiful exhibition than that made by the Prime Minister in the debate on unemployment."

"This is a Vote to spend £58,000,000 in protection of our trade routes. Our trade routes are in danger, but they are not in danger from navies. ... They are not naval, they are not military, they are not aerial; they are industrial, and the First Lord of the Admiralty has within the last few days been brought face to face with far and away the greatest danger to our trade routes. It is not in the Pacific; it is at home. It is no use sweeping the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean in order to see whether you can somehow or other find dangers to guard against. The danger is yawning in front of us, and the Government are marching into it, scanning the horizon with telescope glued to one eye, and the other closed."

"Quite frankly, the Government were afraid of facing cold steel... The Home Secretary has been delivering a great many speeches recently about the Red peril. It really is no use barking at the Red Flag every time it cracks in the wind, whilst his chief is engaged in humbly gliding the flag staff—and with standard gold. Really it is very sad to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer assisting in that operation. He was very eager to fight the Reds on the Volga. I am very sorry to see him running away from them on the Thames and leaving his purse behind."

"At the last Election hon. Members opposite were very gallantly fighting against the flaming apostles of Zinovieff and beating them badly. To-night they are being herded into the Red Lobby. The hand that directs them will be the hand of the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury, but the voice that compels them is the voice of Mr. Cook."

"Russia can play the fool and survive because no Government can destroy her natural resources, but if you have the anarchy which Bolshevism and revolution brings in this country, we shall be inevitably ruined."

"I know the expense of this would not pay 1 per cent. interest. Perhaps not, but it would pay better than doles to rot men in idleness, and their work would leave the national estate for ever richer. On every account the best exchange for the workless is an exchange of the green doors of the Labour Bureau for the green fields of Britain."

"If it is right that the State should resume its authority over the land for the purposes of burying the dead, it is surely also right that it should exercise its ownership where it is necessary it should do so to feed the living."

"This is not the time to add one torch to the flame of discontent in this land. I speak with solemnity, watching what is going on in the industrial centres. For Heaven's sake, do not let us drive the farm labourer into the ranks of those in rebellion against society."

"Restore the village life of England to its original brilliancy and glory. Every labourer should have half an acre as a right."

"I appeal that these proposals should be examined, and, if found to be wise, adopted and carried out in that spirit of high and fearless patriotism and resolution which lifted this nation to such heights of endeavour and success but seven years ago."

"Many Liberals who voted Conservative at the last General Election thought the country was in danger from Communism. But the greatest danger from Communism is that we should mismanage our affairs and that we will end in bankruptcy. I am not afraid of Communist orators or leaflets. I am not even afraid of the Russian subsidies to them; but I am afraid of such a muddle of our affairs that the working classes in despair will take anything."

"Until we have disarmament in Europe, no treaties will avail to prevent war. The temptation would be too great. If there is one Power with overwhelming force where its claims can be established easily and readily, the temptation will be to resort to the battlefield and not to the court of arbitration. It is therefore vital that there should be disarmament."

"This is a direct attack on one class in the community, and that the largest, and the class that can least afford it."

"We are met together this afternoon under the shadow of a grave industrial conflict of unknown magnitude. Apart altogether from the merits of the dispute, every citizen will feel it his duty to support the Government of to-day in the maintenance of order and in the organizing and facilitating of the essential services of the nation. (Cheers.) The country must come first always and all the time. It is very deplorable and all the more deplorable because in my honest judgment it was unnecessary."

"There is no revolutionary purpose animating the union leaders, who are now in charge... The whole influence of the strike leaders will be exerted in the interests of law and order. Let us trust that a settlement will be reached whilst calm and restraint are being maintained on both sides. There are grave risks in the whole situation. I put my faith on British coolness and in the British Parliament."

"I...cannot see my way to join in declarations which condemn the General Strike while refraining from criticism of the Government, who are equally, if not more, responsible... I prefer the Liberal policy of trusting to conciliation rather than to force."

"I was convinced that the general strike had no revolutionary purpose and that it was not designed to overthrow our institutions, although if persevered in...it might have had that effect. But its aim was entirely to express sympathy and give support to men in another union who were fighting to maintain a standard of life which was certainly not too high for men engaged in so dangerous and often so deadly a trade. However much I disapprove of this weapon, I could not work myself to a pitch of righteous anger against men who, however mistakenly, however unwisely, however wrongly, were acting from no selfish or destructive impulse, but were risking their own livelihood to help their comrades in a desperate plight."

"I was walking peacefully along my path when suddenly I was assailed by an angry bull of excommunication."

"But they say they cannot put up any longer with me as a colleague. It is a serious thing to split the Liberal Party on whether I am a more attractive colleague than Mr. Pringle. Why am I not? ... I tell you what it is. It is my instability. Now that is an old charge that has always been brought against any man who is alive. It is only the stick-in-the-muds that are stable."

"I see the carrying of [Irish] Home Rule is ascribed to others. I cannot allow that. Home Rule was put through by me entirely, and I don't mind telling you that I sacrificed my Premiership to carrying through Home Rule."

"There is only one question of principle, and upon that I stand, and that is if they mean to drum a man out of the Liberal Party because he has erred on the side of conciliation with millions of British workmen in a great dispute, on that proposition I fight right through to the end."

"The inequalities of society at the present moment were far too great to continue. There were certain essentials to material well-being that every man, woman, and child was entitled to... He regarded as the minima: adequate food, raiment, air, shelter, light—he meant the light of Heaven—to maintain a healthy existence—sound education...reasonable leisure for recreation, for enjoyment, and culture. This country could afford to supply them to all its citizens."

"What was the use of talking about freedom if they had millions of people tethered to slums?"

"There was something fundamentally wrong with our economic system. It was based upon injustice and could not last."

"If we had been as ready in 1924 with definite concrete proposals as we are today, we could have gone to the Labour Party and said: "Here are our proposals with regard to the land, electricity, and the mines, and the condition of our support is that you should deal with them." We should have now been in the third year of carrying out a great programme of social reform instead of being in the horrible muddle we are in at the present moment. Are we going to get another chance? I think we are."

"No. A Liberal I was born and a Liberal I die. I will not join Labour."

"The Chinese were highly civilised when the ancient Britons, to whom he belonged, were barbarian. This was an old, enlightened, and vast community of hard-working people, yet they were deprived of rights enjoyed by some of the smallest nations in the world that only a few centuries ago emerged from savagery."

"He...burst into an enthusiastic defence of the system of raising Party funds by the sale of honours. "You and I," he said, "know perfectly well it is a far cleaner method of filling the Party chest than the methods used in the United States or the Socialist Party." He complained that the Socialist Party was a trade union party solely because of the power of the trade unions to withhold funds. "In America the steel trusts supported one political party, and the cotton people supported another. This placed political parties under the domination of great financial interests and trusts." "Here," said Mr. Lloyd George, "a man gives £40,000 to the Party and gets a baronetcy. If he comes to the Leader of the Party and says I subscribe largely to the Party funds, you must do this or that, we can tell him to go to the devil. The attachment of the brewers to the Conservative Party was the closest approach," said Mr. Lloyd George, "to political corruption in this country. The worst of it is that you cannot defend it in public, but it keeps politics far cleaner than any other method of raising funds.""

"What is the trouble in Europe today? Immediately after the War the danger was Communism. The danger today is an aggressive nationalism. It is the trouble which you get in Italy and South-Eastern Europe. It is the trouble which you get in the Balkans. It is the trouble which you have got on the Eastern Frontier of Germany, where there is a much more powerful party than the Communist party in favour of aggressive action. That is the trouble today, and into this troubled Europe...you throw this stone, this bone of contention. It is a leap in the dark and a leap into a whirlpool."

"It was an old struggle that Liberalism stood for. There was the great battle of Naseby when that great Liberal leader Oliver Cromwell planted the standard of liberty, fought a very good by-election for liberty, and won."

"As long as you have these huge armaments in the world, arbitration and conciliation will be made quite impossible, and that is common sense, because if you have a nation that has got overwhelming power behind it, it is intolerant, it is impatient of argument and of conference. That is really what led very largely to the Great War."

"We are not in the moral position to enforce disarmament in Europe until we cut down our own expenditure at home... I say, quite frankly, that we must take the same risks for peace as we took for war. You must take some risks. Personally, I do not see where the risks are. I do not see an enemy on the horizon. These enemies do not develop very suddenly. They develop over a whole course of years; but I do not see where the enemy is now."

"I am making no predictions and the Prime Minister is wise in taking that line, but I am perfectly certain that nothing will enable the German Empire for a generation or two to get anywhere near the same position of dominant force and menace that it was in before the War. I do not say they desire it—I do not believe there is any such desire in Germany at the present moment."

"I have come all this distance and am prepared to face thousands of miners in the rain and to say I have done more for them than any of the Labour Party."

"Liberty is not merely a privilege to be conferred; it is a habit to be acquired."

"Liberty has restraints but no frontiers."

"Sincerity is the surest road to confidence."

"A great party is not an errand boy to fetch and carry little parcels in one interest here, a class there, a section somewhere else. It is a great army carrying on behind the pillar of fire that leads the nation to the Promised Land."

"The continued occupation of the Rhineland after the Germans had carried out their obligations was an infringement of a solemn treaty. Germany had carried out in letter and in spirit the whole of her engagements with regard to disarmament. What had the Allies done? Nothing... The Anglo-French Pact was the most sinister event since the War."

"Germany has carried out her obligations. She was to reduce her army to 100,000. She was to scrap her great artillery and all her machinery of war. ... Germany had carried out her obligations. That was over three years ago. What have we done? What have the Allies done to carry out that obligation? ... Disarmament is the only guarantee of safety. ... Germany is demanding, and rightly demanding, that we should now carry out our obligations, seeing that she has carried out her's. ... The whole of the British Empire signed that bond, every part of it. When it is asked to carry it out, what is it to say? Is it to say, "We are treating you exactly as we are treating France—you with your army of 100,000 and France with her army of millions"? Is the British Empire to say, "We are treating you impartially and fairly"? Shall Caesar send a lie?"

"If it is not reserved for me to lead the people for whom I have fought all my life to the promised land, I shall feel a pang of disappointment."

"If the nation entrusts the Liberal Party at the next General Election with the responsibilities of Government, we are ready with schemes of work which we can put immediately into operation—work of a kind which is not merely useful in itself, but essential to the well-being of the nation. The work put in hand will reduce the terrible figures of the workless in the course of a single year to normal proportions, and will, when completed, enrich the nation and equip it for successfully competing with all its rivals in the business of the world. These plans will not add one penny to national or local taxation. It will require a great and sustained effort to redeem this pledge, but some of us sitting at this table have succeeded in putting through even greater and more difficult tasks when the interests of the nation were involved."

"The Labour Party cannot make up its mind whether to treat the Liberal plan as a freak or to claim its paternity. Mr. Thomas has said it is an absurd abortion, but Mr. Henderson says it is the child of the Labour Party. Mr. MacDonald, as usual tries to have it both ways. He says—often in the same speech—"This is a stunted thing." Then looking at it fondly, he says, "This is my child.""

"There happened to be a very severe winter on the Continent of Europe. Frost destroyed all their cabbages. The Germans found their broccoli withered, and they began to think of some more equable climate. They heard that in Cornwall broccoli still grew, so they ordered a few. (Laughter.) So the Prime Minister says: 'Trade is reviving.' (Laughter.) The next thing he said was, 'Negroes are beginning to take to bicycles'. What a programme! A few hampers of broccoli for frost-bitten Germans, a consignment of push-bicycles for enterprising niggers, and keeping down the wages of the British workmen. (Laughter.) There was a popular song, "Wait till the Clouds Roll By". That seemed to be Mr. Baldwin's election song."

"Europe and the world are spending hundreds of millions perfecting the mechanism of slaughter. Pacts of peace, covenants, treaties galore, all fixed on bayonets, and the biting steel is gleaming through it. Women must put an end to that... You cannot trust men altogether, not where fighting is concerned... The woman is the maker of peace."

"Mr. MacDonald...said I promised to make this a land fit for heroes. I ask Mr. MacDonald if he will point out the place, time, and occasion when I promised to make this a land fit for heroes. I say quite frankly that I may have my defects, but I am no braggard. If I boasted I was going to make this a land fit for heroes I would be a sheer blusterer. No one man can do that and I never promised it. What I did do, speaking after the War, on a purely non-political occasion at Wolverhampton, where there were Labour, Conservative, and Liberal adherents, was to refer to the great heroism of our troops and say, "Let us all do our best to make this a land fit for heroes to live in." That was not a pledge I gave; it was an appeal."

"He taunted me because I said that the proposals were not sufficiently bold. Bold! They are timid, pusillanimous and unintelligent."

"What were those practical difficulties? The first was that never in the history of India had India or any part of it, any of its many peoples and nations, ever enjoyed the slightest measure of democratic self-government until 1919. The second is that 95 per cent. of the population is illiterate. What is the third? That there are as many different races, nationalities and languages in India as there are in the whole of Europe. To talk about India as a unit, as if it were one people, is to display an ignorance of the elementary facts of the case. There has never been unity in India except under the rule of a conqueror."

"It is an incredibly bad Bill. It is really an incredible Bill at all for the Labour Government to have introduced. It contains, in my judgment, the worst features of Socialism and individualism without the redeeming features of either. It is State interference without State protection. It has all the greed of individualism without any of the stimulus of competition... The Bill is a complete surrender to one interest—a complete surrender—without regard to the general interest of the community."

"All taxation must be a tax upon industry."

"In this Parliament you have the Labour Government with millions of the working population of the country behind it. If this Parliament fails—and unless some strong and energetic action is taken it must fail—then Parliament itself will be discredited among the whole of the working population of this country. They will not believe any longer in the old inadequate windmill set up by Simon de Montfort to mill the corn for the people, and they may be incited to do their own milling in their own way."

"Whatever the Government undertake, let them undertake it boldly, like men who believe in it. It is no use doing little things in a big situation. When you have got a big emergency you must have big remedies applied with a great spirit of enterprise, with daring, with all the qualities that have made this country great. If the Government do that, I do not care what Government they are—Liberal, Conservative, Labour, or what not—I am for my country every time, and I stand up for it."

"Are you going to land in the sleepy hollow of Baldwinism or in the quagmire of protection?"

"We have had two Baldwin Governments... The mischief they have done not merely remains, but continues to spread. That terrible debt settlement—we are only now beginning to realise what it means. We were lassoed fast to American finance. What is the result? We have been dragged over the course by the wild horses of Wall Street. That gold standard settlement—premature, ill thought out. (A voice.—"No.") My friend there will never go into the new Jerusalem unless he is quite sure the golden gates are there and that the streets are really paved with the gold standard. (Laughter.) It is rather a mockery for our export trade to be kicked down the ladder, even with golden slippers. (Laughter.)"

"The prospect of Liberalism is a prospect of enduring service of a high order for the nation and for this generation. Office, power, and emoluments are not everything for a party. If they were, then faith would be a vain thing indeed for multitudes of men and women. When the history of these times comes to be written it will be recorded that in these days Liberalism stood between Britain and irretrievable blunder; that, but for Liberalism, this great country would have been consigned to the degradation of that most selfish and sordid aspect of nationalism which is represented by the haggling, grasping, clawing of tariffs. That, I think, we should be able with wisdom to save the nation from."

"The influence of Liberalism is not merely restraining. It will be recorded how, even in the days of its discomfiture, the Liberal Party undertook the surveying and prospecting of the surest paths to further progress; how it pointed these paths out to the nation and encouraged the Government boldly to tread them."

"I want to urge him again not to be too frightened of the City of London. Since the War the City of London has been invariably wrong in advising the Government, not merely in the advice which it gave us, and the advice which it gave to the late Government, but in the advice it is giving now. ... [D]o not let the Government run away the moment a few volleys are fired from the City of London. It may save them trouble for a short time but no progressive Government can survive long under the protection of the white flag."

"If I am to die, I would rather die fighting on the left."

"Upon their casting vote depends the question whether Britain is to continue its honourable career as a pioneer in the path of human progress which, on the whole, it has pursued so nobly for generations, or whether it is in one leap to spring backward over 80 years and place itself on a level with the protectionist countries of the Continent of Europe, with their low wages, taxed food, fettered industries, and policy of international antagonisms, which interfere with prosperity and imperil the peace of the world. ... Free trade is at issue. ... I appeal fervently to Liberals not to walk straight into this booby trap set for them by the protectionists merely because it is decorated by the Union Jack."

"[Lloyd George] said they [the British] would have to make up their minds whether they were going to give the Indians what they wanted, or handle the situation. The trouble was that, although the Englishman talked about handling things, when the Government tackled the question the nation got up in arms about the methods, which would have to be like the Black and Tans in Ireland. In that case anyone could come along and shoot a defenceless officer in bed, or his wife, but immediately the assassin was hounded out there was a hue and cry from some of our own people. There was a curious sentiment in the English."

"Our more serious devastation was invisible—the shattering of our export trade through our being cut off for over four years from our normal overseas markets. We were the largest international traders in the world and were, therefore, more vulnerable in this respect than any other country. Our customers had been driven either to secure their supplies from rival sources or to start manufacturing for themselves. Indeed, our export trade has never recovered from the War, as the derelict factories of our industrial districts bear melancholy witness. While world trade had by 1927 risen to 120 per cent of the pre-war level, British export trade was only 83 per cent of its pre-war height. That is our real devastated area."

"When one recalls the lessons of 1814, 1870 and 1914-18 it is not to be wondered at that those who dwell within daily sight of the scars due to the tearing wounds inflicted by Teutonic hands on their living land should have a natural apprehension lest the same calamities should befall again. Stripped of some of its richest provinces, Germany has still a population 50 per cent above that of France. The German is industrious, intelligent and resourceful, and although he is poor to-day such qualities soon make riches. He will therefore, so Frenchmen realise, once more become a formidable menace. The Teuton is on the French nerves. This accounts for the anxiety to keep him chained by Treaties, impoverished by levies, and overawed by armaments."

"[L]et us meanwhile do something for our country, and not always be looking forward to something happening just round the corner. Do not let this country be like that Pompeian slave just discovered in Italy who was found among the ruins clutching the leather bag of his savings. Utilise them!"

"Death is the most convenient time to tax rich people."

"All the trouble that had arisen in Europe had come from a flagrant breach of the undertaking to disarm by all the victors except one. ... He knew that there had been horrible atrocities in Germany, and they all deplored and condemned them, but a country passing through a revolution was always liable to ghastly episodes owing to the administration of justice being seized here and there by an infuriated rebel. He was neither a Nazi nor a Fascist nor a Communist. If the Powers succeeded in overthrowing Nazism in Germany, what would follow? Not a Conservative, Socialist or Liberal régime, but extreme Communism. Surely that could not be their objective."

"They condemn him [Adolf Hitler] for persecuting the Jews, but he has not shown half the ferocity which Cromwell showed towards the Irish Catholics—as for instance, in the siege of the fortress of Drogheda and the burning alive of its inmates."

"[Lloyd George] talked of Gladstone, and how he [Lloyd George] had attacked him in his very early days in the House of Commons on the Clergy Discipline Bill. ... When [Lloyd George] went down to Wales afterwards, & the more proper folk reproached him for his attack on Gladstone, he said: 'I give you the same reply that Cromwell gave, "If I meet the King in battle, I will fire my pistol at him".' [Lloyd George] says that he thinks Gladstone as a Churchman had a fundamental dislike for Dissenters. ... 'I admire him, but I never liked him', is [Lloyd George]'s qualifying comment always."

"How do you propose to deal with this twofold problem [of unemployment]? I give exactly the same answer as President Roosevelt gave Congress the other day. I would find work for the workless instead of doles, and I am as convinced as he is that it can be done."

"I propose that where private enterprise has been proved to be palpably unable, under present conditions...to solve our national difficulties and fulfil our national needs unaided by the State, the administrative and financial resources of the nation as a whole should be made responsible for setting on foot and supporting those developments in town and country which would bring into fruitful activity our undeveloped resources and opportunities."

"[Lloyd George] said the Czar only got his deserts—he had ignored the just pleas of the peasants & had shot them down ruthlessly when they came unarmed to him in 1905."

"I regret very much...that the Government seem to ignore completely one of the most important elements in the defence of the realm, and that is the provision of food. We came nearer to defeat [in the First World War] owing to food shortage than we did from anything else. I cannot understand why, when they are thinking out the whole problem of war and possible dangers, that the greatest danger of all seems to have been left out of account."

"Never have I had such great minds around me—Smuts, Balfour, Bonar Law...and Curzon. Curzon was perhaps not a great man, but he was a supreme Civil Servant. Compared to these men, the front benches of today are pigmies."

"He [Hitler] is a very great man. "Fuhrer" is the proper name for him, for he is a born leader, yes, and statesman."

"Ah, Mein Kampf is a Magna Charta."

"L.G. said that when the earth passed through the tail of a comet it came in contact with a gas which, when it came into the atmosphere of the earth, made everybody doubly happy and feel more kindly and more well disposed. "Upon my oath," said L.G., "I am not at all sure if Hitler has not been that comet in Germany.""

"I have just returned from a visit to Germany. … I have now seen the famous German leader and also something of the great change he has effected. Whatever one may think of his methods — and they are certainly not those of a Parliamentary country — there can be no doubt that he has achieved a marvellous transformation in the spirit of the people, in their attitude towards each other, and in their social and economic outlook. One man has accomplished this miracle. He is a born leader of men. A magnetic dynamic personality with a single-minded purpose, a resolute will, and a dauntless heart. He is the national Leader. He is also securing them against that constant dread of starvation which is one of the most poignant memories of the last years of the war and the first years of the Peace. The establishment of a German hegemony in Europe which was the aim and dream of the old prewar militarism, is not even on the horizon of Nazism."

"He Ramsay MacDonald] had sufficient conscience to bother him, but not sufficient to keep him straight."

"The outlook had become still more threatening since the Pact of Munich. So far from that notorious surrender purchasing appeasement, it had encouraged the dictators to a greater display of insolence. ... Three years ago we discovered that our armaments in essentials for our defence had fallen far behind those of Germany, Italy, and Japan. It was a piece of criminal negligence. ... During the past two years the dictators had, through our lack of foresight, through the gross stupidity of our national leaders, cleverly but relentlessly succeeded in placing the British Empire and France in the most dangerous strategical position which they had ever been situated."

"I still look forward to an awakening in the national spirit of Britain and France which will rouse and inspire democracy throughout the world to a great combined effort to save liberty from utter overthrow in our generation."

"The Treaty of Versailles was not carried out by those who dictated it. A good deal of the trouble was due to that fact. We were dealing with Governments in Germany which were democratic Governments, based on a democratic franchise, with democratic statesmen, and it is because we did not carry out the undertakings we had given to those democratic Governments that Hitler came into power. ... The solid promise that we gave...that if Germany disarmed, we should immediately follow her example, was not carried out, and there is no Government that is more responsible for that than the present National Government which came into power in 1931."

"Hitler is a prodigious genius."

"Anyhow, it is a different situation now to what it was then; Clemenceau had power; I shall wait until Winston is bust."

"[Lloyd George] told me he did not see how we could get successfully through this war..."It is clear that that damn fool Neville [Chamberlain] never gave a thought to that question - whether we would win - when he declared war. I am not against war, but I am against war when we have no chance of winning.""

"Quite frankly, I think Hitler will win. I do not say that Hitler will be able to invade this country. It is a very difficult channel to cross. Lots of people have tried it, including Napoleon...I would not have gone to war without having Russia on our side. It was an idiotic thing to do."

"Y Gwir Yn Erbyn Y Byd (Welsh: The truth against the world)."

"[T]he rapid march of scientific discovery...made me feel that it was quite within the realm of possibility that one day there might be an invention which would neutralise our [naval] superiority, and reduce us to equality with, if not inferiority to, our neighbours. ... In such an event our position would be one of complete helplessness in the face of an invader with a powerful army. ... We had two fundamental weaknesses in such a contingency. The first was that our army was too insignificant to stand up against the gigantic forces on the Continent. The second was that we were so overwhelmingly dependent upon overseas supplies for our food, that if these were cut off we should, within a few months, be brought to the very verge of starvation. It was this consideration amongst others that always led me to urge that we ought to devote more thought to the development of the resources of British soil."

"In the year 1910 we were beset by an accumulation of grave issues—rapidly becoming graver. ... It was becoming evident to discerning eyes that the Party and Parliamentary system was unequal to coping with them. ... The shadow of unemployment was rising ominously above the horizon. Our international rivals were forging ahead at a great rate and jeopardising our hold on the foreign trade which had contributed to the phenomenal prosperity of the previous half-century, and of which we had made such a muddled and selfish use. Our working population, crushed into dingy and mean streets, with no assurance that they would not be deprived of their daily bread by ill-health or trade fluctuations, were becoming sullen with discontent. Whilst we were growing more dependent on overseas supplies for our food, our soil was gradually going out of cultivation. The life of the countryside was wilting away and we were becoming dangerously over-industrialised. Excessive indulgence in alcoholic drinks was undermining the health and efficiency of a considerable section of the population. The Irish controversy was poisoning our relations with the United States of America. A great Constitutional struggle over the House of Lords threatened revolution at home, another threatened civil war at our doors in Ireland. Great nations were arming feverishly for an apprehended struggle into which we might be drawn by some visible or invisible ties, interests, or sympathies. Were we prepared for all the terrifying contingencies?"

"Britain was the one Power in Europe that had never yet been beaten in a European war. With her immunity from attack, with her immense fleet manned by the most skilful seamen in the world, with her enormous resources, she could be reckoned upon to wear down any Power. Had Britain been able to throw into the scale a well-equipped army of a million men to support her fleet, Germany would have hesitated before she rejected terms of peace and thus brought the British Empire into the conflict on the side of her enemies."

"There were many of us who could hardly believe that those responsible for guiding the destiny of Germany would be so fatuous as deliberately to provoke the hostility of the British Empire with its inexhaustible reserves and with its grim tenacity of purpose once it engaged in a struggle."

"We sat at the green table in the famous [Cabinet] room where so many historic decisions had been taken in the past. It was not then a very well-lighted room, and my recollection is that the lights had not all been turned on, and in the dimness you might imagine the shades of the great British statesmen of the past taking part in a conference which meant so much to the Empire, to the building up of which they had devoted their lives—Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Castlereagh, Canning, Peel, Palmerston, Disraeli, Gladstone. In that simple, unadorned, almost dingy room they also had pondered over the problems which had perplexed their day. But never had they been confronted with so tremendous a decision as that with which British Ministers there faced in these early days of August, 1914."

"The men drawn from that class who attained pre-eminence, like Palmerston, Randolph Churchill, Salisbury and Balfour, threw themselves into the arduous conflicts of politics and fought their way to the top, giving and taking on the way the blows that hammer character."

"Modern warfare, we discovered, was to a far greater extent than ever before a conflict of chemists and manufacturers. Man-power, it is true, was indispensable, and generalship will always, whatever the conditions, have a vital part to play. But troops, however brave and well led, were powerless under modern conditions unless equipped with adequate and up-to-date artillery (with masses of explosive shell), machine-guns, aircraft and other supplies. Against enemy machine-gun posts and wire entanglements the most gallant and best-led men could only throw away their precious lives in successive waves of heroic martyrdom. Their costly sacrifice could avail nothing for the winning of victory."

"It would have been an unspeakable crime to divide the nation when even united it could barely be saved from defeat, so formidable was the foe we had challenged. The Conservatives were led by men of high character and capacity whose patriotism was above suspicion—Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. Balfour, Lord Lansdowne, Sir Edward Carson, and Lord Curzon. Such men were much too high minded to desire electoral victory bought at such a cost to their country. Liberals will admit that their actions throughout the War were dictated by the highest motives of patriotism and that during that period they were willing to sink all Party dealing and rivalries and maintain their opponents in full possession of power so long as that power was wielded in the achievement of victory for their country's banner."

"There was an undoubted advantage from the point of view of national unity in having a Liberal rather than a Tory Government in power when war was declared. There was a further advantage in having a Government at the head of affairs which had the support of Labour. This secured the adhesion of the great Labour organisations whose action and sympathetic aid was essential to its vigorous prosecution. Had Labour been hostile the War could not have been carried on effectively. Had Labour been lukewarm victory would have been secured with increased and increasing difficulty. The most prominent and influential leaders of trade unionism worked for victory throughout the War. Without their help it could not have been achieved. But beyond and above all these considerations, as a factor in the attainment of national unity, was the circumstance that the War had been declared by a party which by tradition and training regarded war with the deepest aversion, and has more especially since the days of Gladstone, Cobden and Bright, regarded itself as specially charged with the promotion of the cause of peace."

"Mr. M'Kenna's administration of the Home Office provoked much dissatisfaction, and not merely on the Unionist benches. His policy towards residents of enemy extraction in this country was thought to be too protective, too indifferent to the dangers which might arise from espionage. The country was all camp and arsenal, and valuable information for the enemy was visible everywhere without speering or spying... Whilst administering the letter of his trust, he showed too clearly that he had no sympathy with its spirit. And the nation was uneasy. Its sons were falling, and information was undoubtedly getting through from the shores of Britain which helped the enemy in the slaughter. Subsequent events proved that intelligence of great value to the enemy percolated to Germany through the agency of persons living unmolested in England under Mr. M'Kenna's indulgent regime. War is a ruthless business and those who wage it cannot afford to be too discriminating. The nation was right in thinking that this was not the time to risk the national security on glib pedantries."

"I felt as I reviewed all the circumstances of the national situation, and realised beyond a shadow of doubt the supreme and vital importance of a proper supply of munitions for our success in the war, and remembered the insistence with which I had urged this upon the Government, that I was in honour bound to accept if the Prime Minister thought I was the man best fitted for this post. I made my decision; and I never had cause to regret it. As I look back today upon the problems which were then presented to me, the extraordinary difficulties that surrounded the work which I took in hand, my own inexperience in that kind of work, the chaos and tangle with which I was confronted, I feel that in many ways the creation of the Ministry of Munitions was the most formidable task I ever undertook."

"I have been a pretty hard worker all my life, from boyhood right up to the present day. But I have never worked harder than during the period when I was carrying through the organisation of our munition supplies—not even during my Premiership, strenuous and arduous as those years were."

"Quite the most difficult problem in regard to labour was that of securing their wholehearted co-operation in the urgent task of munition production—by sticking in the same workshop, keeping good time, working steadily and avoiding strikes; and in particular by consenting to those relaxations of their trade union rules which would make possible an extensive dilution of skilled by unskilled workers, and a considerable use of overtime in cases of emergency."

"One of the most serious obstacles encountered in the way of increasing the output of munitions was the heavy drinking in certain areas. France had dealt drastically with the problem by prohibiting absinthe: Russia by forbidding vodka... It is difficult for us today to realise how seriously excessive drinking contributed to diminish the output. Britain today is a much more sober country than it has ever been in my memory. There is still a good deal of heavy drinking, drunkenness still occurs, and the national health suffers from it, but the sight of a drunken man or woman reeling down the street has grown a rare spectacle, and the consumption of alcohol has fallen off very heavily. The discipline and restriction compelled by the exigencies of the War is largely responsible for this salutary change. This must ever be counted as one of the good things occasionally garnered from things evil. The memory of pre-war conditions is growing fainter, and it is becoming quite hard to remind oneself of the very different state of affairs which too often prevailed then. Cases of drunkenness appearing before the courts were three times as numerous in pre-war years as they are now. The quantity of spirits (alcoholic content) drunk in 1913 was two and a half times what it is today."

"The Allied strategy in France had been a sanguinary mistake which nearly brought us to irretrievable defeat. When it failed the High Commands had no rational alternative to propose. The Allied generals were completely baffled by the decision of the Germans to dig in. They could think of nothing better than the sacrifice of millions of men in a hopeless effort to break through. Even then they had not worked out what mechanical aid was necessary to carry out such an operation, nor had they given any real systematic thought to the methods of providing their armies with the requisite machinery for putting into effect their hazy and crazy plans. How crazy were their ideas at this stage can be ascertained by reading the painful story of a succession of foolish offensives which for years were to mow down the flower of British and French youth by the million in vain efforts to rush machine guns, skilfully concealed and effectively protected. The primary responsibility for success or failure rested with Governments, and they could not shuffle off any part of that responsibility by pleading that they had placed their trust in experts who were obviously unequal to their task."

"I felt a special obligation to see that the men who volunteered to face death for their country's honour, should be equipped with the best their country could provide them with in order to fight its battles, and that the most effective use should be made of their valour in the battlefield. The events of the last few months had shaken any confidence I ever had in the wisdom of military leadership and I was full of apprehension lest the flower of Britain's youth should be mown down through professional rigidity, narrowness and lack of vision."

"Our bane throughout those early periods of the War was the incurable tendency of a number of people in high places to argue that measures vitally necessary for the success of our effort could not, for some reason or other, be taken. Thus we were told that the outside firms could not learn to make munitions; that the finances of the country could not stand the strain of our total effort, that the men needed for our Army could not be spared from industry; that gunners could not be trained to operate our programme of big guns; that the country would not stand conscription; that volunteers would not fight beside pressed men; and so on. Every one of these arguments was falsified by the event. Unhappily, each one of these objections served for a greater or less time to hold up and paralyse the efforts we should have been making to win the War. The advice of these prophets of the impossible cost us months and years of prolonged warfare, and hundreds and thousands of British lives."

"There is no greater mistake than to try to leap an abyss in two jumps."

"War has always been fatal to Liberalism. "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform" have no meaning in war. Moreover, a nation, to make war effectively, must be prepared to surrender individual right and freedom for the time being. If the war is prolonged, that submission becomes a habit. Victory is the triumph of force and not of reason. After every great war there is a period during which belligerent nations incline to divide into two extreme camps—roughly known as revolutionary and reactionary. In that temper Liberalism is at a disadvantage. That is why it is today at a discount throughout Europe. Even in America its doctrines assume the form of a dictatorship. The temporary collapse of the Liberal Party in this country was inevitable from the moment it became responsible for the initiation and conduct of a great war. The instinct of the ordinary Liberal in that respect was sound. The War therefore made him uneasy."

"1914 was a catastrophe for Liberalism. That was unfortunate, but the issues at stake were too big for treatment in terms of party interests. The challenge to international right and freedom was so tremendous that Liberalism—above all Liberalism—could not shirk it."

"By the autumn of 1916 the food position was becoming increasingly alarming and grave, and its handling by the Government was a most conspicuous example of its hesitancies. The increasing shortage of shipping made the food position doubly grave, dependent as we were upon ships for most of our food supplies... On 10th March, 1916, I raised this issue anew by urging on the War Committee that the aim we ought to keep in view in the matter of food supplies was that this country should as far as possible be self-contained. To this end the Board of Agriculture ought to be armed with drastic powers to improve the production of food so as to reduce our dependence on imports. Every possible acre ought to be cultivated against the prospective extension of the submarine campaign. I suggested the utilisation of machinery on a large scale. The plan, however, must be a national one."

"I realised that if the submarine menace were not checked (and there seemed at that moment no expectancy that anything could prevent it from increasing in gravity) the War as far as we were concerned might end in starvation for this country."

"A paralysis of will seemed to have seized the Government. Whatever the subject, it was impossible to get a move on. I am not sure that this palsy did not account for the unanimity of the Cabinet on the question of rejecting overtures for Peace. These would have meant action. The pacifist element were easily persuaded to do nothing. The Government was getting into that nervous condition where they could neither wage war nor negotiate peace."

"It is hard for me to convey an adequate picture of the sense of frustration and tangled impotence which oppressed me during those closing months of 1916. There are nightmares in which one welters amid a web of fettering strands and obstacles, and watches, wide-eyed, some doom approaching against which the strangled throat cannot force a sound of protest or appeal. The ineffectiveness and irresolution of our leadership in those dark weeks bred something of this nightmare feeling."

"There was at this time a whole series of developments and problems which were being paltered with or shelved... Firm handling of them was vital to our prospects of success, and I grew increasingly convinced that it was my duty as a responsible Minister to dispel this miasma of indecision and force these matters to a definite issue, even at the risk of resignation from the Ministry and a subsequent public exposure of the ineptitude of the Allied war direction."

"The letter was a complete repudiation of the agreement he [H. H. Asquith] had entered into with me on Sunday and confirmed in writing on Monday. He had reached his decision to go back on his word without giving me an opportunity of further discussion with him. He saw all the critics. He resolutely refused to see me although he had promised to do so. Had I gone back on my word I know the nature of the comment that would have been passed on me by those who worked with frenzy to persuade Mr. Asquith to break faith. How it would have fitted into that legend of distrust which they so assiduously worked up for years, and which seems to be their sole article of unwavering faith!"

"I neither sought nor desired the Premiership... However, Mr. Bonar Law refused to listen to our combined entreaties, and I had to undertake the terrible responsibility of Premiership in a muddled war, with at least half my own party and more than half the Labour Party bitterly hostile, and a considerable section of the Tory Party—including most of their leaders—suspicious and distrustful."

"There was a tragic bitterness about the situation which developed through those days, and which forced a cleavage between me and colleagues with most of whom I had for long years been working in the happiest and most fruitful collaboration—a cleavage later on aggravated and perpetuated by the malice of petty-minded men with baneful effects on the future political development of our country."

"[T]here is no doubt that my influence in the Liberal Party suffered severely from my neglect to put my case before opinions had hardened and prejudices had been created. Misrepresentations were soon broadcast throughout the land, and time was given for them to strike root in the soil, and when I regained leisure it was too late to eradicate them. Most of this work was done privately at confidential gatherings of Liberal associations throughout the country. Missionaries were dispatched from Headquarters at Abingdon Street to every district to spread tendentious reports of the origin, motives and methods of the crisis. At secret conclaves much could be said which the presence of a newspaper reporter would have checked. Some salient facts were suppressed; others were distorted, and when I resumed my political activities after the War was over, I was amazed at the beliefs that were current as to what had really happened."

"With a criminal prodigality we had squandered the superior man-power that had been at our disposal. We had also weakened our resources and strengthened those of the enemy by our failure to gain alliances that would have been ours for the asking, and by manoeuvring at least one potential ally to the other side. Our diplomacy was a timid and nervous thing, frightened of America, too shy to tackle Greece, and leaving the Turks and Bulgarians entirely to the allurements of the Germans. Sir William Robertson complained of the undoubted fact that the soldiers had received no help from diplomacy."

"Bold diplomacy, backed by proper strategy and effective military action, would have enabled us in the early months of the War to call into being a great Balkan Confederation on the side of the Allies, which would have added 1,500,000 to our fighting forces... Peace with victory might have been ours in 1916 if we had pursued such a course. It would have meant contenting ourselves with holding the Germans on the Western Front, rather than trying to smash through there; it would have meant sending the men, who later on were slain in vain attacks in France and Flanders, to strengthen the forces of a Balkan Confederation for an assault upon the weakest part of the Central Powers' defence; it would have meant sending part of the munitions blazed away in France to assist Russia and the Balkan States. Recently I was told in conversation by a distinguished German who held an exalted position in the government of his country during the War: "That is what we were always afraid you would do!" Nothing pleased them better than to see us mass our forces for attack in the impregnable west while we allowed ourselves to be out-manoeuvred at every turn in the vulnerable east. We hammered at the breastplate of Achilles and neglected his heel. And we called it sometimes "striking at the vital parts" and sometimes "attrition.""

"When I came to consider what the Liberal quota of the Ministry was to be, I was confronted with the resolution carried by all the Liberal Ministers at a meeting to which I was not summoned, binding each and all not to serve under me. This decision was responsible for the disastrous split in the Liberal Party which diminished its influence, paralysed its energies, and distracted its purpose for all the years that have ensued since 1916. Even to this day it poisons relations between men whose cordial co-operation is essential to the well-being of Liberalism. It deflects judgment upon every issue. Yet however disastrous it was to the future strength of the Party, from the point of view of the efficiency of the Government as a war instrument, the decision arrived at by the official leaders of the Party to decline association with the new Government was an undoubted advantage."

"In a war of this order, sea power was the key to ultimate victory so long as either party could manage just to hold their own on land. If we maintained control of the seas without actually breaking on shore, the Central Powers could in the end be starved into surrender... Potential famine was therefore the most powerful weapon in the army of the belligerents. As long as Britain kept her rule over the waves, neither she nor her Allies could be beaten by any shortage of food or essential material for waging war. On the other hand, the Central Powers could not win if they were cut off from the resources of the great world outside. It was a ruthless calculation, but war is organised cruelty. Those who think they can restrict its barbarities will find in the end that savagery is of its essence and that civilised warfare only means that men have changed the instruments and methods of torture."

"I am now approaching the narrowest and the most threatening gorge in the mad voyage, with one particularly jagged rock right in the middle of the stream and to all appearances barring the way. In the end it was the German boat that crashed against it and was broken to pieces, but I shudder to think that this experience was almost ours. The submarine campaign proved the ruin of Germany. It is a horrifying thought that it very nearly achieved the destruction of Britain’s sea power, with all that such a disaster would have meant to the fortunes of the Alliance and of humanity. We are all too apt, on looking back upon Germany's submarine campaign, to regard it as one of her most fatuous blunders. It is true that it turned out to be the fatal error which precipitated her ultimate defeat. But it was a miscalculation only by a margin which might have been on the other side. There were weeks when the German leaders had truthful reports which gave them confident assurance of success, while giving Britain and her Allies cause for an anxiety which at one stage reached the depths of alarm. There were times when some of our most cautious leaders thought we might be beaten and that we would do well to make peace whilst our ships were afloat."

"If Britannia ruled the waves, she did it with a shaky trident in the days before the submarine was overcome."

"There is no wrath like the cold fury of the professional spirit proved wrong by outsiders, and no folly comparable to its reactions under such conditions."

"The difficulties experienced by the War Cabinet in handling this problem are inherent in all war operations when civilian opinion clashes with that of the experts. Naval science and strategy are matters very remote from the lay comprehension, and the aura of authority glistened round the heads of the Naval High Command. Whenever I urged the adoption of the convoy system, I was met...with the blank wall of assertion that the experts of the Admiralty knew on technical grounds that it was impossible. That is a very difficult argument to counter. A persistence of a few more weeks in their refusal to listen to advice from outside would have meant irretrievable ruin for the Allies. Neptune's trident would have been snatched out of Britannia's hands by the ravening monster of the great deep. It was not the first time in this War that the lesson was driven home—luckily in time—that no great national enterprise can be carried through successfully in peace or in war except by a trustful co-operation between expert and layman—tendered freely by both, welcomed cordially by both."

"The enemy unquestionably reckoned on being able by a campaign of frightfulness to intimidate our sailors from putting to sea. No other explanation is possible of the numerous cases of brutality and outrage that were perpetrated—presumably by express order of the High Command—against defenceless men after their vessels had been torpedoed and sunk. The firing on and scuttling of open boats at sea, and triumphant proclamation of ships "spurlos versenkt"—sunk without trace, their whole crews being drowned mercilessly—were all intended to shake the morale of British seamen and make them unwilling to sign on for further voyages. But in this object the German Navy was completely unsuccessful."

"It was Britain's grandest struggle on the seas—in its magnitude—in its intensity—in the issues that depended upon it. There were thousands of ships engaged in it, from the great battleships down to the smallest patrol boats—from the stately liners to the dogged tramps and the plucky little trawlers. Even the pleasure boats joined in. The battle was fought in every ocean, and on every trade route. Never were the skill, the daring and the endurance of British sailors put to so stern a test; never was the superiority of their seamanship so triumphantly established. The deadly net that sought to envelop the Allied arms and leave them at the mercy of the Prussian sword was torn to shreds by the mariners of Britain. The great Allied triumph of 1917 was the gradual beating off of the submarine attack. This was the real decision of the War, for the sea front turned out to be the decisive flank in the gigantic battlefield. Here victory rested with the Allies, or rather with Britain. The moment the War became a struggle, not to beat the foe in a fight, but first to exhaust his strength and then to beat his defences down, the sea became inevitably the determining factor."

"The food question ultimately decided the issue of this war. It was directly responsible for the downfall of Russia, finally it was the element that led to the collapse of Austria and Germany. Indirectly it was responsible for bringing America into the War, since Germany's indiscriminate submarine warfare was her answer to our blockade... Here in Britain, whilst we were short of shipping for imperative war demands and our food supplies from overseas were becoming more and more precarious, we were allowing our own fertile soil to go out of cultivation without making an effort keep up its yield of essential food. What is the explanation of so obtuse, and general a neglect of this vital war front?"

"Somewhat optimistically, as events in the last few years have shown, I declared that "the country is alive now as it has never been before to the essential value of agriculture to the community, and whatever befalls it will never again be neglected by a Government." It is still difficult to wean the urban population from a rooted habit of regarding the countryside as a picnicking ground, whose accessible amenities are restricted by fences and often destroyed by cultivation. They have not yet acquired a real comprehension of the essential importance of the land of the country to its security, its permanent prosperity and contentment."

"The [Food Production] Department had done its work with surprising efficiency, and had enabled us to carry on through the most critical moments of the War until we reached victory. Without the extra millions of tons of home-grown food which it secured, the nation would have gone hungry in 1918. It would certainly have been compelled to tighten its belt several holes. The only alternative would have been a peace of failure, preceded or followed by revolution."

"The deep-rooted tradition of personal liberty which has long held sway in Britain made it a matter of the greatest difficulty for the Government to secure general consent for the exercise of its common-law right to call on all its citizens to carry out such tasks as it might lay on them for the national security."

"It is difficult for Britons to realise what Verdun means to France. The world can show no battlefield to correspond to it. On those heights Gaul and Teuton had, from the blizzards of February [1916] to the snows of the following December, been fighting out a racial feud which had existed for thousands of years. The concentrated fury of ages raged and tore, shattered and killed for ten months in one intensive struggle which has no parallel in the history of human savagery. The very road that carried the reinforcements, the guns and the shells that redeemed Verdun, is to this hour for Frenchmen the Via Sacra of their country."

"The State arrogated to itself the supreme right to direct, control, divert, restrict, or even suppress any industry wherever the national interest called for any action. Sometimes it exercised all these powers. Direct production in old, extended, and improvised arsenals increased enormously, and the numbers of State employees multiplied manifold... New factories and workshops employing scores of thousands of workers were set up by the State to produce guns, shells, explosives, bombs, aeroplanes, and every kind of war material. In most of these the management was under the direction of State officials, and incidentally, in economy and efficiency these men were an acknowledged success. Hundreds of other factories and workshops were commandeered by the State for war work, but neither the ownership nor the management was changed... The general policy of these concerns was subordinated to the decision of the Government to place the interests of State and war first and foremost. Subject to that principle the owners retained the management of their businesses. The same policy was pursued with the production and distribution of food. The means of production and distribution were left in private hands so long as the owners conformed to the demands and orders of the State. The system was neither Stalin nor Roosevelt. It fell short of the former's ideas, but went beyond those of the latter. Many still think that it was more practical than either. It certainly produced prompter results, and that is what matters most in war."

"There can be no question that one outstanding reason for the high level of loyalty and patriotic effort which the people of this country maintained was the attitude and conduct of King George V."

"The first commandment of the true French patriot is: "Thou shalt have no other gods but France." It is a type or quality of patriotism which springs more naturally from the soil of France than that of any other land. Are Englishmen also not patriots? Yes, they are, but with them patriotism is a duty, with Frenchmen it is a fanaticism."

"The fundamental error of the Allied strategy up to the present has been the refusal of their war direction to recognise the fact that the European battlefield is one and indivisible. A corollary to this error has been the concentration of the strongest armies on the attacking of the strongest fronts, whilst the weakest fronts have been left to the less well-equipped armies. We have thus allowed the Balkans to be captured by the Central Powers... Austria and Turkey, which might by well-directed blows have been overthrown in 1915 or 1916, have been regarded by France and England as mere "side-shows" having no bearing upon the general result of the campaign. This narrow and unimaginative conception of our military strategy will, I predict, always be pointed to as the reason why the Allies in spite or their overwhelming preponderance, have been so successfully held at bay by an enemy considerably inferior in numbers. The question is whether it is too late even now to retrieve the consequence of mistake."

"If the whole truth, as it was known at the time to the military staffs, had been exposed before the members of the War Committee, the Flanders offensive would have been turned down."

"I felt that the fatal error which had been committed in the present war had been continually to attack where the enemy was strongest. Surely, it was a mistake to deliberately aim our spear against the thickest part of the enemy's armour."

"If success was achieved on the Italian Front, I believed that victory in the War was assured. A separate peace with Austria would then be practicable, and having eliminated Austria from the War, Germany would be at our mercy."

"It is, of course, a matter of history that our military advisers, in face of this appeal from me, still decided to adhere to their view as to the feasibility of the Flanders offensive. Could I have gone behind these exalted Commanders and conducted independent investigations on the spot into the facts and conditions? ... Profound though my own apprehensions of failure were, I was a layman and in matters of military strategy did not possess the knowledge and training that would justify me in overriding soldiers of such standing and experience. Accordingly, the soldiers had their way. And it is one of the bitter ironies of war that I, who have been ruthlessly assailed in books, in the Press and in speeches for "interfering with the soldiers" should carry with me as my most painful regret the memory that on this issue I did not justify that charge."

"Artillery became bogged, tanks stuck in the mire, unwounded men by the hundreds and wounded men by the thousands sank beyond recovery into the filth. It is a comment upon the intelligence with which the whole plan had been conceived and prepared, that after the ridge had been reached it was an essential part of the plan that masses of cavalry were intended to thunder across this impassable bog to complete the rout of a fleeing enemy. For months, hundreds of thousands of British troops fought through this slough. They sheltered and they slept in mud-holes. When they squelched along, they were shot down into the slush; if wounded, they were drowned in the slime: but the survivors still crept and dragged onward for four months from shell-hole to shell-hole, with their rifles and machine-guns choked with Flemish ooze, advancing about a mile a month. It was a tragedy of heroic endurance enacted in mud, and the British Press rang with praises of the ruthless courage, untiring calm and undaunted tenacity—of the Commander-in-Chief!"

"There were two courses open to Sir Douglas Haig. One was to go to the Cabinet and admit that the campaign was a complete failure based on an absurd miscalculation of essential facts. He would have to own up that the criticism directed against the scheme by the Prime Minister had been justified by the event. The other course was to persevere stubbornly with his attacks, knowing that at the worst he would gain some ground, with a chance that one day the enemy morale might break and that opportunity would then come for exploiting a defeat. He gambled on the latter chance rather than face the dread alternative of a confession of failure to the politicians."

"Politicians are liable to be attacked from every flank—simultaneously. They are suspicious, subtle, crafty and designing, and at the same time they are gullible, simple and foolish."

"It is said that I ought to have taken the risks and stopped the carnage. Let me confess that there were, and still are, moments when I am of the same opinion. But let those who are inclined to condemn me and the War Cabinet for not taking the hazard, weigh carefully and fairly the conditions at that time. Passchendaele could not have been stopped without dismissing Sir Douglas Haig. Sir William Robertson would have resigned. Had both disappeared without any preliminary fuss which would have rattled the Army, there would have been a sense of relief amongst all the fighting men from one end of the line to the other. But I could not have done it without the assent of the Cabinet."

"G.H.Q. substituted the policy of "wearing down the enemy" as the primary purpose of their strategy. How did that thrive? We lost 400,000 men in our direct and subsidiary attacks. The enemy did not lose on the whole British Front during that period 250,000 men. Our losses were nearly five to every three of the Germans. In their Verdun offensive, the Germans had the excuse that they were slaying five Frenchmen for every three they lost. We could not claim that measure of justification for our persistence in the Passchendaele folly."

"The departure from time-honoured ideas as to the duty of personal observation is due either to an exaggerated estimate of the importance of the individual General, or to an under-estimate of the qualities of the officers available to take the places of superiors in rank who have fallen. The price paid in this War for immunity to Generals was prodigious. No one suggests that it is the duty of Generals to lead their men up to the barbed wire, through the mud, whilst machine-guns are playing upon them. But, had men high up in military rank, ordering or continuing an offensive, been obliged by the exigencies of duty to view for themselves something of the character of the terrain of attack and the nature of the operation they were ordering their officers and men to undertake, the fatuous assaults of the Somme, Monchy, Bullecourt, the Chemin des Dames and Passchendaele would never have occurred; or at any rate one such experience would have been enough."

"The men who persisted in the Passchendaele assaults could not have known the conditions under which their orders had to be executed. It is an insult to their intelligence, let alone their humanity, to believe otherwise. I have quoted reputable evidence to prove that some of them had no idea of the actual state of the ground which they commanded tanks and troops to cross. Gough knew and passed his knowledge on to Haig. It seems to have made no impression on the latter's obsessed mind. His apologists quote his obduracy as a proof of the sublime courage that disdained obstacles and dangers. The fact that they were obstacles and dangers which had to be faced only by others and not himself would not, I feel sure, weigh with him. Had he been a humble officer he would have faced them without quaking. No one ever cast a doubt on his personal courage. But it demanded a much higher courage to own up that he had been guilty of a grave error of judgment—that the operation he had planned was an impossible one—that, in fact, he had been wrong and the subordinate generals and interfering politicians had been right."

"I was privileged, whilst this horrible battle was proceeding, to have a talk with one of Haig's most prominent military advisers, who afterwards owned that he had no idea of the conditions under which the battle was fought. I entreated him once more to reconsider the prospects of this venture in the light of what had actually happened. But he also was imbued with the relentlessness of his Chief. He treated me as a stupid civilian who knew nothing of war. When I alluded to the terrible casualties, he reminded me in Hotspur strain that you could not expect to make war without death and wounds. When I pointed to the wet season which had soaked the ground and made it unfit for the passage of tanks, artillery, or men, he said: Battles could not be stopped like tennis matches for a shower. Here again was Mars, but, I thought, Mars under an umbrella."

"The fact remains, that but for the distraction of Passchendaele, Turkey might have been forced to make peace, and the Black Sea might have been opened to Russia and Roumania."

"I have not received a single letter from any one who took any part in the actual fighting at Passchendaele which contradicts any of my statements, or suggests that the picture which I have endeavoured to paint is an exaggerated one."

"Lenin was not concerned about democratic government. His main purpose was the social and economic emancipation of the worker under any form of government that would be most suited to achieve that end. The Bolsheviks were numerically a small party, drawn almost entirely from amongst the town workers, and their grip on power was not based on any principle of majority rule, gauged by the counting of heads, but on the right of the strongest, measured in terms of firm will, dear purpose and armed force. The peasants acquiesced with the patient docility of a people accustomed for generations to autocratic rule."

"[N]o one can doubt that Lenin was one of the greatest leaders of men ever thrown up in any epoch."

"The restoration of Belgium had become for us symbolic of the insistence on just dealings between nations and the suppressing of ruthless aggression by the strong against the weak. If aggression had been allowed to profit, to hold and keep its booty, it would have been an acknowledgment on the part of Britain either of hopeless defeat or utter dishonour."

"Evidence of such a kind, from German sources of undeniable authority, makes it clear that at no time prior to the autumn of 1918 could we have concluded a satisfactory peace with Germany. Ludendorff would have nothing to do with any terms which would involve complete restoration of Belgium."

"I never concealed from myself or my colleagues that I thought Sir Douglas Haig was intellectually and temperamentally unequal to the command of an Army of millions fighting battles on fields which were invisible to any Commander."

"It is not too much to say that when the Great War broke out our Generals had the most important lessons of their art to learn. Before they began they had much to unlearn. Their brains were cluttered with useless lumber, packed in every niche and corner."

"Generals were in every essential particular inadequately prepared for the contingencies which confronted them in this War. Had they been men of genius—which they were not—they could have adapted themselves more quickly and effectively to the new conditions of war. They were not equipped with that superiority in brains or experience over an amateur steeped in the incidents and needs of the War which would justify the attitude they struck and the note of assured pastmastership they adopted towards all criticism or suggestion from outside or below."

"Independent thinking is not encouraged in a professional Army. It is a form of mutiny. Obedience is the supreme virtue. Theirs not to reason why. Orders are to be carried out and not canvassed. Criticism is insubordination. The object of discipline is to accustom men to respond to a command instantly, by instant action, without thought of effect or consequence. There were many intelligent officers and men who knew that the orders given them during the War were utterly stupid and must have been given by Staffs who had no understanding of the conditions. But orders were orders. And with their men they went to a doom they foresaw was inevitable. Such an instinctive obedience to the word of command is essential to the efficiency of a body of men who have to face terror, death or mutilation in the discharge of their terrible duties. But a long course of mental subservience and suppression cramps the development and suppleness of the intellect. It makes "an officer and a gentleman" but it is not conducive to the building up of an alert, adaptable and resourceful leader of men."

"There was no conspicuous officer in the Army who seemed to be better qualified for the Highest Command than Haig. That is to say, there was no outstanding General fit for so overwhelming a position as the command of a force five times as great as the largest army ever commanded by Napoleon, and many more times the size of any army led by Alexander, Hannibal or Caesar. I have no doubt these great men would have risen to the occasion, but such highly gifted men as the British Army possessed were consigned to the mud by orders of men superior in rank but inferior in capacity, who themselves kept at a safe distance from the slime which they had chosen as the terrain where their plans were to operate."

"A politician is a person with whose politics you don't agree; if you agree with him he's a statesman."

"As we came away we ran into Lloyd George. Turning to me he said: "What are you going to do, my boy, when you grow up?" "I'm going into the Navy, sir," I replied. He frowned. "There are many greater storms in politics. If it's piracy you want, with broadsides, boarding parties, walking the plank and blood on the deck, this is the place." His words had gone home. That evening I confided to my father that what Lloyd George had said had decided my life. It would be politics for me."

"Ah, on the water, I presume."

"The centuries rarely produce a genius. It is our bad luck that the great genius of our era was granted to the Turkish nation. We could not beat Mustafa Kemal."

"He became Minister [of Munitions], in part, because of his ambition, his self-confidence that he alone was the man for the difficult job. Other character-assets from which wartime Britain benefited were his ruthless energy and drive and his ability to dispense with established procedures without looking back. He demanded of his men of push and go the same qualities: they were required to produce what was needed as quickly as possible and without regard for the suspended "rules of the game"... The Ministry of Munitions under Lloyd George...did indeed deliver the goods as no agency had done before."

"He infused his subordinates with a spirit, born of a great and frustrated urge to serve the war effort in an active fashion. It might be called an excitement, a dynamic energy which was harnessed simply to overwhelm and engulf the problems which confronted it... The wizardry which admirers and critics alike have seen in the work of the greatest war minister Britain had witnessed since the days of Chatham was not, of course, wizardry at all. With all the power and genius which had once made him the premier social reformer of his day, Lloyd George became what democracies require from time to time: the man of peace who went to war."

"I feel very bitter about Lloyd George; his is the kind of character I mind most, because I feel his charm and recognize his genius; but he is full of emotion without heart, brilliant without intellect, and a gambler without foresight. He has reduced our prestige and stirred up resentment by his folly — in India, Egypt, Ireland, Poland, Russia, America, and France."

"The Prime Minister was described this morning in The Times, in the words of a distinguished aristocrat, as a live wire. He was described to me, and to others, in more steady language, by the Lord Chancellor, as a dynamic force, and I accept those words. He is a dynamic force, and it is from that very fact that our troubles, in our opinion, arise. A dynamic force is a very terrible thing; it may crush you, but it is not necessarily right. It is owing to that dynamic force, and that remarkable personality, that the Liberal Party, to which he formerly belonged, had been smashed to pieces; and it is my firm conviction that, in time, the same thing will happen to our party."

"All through his career, except during the War, he has done no end of harm, and his Versailles peace was iniquitous and his conduct after the peace execrable."

"To me his greatest hour came as late as the spring of 1918, when our line of defence had been broken, our troops were in retreat, the Russian Armies were out of the war, and the American Armies had not yet come into it... It was at that moment that Lloyd George penetrated the gloom of doubt and indecision. It was in the hour of our peril that he refused to contemplate any plan for retreat. He would talk only of counter-attacks. It was then his leadership showed itself supreme, his courage untarnished. No other moment in Britain's recurring story of escape from disaster can surpass it, save only the decision of the summer nights after the defeat of France in 1940. It was then, I say, that Lloyd George's strength and fortitude, his judgment and courage, led and guided the nation during the weary pilgrimage that was to be so suddenly, so unexpectedly, so completely crowned with victory."

"Lloyd George was the idol of the nation, the Premier under whose aegis Germany was overthrown and the Empire saved. He attained an authority greater than that held by any British Prime Minister who had gone before him. He dictated to Europe; he flung out great dynasties with a gesture; he parcelled out the frontiers of races; everything was in his hands, and his hands showed that they had the power to use everything. Now all that is ended. Nothing remains but the picture of him in the days of glory. There on the walls of memory, outstanding in power and vitality, amid the faded pictures of his predecessors, is Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Great Britain."

"David Lloyd George excelled even the ruck of politicians in his desire for what he thought was fame, as well as his extravagant greed for money. The two things do not usually go together but in his case it was difficult to say which was the stronger. He fully achieved both. Lloyd George began as a small Nonconformist Radical member of Parliament. He was a fluent speaker and appealed strongly to the audiences which in an earlier generation had also been appealed to by Spurgeon, Moody and Sankey and people of that kind. He may possibly like other men of the sort who enter public life had some sort of convictions when he begun, but he had certainly lost them by the year 1900 and was purely on the make."

"Lloyd George was a bigger man than Churchill, and one of the biggest things about Churchill was that he knew it."

"I regarded the Rt. Hon. Gentleman at that time [1910] as an unscrupulous political charlatan and I have not at any time since seen cause to alter my opinion."

"[David Lloyd George during the Chanak crisis] had challenged the armed might and the genius of Kemal with a few battalions—and won. It was the last occasion on which Great Britain stood up to a potential aggressor before the outbreak of the second World War."

"When I asked John Buchan, who was by no means his blind admirer, what he felt about him as a War Minister, he replied: "I put him in the class of Cromwell and Chatham.""

"It was ironical that Lloyd George, when he gave the vote to women in 1919 (though even then not on the same terms as men) declared that they deserved it for their war service and this was widely accepted as the explanation of their success in 1919. I regard this as a myth. I believed they would have won the vote earlier and on better terms if there had been no war. If the General Election due in 1915 had taken place there is little doubt that the supporters of women's suffrage would have been in a majority in the House of Commons."

"[T]he political gifts that he offered to his country in his sixties were scarcely, if it all, less brilliant than those that had propelled him to the...Premiership in his early fifties. His determination to improve the life of the mass of the people was as strong, simple and sincere as in his youth... [and] this consistent purpose was still backed by the same adventurously open mind, creative imagination, inexhaustible application and compelling oratory. His ability to synthesize ideas from different sources resulted in the most practical programme of social reconstruction produced between the wars. Almost alone among politicians...Lloyd George grasped the facts, the causes and the implications of the national economic decline which began to manifest itself after 1918; unerringly, he seized on the means offered by the new economics by which it might be arrested. But his dynamic alternative was rejected: the men who replaced him presided passively over fifteen wasted years, a loss which all the feverish efforts of post-war Governments have been unable to recover... His exclusion from office after 1922 was the country's loss."

"John Grigg is a good measure of the turnaround that has taken place in attitudes to Lloyd George. Twenty years ago he was still generally regarded as a tricky villain, clever but unprincipled. Asquith, ousted in 1916, had his revenge in the history books: accounts of the leadership crisis were dominated by a tradition of Asquithian historiography heavily influenced by Lady Violet Bonham Carter. The alternative view was associated with Lord Beaverbrook, and who believed him? Answer: A. J. P. Taylor. It was Taylor, first in his own writings, then as Director of the sadly short-lived Beaverbrook Library where the Lloyd George papers were opened in 1967, who launched and presided over the revisionist reaction which has thoroughly reversed the received opinion of Lloyd George, and practically buried the reputation of poor old Asquith in the process."

"He is a wonderful man. How he accomplishes so much and stands so much strain, I do not know. When I look round, I do not see who could replace him. His courage, power of work, power of decision, and urbanity are remarkable. He must possess a marvellous constitution."

"There was a third contestant in the electoral field of 1929. This was Lloyd George who had “won the War” by his galvanising leadership plus a prodigal expenditure of public money. Now...he proposed an energetic and grandiose programme of public works to “conquer unemployment”. Neither Mr. Baldwin nor Mr. MacDonald viewed Mr. Lloyd George with favour... His offence was supremely that he wanted to do something. Both Mr. Baldwin and Mr. MacDonald had already fallen once from the premiership by reason of doing a foolish thing; henceforth they were resolved to sit fast and do absolutely nothing. Thus it came about that this May morning the Tory Premier and the Leader of the Socialist Opposition chatted on Crewe Station... As they parted Mr. MacDonald remarked, “Well, whatever happens we shall keep out the Welshman.” In this Mr. Baldwin and Mr. MacDonald succeeded. They kept Lloyd George out. The national misfortune is that for the next eight years they kept themselves in."

"A dispute arose between the British and American Admiralties as to some warship-building projected by the Americans which our naval chiefs thought would threaten our superiority at sea. Thereupon Lloyd George began to express doubt about the necessity of proceeding with the League. I protested strongly, and eventually some compromise was arranged which put an end to this particular difficulty. But the incident illustrates the kind of way in which he regarded the League, and gave him a certain air of vacillation on the subject. After the war was over and we had left Paris I remember asking Fisher, then in the Government and often one of our representatives at Geneva, what the Prime Minister (as he was then) really thought about the League, and all I could get out of him was that Lloyd George was like the sea, sometimes blue and sometimes green. Lord Riddell says that Lloyd George hated the League. I think that is an exaggeration, though it may have been an accurate report of some casual observation in that sense. It is doubtless the case that the idea that war could be abolished seemed to him fantastic. "What had been would be" was to him a fundamental truth. He could never be persuaded to visit Geneva. He rarely referred to the League in his public speeches, and when he did his approval of it was chilly."

"First came Lloyd George—a man of immense strength of character. But, like Clemenceau, he only believed in force. To him the Covenant, with its provisions for the settlement of international disputes by pacific means in the first place, was unreal. Though he supported it as well-meaning and even attractive, yet he was not prepared while he was Prime Minister to subordinate all else to the replacement of war by law, for in his heart he did not think that could be done. In his closing years he seemed to move nearer to the League. But it was then too late."

"Winston described LG as the greatest political genius of the day. He says LG has more political insight than any other statesman. He told me that he and LG had resolved upon the necessity for a constructive social policy."

"He was the greatest master of the art of getting things done and of putting things through that I ever knew; in fact no British politician in my day has possessed half his competence as a mover of men and affairs. When the English history of the first quarter of the twentieth century is written, it will be seen that the greater part of our fortunes in peace and in war were shaped by this one man. It was he who gave to orthodox Liberalism the entirely new inflexion of an ardent social policy. All the great schemes of insurance have entered for ever into the life of the British people, originated or flowed from him. He it was who cast our finances intently upon the line of progressive taxation of wealth as an equalizing factor in the social system. He it was who in the darkest year of the War seized the supreme power and wielded it undauntedly till overwhelming victory was won. He it was who for good or for ill settled the Irish question, or at least shifted it out of the main path of the British Empire."

"I must, however, say that I did not think the speech of my right hon. Friend was particularly helpful at a period of what he himself called discouragement and disheartenment. It was not the sort of speech which one would have expected from the great war leader of former days, who was accustomed to brush aside despondency and alarm, and push on irresistibly towards the final goal. It was the sort of speech with which, I imagine, the illustrious and venerable Marshal Petain might well have enlivened the closing days of M. Reynaud's Cabinet."

"The Coalition Government of 1918 onwards really was pretty bad, and it is a discreditable episode in our history that Lloyd George, a great man who came into public life as a great Radical and who, as his later history showed, retained so much of real radicalism in his heart, should at that moment, of all moments, have chosen to hang on to personal power at the price of giving way to the worst elements in the community — only to be cast out by the Tories like an old shoe, when he had served his purpose, killed the Liberal Party, and deceived the working class so thoroughly that they would never trust him again."

"I am very certain that his visit to America has been a piece of good fortune for both his country and our own, and for the cause of international accord. During his stay among us, though it has been all too brief, Mr. Lloyd George has voiced the appeal for that better understanding among the nations which must be at the base of all good relations. It has been a fine thing for our people to become better acquainted with this eminent leader in civilization's struggle to maintain itself, and I hope he will feel, when he leaves us a few days hence, that his effort in bringing his message to us has not been an entirely vain one."

"In 1920 I met Lenin. I was a very difficult person to get on with, and Lenin advised me—I remember it so well—to study David Lloyd George. He held the opinion that David Lloyd George was the greatest political leader this country had known."

"My father took me to a dinner of the Honorable Cymmrodorion Society — a Welsh literary club — where Lloyd George, then Secretary for War, and W. M. Hughes, the Australian Prime Minister, both spoke. Hughes was perky, dry, and to the point; Lloyd George was up in the air in one of his "glory of the Welsh hills" speeches. The power of his rhetoric amazed me. The substance of the speech might be commonplace, idle and false, but I had to fight hard against abandoning myself with the rest of his audience. He sucked power from his listeners and spurted it back at them. Afterwards, my father introduced me to Lloyd George, and when I looked closely at his eyes they seemed like those of a sleep-walker."

"The iron entered into my soul, when Ll[oyd] G[eorge]'s Government after the war let down and corrupted public life at home and destroyed our credit abroad."

"The Briton who made the deepest impression on me was Lloyd George. Eden speaks a repulsive, affected type of English, but Lloyd George was a pure orator, and a man of tremendous breadth of vision. What he has written on the Treaty of Versailles will endure for ever. He was the first man to declare that the Treaty would lead inevitably to another war. The idea that a people like the German people can be destroyed is madness, he said. Britain, he added, had no alternative but to live on terms of friendship with Germany."

"Sincere congratulations. No one has done more to bring about this splendid victory than you."

"Dawson and I have often exchanged intimacies about Ll.G. whom we both regard as the most remarkable figure of our acquaintance. S. B. and J.R.M. got on together because they both hate and fear Ll.G. He is rarely for long out of their minds. The speeches they make, the times they make them, especially when the House is sitting, are largely determined in relation to the movements of Ll.G. known or guessed."

"I told S. B. of how when the other day L. G. was singing the praises of Stalin, Megan had asked her father if there were a revolution on which side would he be. He replied: "With the Revolutionists, of course." Megan asked, "Whom would you shoot?" L. G. "Well, would it be worth while shooting anybody? There are Ramsay and Baldwin—but they are such worms, such insects." Megan, "But you'd have to shoot somebody." L. G. "Well, of course, there is Montagu Norman.""

"To see the British Prime Minister watching the company, with six or seven senses not available to ordinary men, judging character, motive, and subconscious impulse, perceiving what each was thinking and even what each was going to say next, and compounding with telepathic instinct the argument or appeal best suited to the vanity, weakness, or self-interest of his immediate auditor, was to realize that the poor President would be playing blind man's buff in that party."

"How can I convey to the reader who does not know him any just impression of this extraordinary figure of our time, this syren, this goat-footed bard, this half-human visitor to our age from the hag-ridden magic and enchanted woods of Celtic antiquity?"

"Lloyd George is rooted in nothing: he is void and without content; he lives and feeds on his immediate surroundings; he is an instrument and a player at the same time which plays on the company and is played on by them too; he is a prism, as I have heard him described, which collects light and distorts it and is most brilliant if the light comes from many quarters at once; a vampire and a medium in one."

"The nation needs for leadership something more than the lawyer's power of putting his case and managing the Court and jury. It needs force, foresight, the glow of conviction and the sense of disciplined energy... Only Mr. Lloyd George had "that glow in the soul" so necessary for victory."

"Why don't you join the Labour Party? 'Labour and the Nation' is only Socialism reduced to everyday expedients. You are willing as an outsider to help us to put these expedients into operation. Your help would be invaluable, as one of us... People have said you are opportunist, and will take any line that suits you. At times I have thought and said so. But these past months' experience and your observations last night compel me to believe you are sincere as any of your critics... I want you in the best place for doing good work, and that I am sure is in the Labour Party... [Y]our coming would crown a progressive life."

"He can be Prime Minister for life if he likes."

"I at least will never forget, and will always be ready to assert, that in my view in the greatest crisis of our history he did a service for which the nation can never be too grateful."

"Lloyd George was a wonderful orator. I have heard my father say that when he came to address meetings in Scotland you had to hold on to your seat not to be carried away. And in his early years he was deeply concerned to make life more tolerable for the poor. He fought for his social security legislation with all his boundless energy and adroitness; the only thing he was not prepared to do for the poor was to become one of them. He needed money, lots of money, to maintain a home for his wife and family in Wales and another in England for his secretary, who became his mistress. In our part of the world Lloyd George was no hero. We did not forgive or forget the Khaki Election of 1918. Nor his treatment of pacifists during the war. Nor the Marconi Scandal. Nor the way he played fast and loose with the Suffragette Movement, doing nothing to oppose forceful feeding or to undo the notorious Cat and Mouse Act. What Lloyd George failed to understand was no man, however gifted, is a major political power in himself. He can teach, he can preach, he can make a significant contribution, but power politics is a struggle between social forces, not a duel between individuals. Once the war was over the Tories had no more use for him. He was an outsider, an upstart Welsh lawyer who had got above himself."

"David Lloyd George was the best-hated statesman of his time, as well as the best loved. The former I have good reason to know; every time I made a pointed cartoon against him, it brought batches of approving letters from all the haters. Looking at Lloyd George's pink and hilarious, head thrown back, generous mouth open to its fullest extent, shouting with laughter at one of his own jokes, I thought I could see how it was that his haters hated him. He must have been poison to the old school tie brigade, coming to the House an outsider, bright, energetic, irrepressible, ruthless, mastering with ease the House of Commons procedure, applying all the Celtic tricks in the bag, with a talent for intrigue that only occasionally got away from him. I always had the greatest difficulty in making Lloyd George sinister in a cartoon. Every time I drew him, however critical the comment, I had to be careful or he would spring off the drawing-board a lovable cherubic little chap. I found the only effective way of putting him definitely in the wrong in a cartoon was by misplacing this quality in sardonic incongruity — by surrounding the comedian with tragedy."

"The Parliament of 1924–9 was dominated by a few leading personalities, of whom by far the most exciting to a new Member like myself was Lloyd George... When he rose to speak, the House filled up... To us young Members, who had never or seldom heard him, it was a stirring experience... [H]e kept us all enthralled. I can see him now: the wonderful head, the great mane of white hair...; the expressive features, changing rapidly from fierce anger to that enchanting smile, not confined to the mouth, but spreading to his cheeks and eyes; above all, the beautiful hands, an actor's or an artist's hands, by the smallest movement of which he could make you see the picture he was trying to paint."

"What Baldwin failed to understand was the genius of the greatest war leader that Britain had known since Chatham, only destined to be equalled and surpassed by Churchill. With Lloyd George's departure, a certain dynamic energy disappeared from Whitehall, which never returned until Churchill took control."

"Lloyd George had known tragedy with the death of a much loved daughter, as well as moments of considerable strain when personal scandals and political controversies had threatened to ruin his career. He had worked under enormous pressure during the previous four years, first as minister of munitions then as war minister. At the end of 1916 he had taken on the burden of the prime ministership, at the head of a coalition government, when it looked as though the Allies were finished. Like Clemenceau in France, he had held the country together and led it to victory. Now in 1919 he was fresh from a triumphant election but led an uneasy coalition. He was a Liberal; his supporters and key cabinet members were predominantly Conservative. Although he had a solid partnership with the Conservative leader, Bonar Law, he had to watch his back. His displaced rival, the former Liberal prime minister Herbert Asquith, sat brooding in his tent, ready to pounce on any slip. Many of the Conservatives remembered his radical past as the scourge of privilege and rank, and as they had with their own leader Disraeli, they wondered if he were not too clever, too quick, too foreign. Lloyd George also faced formidable enemies in the press. The press baron Lord Northcliffe, who had chosen his title because it had the same initial letter as Napoleon, was moving rapidly from megalomania to paranoia, perhaps an early sign of the tertiary syphilis that was to kill him. He had been convinced that he had made Lloyd George prime minister by putting his papers, which included The Times and the Daily Mail, behind him. Now he was angry when the man he thought his creation refused to appoint him either to the War Cabinet or to the British delegation in Paris. Lloyd George also had to deal with a country ill prepared for the peace, where the end of the war had brought huge, and irrational, expectations: that making peace would be easy; that wages and benefits would go up and taxes down; that there would be social harmony, or, depending on your point of view, social upheaval. The public mood was unpredictable: at moments vengeful, at others escapist. The most popular book of 1919 was The Young Visiters, a comic novel written by a child. While he was in Paris, Lloyd George had to take time out for labour unrest, parliamentary revolts and the festering sore of Ireland. Yet he entered into the negotiations in Paris as though he had little else on his mind."

"Lloyd George's strengths were more remarkable than his weaknesses. For he really did try to answer the questions that mattered. He saw, more clearly than any other political leader, that Britain could survive in a changing world only if she changed herself... [H]is answers cut across the "false dichotomy" [between capitalism and socialism]. They were neither "capitalist" nor "socialist"; they were designed to use the power of the state to make capitalism work properly. As such, they were much more modern in conception than anything else on offer at the time. But in the climate generated by the struggle between "capitalism" and "socialism" they did not look modern. They looked irrelevant, opportunistic and, in an odd way, out of date. So, by a terrible paradox, the most creative and adventurous statesman of the day, who might have resolved the progressive dilemma if he had had the chance, appeared to most of his countrymen as a querulous and self-seeking voice from the past."

"Lloyd George, the hero of the First World War, had also been a lone wolf in Parliament. Baldwin hated and feared him, and the Tory Party treated him as a brilliant back number. The Labour Party deeply distrusted him because of the Black and Tans and as the author of the Versailles Treaty. Nobody I ever knew had his skill or brilliance as a natural leader in bad times and yet he could do nothing but manoeuvre... He continued to put forward schemes for economic reconstruction such as those on which he had fought the election of 1929. If he had been listened to, England would have been saved from ten years of miserable deflating. Walking in his orchard at Churt he would tell me of his plans for another New Deal."

"When Lloyd George came back to the party, ideas came back to the party."

"The greatest War Minister since Chatham."

"This wide view of his position and responsibilities is reflected throughout his career as Minister of Munitions, and his vision of the character and probable length of the conflict that lay ahead not only had a profound effect on the munitions programmes actually adopted in his period, but enabled the Ministry to meet much larger programmes later on. He laid the foundations of the Ministry's productive capacity on a scale so vast that it was almost sufficient—as far as guns, gun ammunition, rifles, machine guns, and trench warfare supplies were concerned—to carry the country to the end of the war."

"Everything I have said of our success is a tribute to him. He chose the great leaders of industry who formed the pivots of our machine. He formulated the needs of the moment to labour, and persuaded them to agree to meet our necessities. He realised the scope which our operations should embrace in all the essentials of the production of munitions, and his tireless energy and vigorous personality were the inspiration of the whole vast fabric."

"His political career...is now increasingly being subjected to searching revision. More and more, the criticisms hurled at him seem hard to sustain. Above all, it is difficult to see in him just the "rootless opportunist", "vampire and medium in one" portrayed by Keynes and others. In methods, certainly, he was endlessly flexible, often deliberately indirect. But opportunism of method was always linked to general consistency of objectives. Indeed, it could be argued that his career was determined by long-term objectives to a degree unusual among British politicians. He was steadfast in his sympathy for the national cause of Wales. He was consistent in his concern for social reform... He was consistent in his belief that Britain ought to be made a more democratic and egalitarian society. He was consistent in his view that British imperial and foreign policy should be linked to the search for international harmony. The architect of victory in 1918, he was essentially a conciliator, a man of peace. His objectives, then, were consistent and progressive."

"[H]e's got what Carlyle said of the Hindu god—he has a fire in his belly, but his weakness is looseness of mind... Principles! Do you talk to me of his principles? What are they? But he is not dishonest, he's only tricky. Some shabbiness perhaps."

"It was during this period [c. 1929] that I grew to know Lloyd George well and to appreciate gifts unique in his generation, which at this conjunction of events at home and abroad might again have been of immeasurable benefit to our country. This was not to be allowed in any situation short of the catastrophic. All the dull people combined to get Lloyd George down. They succeeded—but they got the country further down: the epitaph of an epoch."

"Lloyd George himself was then [January 1919] at the height of his powers and prestige, the "man who won the war". His appearance was striking: the fine head, piercing blue eyes, a great mane of hair, already nearly white, more than offset his small stature. "L.G." was the sort of man people admired or loathed; there were no half measures either in him or in people's opinion of him. He was above all things clever, with a mind extraordinarily quick and versatile. With this went a buoyancy and courage that were almost brazen, a tendency to ruthlessness and tyrannical behaviour, and a readiness of decision and action which terrified some, but carried others to heights they would never have scaled alone. With him, the end was more important than the means: his methods were personal, improvised, and on occasion unscrupulous; he liked to cut through the rules. There was also a sort of sixth sense, a "medium-like sensibility" to persons around him, a personal charm and intuition which anticipated thoughts and saw the quickest way to persuade an adversary or tackle a problem. He was a genius with a double dose of everything, good and bad; he could do as well with his left hand as his right. Yet it was wrong to deduce from all this, as Keynes did, that he was "rooted in nothing" and without principles. A deep patriotism was his, and a hatred of oppression."

"Thus ended the [Lloyd George] Coalition. And thus ended the reign of the great ones, the giants of the Edwardian era and of the war; and the rule of the pygmies, of the "second-class brains" began, to continue until 1940. Lloyd George remained in public life, admired, distrusted, unused, and stonily watched the country sink in the hopeless morass of depression and unemployment, while lesser men frittered away Britain's power in the world. "We have no one of that calibre now," sadly remarked a high official in 1938."

"The only two men who really seem to understand that we are at war are Winston and Lloyd George. Both have faults which disgust one peculiarly at the present time, but there is a reality about them and they are in earnest, which the others aren't."

"There followed a scene of drama when, with passionate voice and pointing finger the young Welshman assailed the Father of the House across the floor. "Better to have slightly dearer coal than cheaper colliers," flamed Bevan. "... We say that you cannot get from the already dry veins of the miners new blood to revivify the industry. Their veins are already shrunken white, and we are asking you to be, for once, decent to the miners ... not to use all your Parliamentary skill, all your rhetoric, in an act of pure demagogy to expose the mining community of this country to another few years of misery." Lloyd George sat opposite, listening intently, crossing and re-crossing his legs. It was one of the very few times that veteran journalists of the Press Gallery could ever remember having seen Lloyd George obviously disconcerted. Said one of them: "He was confronted with the ghost of his own angry youth.""

"He is a remarkable combination of forces; a poet, an orator and a man of action. His energy, power of work, and power of recuperation are remarkable. He has an extraordinary memory, imagination, and the art of getting at the root of a matter... He possess every sort of courage, daring, patience, bravery in the face of personal danger and in the face of responsibility... He has no respect for tradition or convention. He is always ready to examine, scrap, or revise established theories and practices. These qualities give him unlimited confidence in himself. He has a remarkably quick, alert and logical mind, which makes him very effective in debate. He is one of the craftiest of men, and his extraordinary charm of manner not only wins him friends, but does much to soften the asperities of his opponents and enemies. He is full of humour and a born actor. His oratory has a wide range. On the whole he is a good judge of men."

"He is anxious to improve labour conditions, but he is not really in sympathy with labour. As I have always said, he does not understand the point of view of the worker. Just now he is angry about the strikes and keen on putting the strikers into the Army. They stand in the way of the prosecution of the war, and so must be coerced. He says very little concerning the commercial and manufacturing classes who have been, and are, making fortunes out of the war."

"L[loyd] G[eorge] with all his powers does not understand or sympathise with working men. His point of view is that of the solicitor or shopkeeper. The general attitude of the upper and middle classes is that "you must give these fellows a lesson"."

"I notice that L[loyd] G[eorge] is steadily veering over to the Tory point of view... He is also at heart opposed to the claims of Labour, and would like to fight the working classes if he dared. He knows they do not trust him and he dislikes their independent spirit."

"In a sense it is not my affair, but as one of your admirers and sympathisers I wish to congratulate you upon the action that has been taken in getting a Coalition Cabinet, and especially upon your part therein. More than all I wish to congratulate you upon what you have done in connection with this war. When the War is over, you will again take up the work of dealing with the Labour question, with Irish Home Rule, with many other matters. But the prime business at present for you to do is to save your country; and I admire the single-hearted manner with which you have devoted yourself to this great duty."

"Give my heartiest regards to Lloyd George. Do tell him I admire him immensely. I have always fundamentally agreed with his social program, but I wish it supplemented by Lord Roberts's external program. Nevertheless, my agreement with him in program is small compared with the fact that I so greatly admire the character he is now showing in this great crisis."

"I believe that there are millions of people in this country who think that unemployment is far more important than political parties, and they would vote for any man regardless of party, if they believed he would do the job. I am not flattering you when I say that you are the only person capable of carrying this job through, and I want to make the people feel that just as the country needed you in the war, they need you in their jobs."

"Lloyd George was the most effective popular advocate of Liberalism—the only man perhaps who could really fire the party and win over the masses of unorganized voters."

"He is nothing if not a Radical yet circumstances have made him appear as the leader of the right wing of the party—of the "bad Liberals". I put it to him that he had really nothing in common with these people and that the only course open to him was to lead the Radicals. That is what he wants to do, but meanwhile his supporters in the party are on the Right and his opponents on the Left. Asquith who is really a Whig is accepted as a better Liberal than he."

"Lloyd George had a passion to win the war which none of the other members of the Cabinet seemed even to understand."

"He could talk about the world history of his own time and about the future with a beautiful detachment. I have always remembered one night in the great drawing-room of the Antibes hotel.... L.G. was talking of his place in history. Of how he would be regarded mainly as one of those who tried to soften the class-struggle. And people who wanted the class-struggle naked would come down against him, and others would be for. He would get some attention for his part in the Great War — the 1914-1918 war (this conversation took place in 1938). But nothing of that counted much, L.G. was saying, against the great movements in history. None of our struggles mattered much, wars or revolutions or what you will, as compared with the sheer biological and geographical facts. Whatever happened, in two hundred years, perhaps sooner, the balance of the world would have changed. The industrialization of Russia was taking place: India would follow: perhaps China, within a hundred years.... Whatever Government presided over the operations, these changes would make our local concerns look no more significant than the Wars of the Roses."

"The most amazing thing about D. since he went out of Office is his gradual conquest of Labour. At first they had a regular system of howling him down, and boasted that they would break his authority in the House... But gradually the interruptions became less frequent, & their attitude more friendly, as they saw that he was really the same D. and prepared to fight for the underdog... Now he speaks almost as the Leader of the Opposition, with the Labour & Liberal benches around him, the former hanging on his words and loud in their praises. The other day after a similar performance, Kirkwood and Jack Jones said in the Lobby that he was the real leader of the Labour Party."

"The Labour people are pleased with him. He has proved more of a friend to them than Ramsay MacDonald, who got cold feet... When D. spoke in the House the first week of the [general] strike, the Labour people cheered him. Hartshorn overheard Ramsay MacDonald say to those next to him, "There they go, b..... fools, cheering him again." The Labour Party have been getting more and more friendly to D. all the session... D.'s idea is to go definitely towards the Left, and gradually to co-ordinate and consolidate all the progressive forces in the country, against the Conservative and reactionary forces."

"At Geneva other countries would have agreed not to use aeroplanes for bombing purposes, but we insisted on reserving the right, as D. puts it, to bomb niggers! Whereupon the whole thing fell through, & we add 5 millions to our air armaments expenditure."

"In the long retrospect of time he is likely to be seen as the greatest British statesman of the twentieth century and perhaps the greatest Prime Minister of all time... Only the other day an inquiry among Labour MPs revealed that more of them had drawn their inspiration from Lloyd George than ever from Keir Hardie."

"The greatest prime minister of the century."

"Lloyd George was the most dynamic figure in British politics during the first part of the twentieth century. He was the pioneer of the welfare state, the first man of the people to become prime minister, and the man who won the First World War. He carried the British Empire to a pinnacle of greatness. He solved the Irish question or at any rate came nearer than any other man to doing so. Even out of office, he continued to wield great influence—admired by some, feared by many. He was almost the man of destiny in 1931 and still dreamt of becoming the man of destiny during the Second World War. His career stirs the curiosity of historians, and fortunately this curiosity can be satisfied."

"His own achievements were on the highest level. He inaugurated the welfare state. He broke the power of the House of Lords. He led the country to victory in the First World War. He mastered the social and political perils which followed that war. He ended the age-old feud between Ireland and Great Britain. When cast out of office he continued to put forward policies in both economics and foreign affairs wiser and more constructive than those of his feeble successors."

"Count up all his faults, set against them what he achieved, and it is difficult to resist the feeling that Lloyd George was the greatest ruler of England since Oliver Cromwell."

"Mr. George is recognised to-day as the finest Parliamentarian that Wales has yet sent to the House of Commons, for with infinitely little resources he has "scored" repeatedly over the "strongest Government of modern times". Sir William Harcourt paid the young member for Caernarvon a handsome compliment publicly on the floor of the House for the way in which he has fought the Tory Government; but even stronger expressions of admiration have been used by politicians on both sides of the House in private. Mr. Lloyd George not only has shown an intimate knowledge of the rules of the House, a readiness in debate, and a keen perception of the weak points of the Tory case, but he has been able, by this pluck and resolution, to do more than any other man to infuse a new courage into the Liberal ranks, and to discredit the methods and the policy of an overbearing majority."

"Never let me hear anyone say again that a Socialist State cannot provide outlets for those with initiative. The rewards given to ability in the U.S.S.R. at all levels are far greater than those given to the employed in capitalist Britain. I have seen it and it works."

"Peace-or-war, not cost-of-living, was the most important issue at the election. He did not believe that peace with Stalin would be easy to achieve. Some delegates seemed to think it was all a matter of “getting together with Joe.” Had they forgotten their Marxism, and its interpretation of history. That was what they were dealing with, not Uncle Joe."

"There could be no democratic and independent Socialist Party in this country unless they aligned themselves with others against the insidious attempts of Communism to break the Socialist movement."

"I have not the slightest doubt that the economic measures and the Socialist measures which one will find in countries of Eastern Europe, will become increasingly powerful against the uncoordinated, planless society in which the West is living at present."

"We should be aiming in the latter part of the 1960s for a 5 per cent. and then a 6 per cent. growth rate. Only then shall we attain the programme of social expenditure that is both necessary and desirable."

"I hate putting up taxes."

"We have had a tremendous battle over the past 12 months. Sterling is safe. That battle is won."

"If we achieve our target, 1967 will be a different year from the last two, a year in which we will begin to move forward again, and 1968 to 1970 will be the years of achievement in which the fruit of the work now being done will be shown."

"I sum up the prospects for 1967 in three short sentences. We are back on course. (Loud Ministerial cheers and Opposition laughter.) The ship is picking up speed. (More Ministerial cheers.) Every seaman knows the command at such a moment: "Steady as she goes". (Laughter and cheers.)"

"Those who advocate devaluation are calling for a reduction in the wage levels and the real wage standards of every member of the working class."

"I come to the question of the Governor of the Bank of England, who made [a] speech...[which] was, I thought, a very good exposition of the nature of this country's problems. ... When he came to the question of the rate of wage and price inflation, in which he dealt with the question of unused resources, what he said I agree with. He said: “it is impossible to manage a large industrial economy with the very small margin of unused manpower and resources that characterised the British economy in the 1940s and 1950s.” That is true. ... We must have a somewhat larger margin of unused capacity than we used to try to keep. That is the truth of the matter."

"I think that it came as a surprise, if not a shock, to most people, when that notorious advertisement appeared in The Times in 1967, to find that there is a lobby in favour of legalising cannabis. ... The existence of this lobby is something that the House and public opinion should take into account and be ready to combat, as I am. It is another aspect of the so-called permissive society, and I am glad if my decision has enabled the House to call a halt in the advancing tide of so-called permissiveness. I regard it as one of the most unlikeable words that has been invented in recent years."

"Millions of people in Britain must have been very surprised to hear that the language of Chaucer, of Shakespeare and of Milton must in future be regarded as an undesirable American import from which we have to protect ourselves if we are to build a new Europe. We can agree that the French own the supreme prose literature in Europe. But if we are to prove —if we have to prove—our Europeanism by accepting that French is the dominant language in the Community, then my answer is quite clear, and I will say it in French in order to prevent any misunderstanding: Non, merci beaucoup."

"[Callaghan] said that President Pompidou had made it clear that where differences existed between Britain and the French-dominated EEC, "Britain must subordinate them to the extent of a complete rupture with our identity". He asked if Mr. Heath's offer to participate in a European spirit, which signified a French spirit, meant that "we are honour bound not to try to upset the principles of the common agricultural policy?" Had Mr. Heath made it clear that no one believed it made sense to give up buying cheap food from New Zealand to buy dear food from France?"

"The Treaty of Rome was tailor-made to support French agriculture and German manufactures. It is by no means ideal for Britain's future trading arrangements. It was not designed for this purpose. The question is whether it is worth joining on the terms that are on offer or, as I believe, whether we would do better for ourselves by waiting."

"What would need to be reopened would be the test questions that were put to Mr Heath by M Pompidou and tamely accepted by him. To the question: “Do you agree to work for economic and monetary union?” Mr Heath had said “yes”, but the Labour movement said “no”. To the question: “Will you turn away from the open seas and mould yourself to Europe?” Mr Heath had said “yes” and the Labour movement was saying “no”. A Labour Government will seek to reopen the principles and renegotiate the details, specifically on high food prices which are part of their present policy and a reversal of Britain's food policies for over a century. We intend to have that renegotiated and to return to our traditional freedom to purchase food from other countries outside the EEC without incurring penalty."

"Too much stress is being put on the soldiers and the RUC to solve problems which politicians have failed to solve for so many years. There must be a political solution if the gunmen are to be divided from the rest of the population."

"[D]espite the indignation and horror with which most of us regard the actions of the Provisionals, we must not allow our policy to be dictated by revenge or by passion. If we do, we shall not only behave in an immoral way; we shall lose the battle."

"Our place in the world is shrinking: our economic comparisons grow worse, long-term political influence depends on economic strength – and that is running out. The country expects both full employment and an end to inflation. We cannot have both unless people restrain their demands. If the TUC guidelines [on pay] are not observed, we shall end up with wage controls once more and even a breakdown of democracy. Sometimes when I go to bed at night, I think that if I were a young man I would emigrate. But when I wake up in the morning, I ask myself whether there is any place else I would prefer to go."

"The power structure in Britain is changing. Authority is no longer obeyed for its own sake. There are severe limits on what government can do, so the way to win the battle against inflation and unemployment is not to try to dragoon the country. If we do we shall fail. We must secure its consent. We are playing for high stakes. In a real sense, adherence to the social contract puts on trial whether our society has the will and determination to solve its problems by democratic means."

"James Callaghan: ...I am not pro, nor am I anti... Robin Day: What are you doing on this programme? Callaghan: I'm here because you asked me. Day: You're here to advise people to vote 'Yes' aren't you? Callaghan: ...I am here, and the Prime Minister has taken the same line; it is our job to advise the British people on what we think is the right result. Now there are a lot of other people who've always been emotionally committed to the Market. A lot of other people have been always totally opposed to the Market. I don't think the Prime Minister or myself have ever been in either category and that is not our position today. I'm trying to present the facts as I see them and why we have come down in favour of – now Britain is in, we should stay in."

"First of all, please make sure that you go and vote in the Common Market referendum on Thursday. And secondly, the Government asks you to vote 'Yes', clearly and unmistakeably."

"But the policies of the 1960s would not be successful today. No more would general import controls.They benefit some home industries at the expense of the livelihood of everyone working in exports. We would be robbing Peter to pay Paul."

"You know, as I do, that we face two deep-seated problems, inflation and unemployment. Both of them are still too high. ... I have to emphasize to you that if we fail to bring down inflation, we shall never succeed in overcoming unemployment. We cannot have a prosperous industry in this country if we are unable to sell our goods overseas. No one owes Britain a living, and may I say to you quite bluntly that despite the measures of the last 12 months, we are still not earning the standard of living we are enjoying. We are only keeping up our standards by borrowing, and this cannot go on indefinitely. There is no soft option. I do not promise you any real easement for some time to come. There can be no lasting improvement in your own living standards until we can achieve it without going deeper and deeper into debt as a nation."

"For too long, perhaps ever since the war, we postponed facing up to fundamental choices and fundamental changes in our society and in our economy. This is what I mean when I say we have been living on borrowed time. For too long this country – all of us, yes this Conference too – has been ready to settle for borrowing money abroad to maintain our standards of life, instead of grappling with the fundamental problems of British industry. Governments of both parties have failed to ignite the fires of industrial growth in the ways that countries with very different political and economic philosophies have done."

"The cosy world we were told would go on for ever, where full employment would be guaranteed by a stroke of the Chancellor's pen, cutting taxes, deficit spending – that cosy world is gone. Yesterday, delegates pointed to the first sorry fruits: a high rate of unemployment. ... When we reject unemployment as an economic instrument — as we do — and when we reject also superficial remedies, as socialists must, then we must ask ourselves unflinchingly what is the cause of high unemployment. Quite simply and unequivocally, it is caused by paying ourselves more than the value of what we produce. There are no scapegoats. This is true in a mixed economy under a Labour Government as it is under capitalism or under communism. It is an absolute fact of life which no Government, be it left or right, can alter."

"We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. Higher inflation followed by higher unemployment. We have just escaped from the highest rate of inflation this country has known; we have not yet escaped from the consequences: high unemployment. That is the history of the last twenty years."

"Now we must get back to fundamentals. First, overcoming unemployment now unambiguously depends on our labour costs being at least comparable with those of our major competitors. Second, we can only become competitive by having the right kind of investment at the right kind of level, and by significantly improving the productivity of both labour and capital. Third, we will fail – and I say this to those who have been pressing about public expenditure, to which I will come back – if we think we can buy our way out by printing what Denis Healey calls ‘confetti money’ to pay ourselves more than we produce."

"If we were to fail, I do not think any Government could succeed. I feel it would lead to a totalitarian government of the left or the right."

"I think there is a case for opening a national debate on these matters."

"I have been concerned to find out that many of our best trained students who have completed the higher levels of education at university or polytechnic have no desire to join industry. Their preferences are to stay in academic life or to find their way into the civil service. There seems to be a need for more technological bias in science teaching that will lead towards practical applications in industry rather than towards academic studies. Or, to take other examples, why is it that such a high proportion of girls abandon science before leaving school? ... Why is it that 30,000 vacancies for students in science and engineering in our universities and polytechnics were not taken up last year while the humanities courses were full?"

"[T]here is the unease felt by parent and others about the new informal methods of teaching which seem to produce excellent results when they are in well-qualified hands but are much more dubious when they are not. They seem to be best accepted where strong parent-teacher links exist. There is little wrong with the range and diversity of our courses. But is there sufficient thoroughness and depth in those required in after life to make a living? These are proper subjects for discussion and debate. And it should be a rational debate based on the facts. My remarks are not a clarion call to Black Paper prejudices. We all know those who claim to defend standards but who in reality are simply seeking to defend old privileges and inequalities."

"The goals of our education, from nursery school through to adult education, are clear enough. They are to equip children to the best of their ability for a lively, constructive, place in society, and also to fit them to do a job of work. Not one or the other but both. ... There is no virtue in producing socially well-adjusted members of society who are unemployed because they do not have the skills. Nor at the other extreme must they be technically efficient robots. Both of the basic purposes of education require the same essential tools. These are basic literacy, basic numeracy, the understanding of how to live and work together, respect for others, respect for the individual. This means requiring certain basic knowledge, and skills and reasoning ability. It means developing lively inquiring minds and an appetite for further knowledge that will last a lifetime. It means mitigating as far as possible the disadvantages that may be suffered through poor home conditions or physical or mental handicap. Are we aiming in the right direction in these matters?"

"It is quite clear from what has been said and written that, time after time after time, there has been a conspiracy between the Conservative Front Bench in this House and the inbuilt Conservative majority in the House of Lords to defeat legislation that has passed through the House of Commons...I warn the House of Lords of the consequences...it is our strong view that the House of Lords should recall that its role is not that of a wrecking chamber, but of a revising chamber. In recent weeks, it has been wrecking legislation passed by this House."

"[Callaghan] said the most hateful slogan that he had heard recently, made at a protest march, was "What do we want? Everything! When do we want it? Now!" That was not socialism but fascism. There are too many of these people who have infiltrated this party already. Get them out!"

"A canting hypocrite."

"The PM [Callaghan] said he is 'a supporter of Brazil'. Wants immigrants to marry UK natives, 'decent white Britons', and let us have a coffee-coloured community, but one single community, not this inflow of different cultures into a so-called 'multicultural society'."

"[The first task is to beat inflation.] Until we do, every wage rise which is not met from higher production is a ticket to the dole queue. That is why it is important to reach a renewed understanding with the trade union movement for the next 12 months, an arrangement which will break decisively from the inflationary spiral that has plagued us."

"[There are those in the Labour Party] whose language has become increasingly ideological and intolerant, base their politics solely on texts and creeds, and believe that the drafting of long resolutions will usher in the millennium."

"[Callaghan] said the Labour Party was not built on dogma and advised his comrades to look at some of the old trade union banners. They would not read ideological texts there, but words like "fraternity, humanity, unity and comradeship"."

"The dangers which some have seen of an over-centralised, over-bureaucratized and over-harmonised [European] Community will be far less with 12 member states than with nine."

"We are opposed to racialism, we are opposed to discrimination. The Labour Party will do all in its power to ensure that all our citizens, irrespective of race or creed, enjoy equality of opportunity and equality of protection under the law. On this we cannot compromise. Inflation and unemployment have always been exploited by extremists. Groups who can be easily identified have always been vulnerable at such times. The Jews in the 1930s have been replaced by the black people in the 1970s. But history tells us that the persecution of the minority is only the first step. That is followed by attacks on trade unions, on the press, on free speech and so on to democracy itself. Let no one be in any doubt about the true nature of those who wrap their poisonous doctrines in our national flag."

"Meantime I say to both sides of industry, 'Please don't support us with general expressions of good will and kind words, and then undermine us through unjustified wage increases or price increases. Either back us or sack us.'"

"What I know is that this country will be a divided society that will not be worth living in unless there is true racial equality for every citizen who lives in it."

"5 per cent it is, and I have told the unions that they have all the weapons. We are naked in their presence and we need their co-operation."

"The commentators have fixed the month for me, they have chosen the date and the day. But I advise them: "Don't count your chickens before they are hatched." Remember what happened to Marie Lloyd. She fixed the day and the date, and she told us what happened. As far as I remember it went like this: 'There was I, waiting at the church–' (laughter). Perhaps you recall how it went on. 'All at once he sent me round a note. Here's the very note. This is what he wrote: "Can't get away to marry you today, my wife won't let me."' Now let me just make clear that I have promised nobody that I shall be at the altar in October? Nobody at all."

"Well, that's a judgment that you are making. I promise you that if you look at it from outside, and perhaps you're taking rather a parochial view at the moment, I don't think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos."

"Jim said he was more depressed as a trade-unionist now about the future of this country than he had been for fifty years. He never believed it would come to this."

"We can truly say that once the Leader of the Opposition had discovered what the Liberals and the SNP were going to do, she found the courage of their convictions. So, this evening, the Conservative Party, who want the Act repealed and oppose even devolution, will march through the Lobby with the SNP, who want independence for Scotland, and with the Liberals, who want to keep the Act. What a massive display of unsullied principle! The minority parties have walked into a trap. If they win, there will be a general election. I am told that the current joke going round the House is that it is the first time in recorded history that turkeys have been known to vote for an early Christmas."

"Now that the House of Commons has declared itself, we shall take our case to the country."

"David Rose (ITN reporter): Industrial relations and picketing. What about the TUC putting its house in order? James Callaghan: The media's always trying to find what's wrong with something .. Let's try and make it work. Rose: What if the unions can't control their own militants? So there are no circumstances where you would legislate? Callaghan: I didn't say anything of that sort at all. I'm not going to take the interview any further. Look here. We've been having five minutes on industrial relations. You said you would do prices. I'm just not going to do this .. that programme is not to go. This interview with you is only doing industrial relations. I'm not doing the interview with you on that basis. I'm not going to do it. Don't argue with me. I'm not going to do it."

"There are times, perhaps once every thirty years, when there is a sea-change in politics. It then does not matter what you say or what you do. There is a shift in what the public wants and what it approves of. I suspect there is now such a sea-change and it is for Mrs. Thatcher."

"I'll tell you what happened. We lost the Election because people didn't get their dustbins emptied, because commuters were angry about train disruption and because of too much union power. That's all there is to it."

"[E]very­thing that we say and do shall be directed towards achieving a basis of unity and a basis of unity that will develop the thrust that is required to rid our country of a reactionary, hard-faced and incompetent Government, headed by the most self-opinionated Prime Minister since Neville Chamberlain."

"Many of you younger delegates are experiencing for the first time and seeing for the first time what we grew up with in the Thirties, what brought us into the Labour Movement and what, inciden­tally, will mean that we shall die in the Labour Movement and will never leave the Labour Movement. (Applause) However bad a socialist I may be in the eyes of a great many of our col­leagues, I know why I and many others of my generation were bound to be in the Labour Party. We were determined that the Thirties should not be seen in our lifetime. And...as I see the conditions being repeated once again, the policies being followed once more that we thought we had destroyed forever as the result of the 1930s, I cannot but feel a deep indignation and anger that this generation should be required to go through the things that our generation went through. And I am determined to fight it as hard as I can. (Applause)"

"I do not want it to be thought that I believe the constitution is unchangeable or is perfect. It is not. We are an evolving Party. We can change it. But changes have got to be made against a different atmosphere from the present one. We have got to get away from this. For pity's sake, stop arguing. The public is crying out for unity in order to get rid of the Thatcher Govern­ment. (Applause)"

"Unilateral disarmament by Britain is opposed to our country's best interests, could begin the unravelling of NATO and therefore jeopardise the stability of Europe."

"For 338 paragraphs the Franks report painted a splendid picture, delineated the light and the shade, and the glowing colours in it, and when Franks got to paragraph 339 he got fed up with the canvas he was painting and chucked a bucket of whitewash over it."

"The Soviet Union's propaganda clearly wishes to use public opinion in this country to get the West to reduce its own arms while doing nothing themselves. In this way they would gain nuclear superiority. This is simply not on."

"A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice."

"A leader has to appear consistent. That doesn't mean he has to be consistent."

"When I was young, we didn't discuss abortion or homosexuality. What I think most people feel is that we don't want all these particular areas to be aggressive when there is a feeling of tolerance of them which is generally understood and accepted. But if they become aggressive in minority interests...that is something I feel many people – and certainly I myself – recoil from. ... [The] nuclear family is the most loving you can have."

"A lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on."

"He was very emotional, and he said to us "a lot of you are very clever people; you've had university education which I never had, and you would have made a success of whatever walk of life you had gone into. But always remember that it was the Labour Party which put you where you are." Even some of us who had no time for him before the election found it very moving."

"Jim Callaghan saw that opposing Barbara Castle's mild measures for trade union reform [In Place of Strife] would enable him to climb back into favour; and when Wilson retired he had the support of the unions as well as of the moderates and the right. He proved to be a more skilful prime minister than Wilson; he took decisions and won his colleagues round to support them. But a nemesis of Greek proportions overtook him when the trade unions in the winter of discontent proved how right Barbara Castle had been."

"[I]t would be foolish to underestimate the Baldwin-like appeal possessed by James Callaghan. The very Conservatism of the Prime Minister—in the content and style of his government—will make him a formidable opponent for the Tory party."

"To a far greater extent than is ever reflected in commentary on him, he both analysed correctly the changes that were coming in the country and had worked out the answers. His lecture on education, launching the great debate, was remarkably prescient in predicting that the mere abolition of selection would not of itself change educational opportunities for the poorest in society. His speech recognising the limits of Keynesianism in an era of stagflation, in fact predated later Conservative analysis. He was fiercely patriotic not in a gung-ho, militaristic sense, but in the quiet but clear and determined way of someone who had actually seen military service and knew what it was about."

"He realised that though social conditions could play a major part in shaping an individual's life chances – which was why he was in the Labour Party – it could not determine their life: that was their responsibility. He was the living proof. He never took the view: I did it, so why can't everyone else. But he was not soft on law and order; on the contrary. He also rightly sensed that though the years of Roy Jenkins at the Home Office had been stellar in their action on discrimination – and he was fully supportive of that – liberalism was not necessarily the correct response to the growing disrespect and lawlessness that in the 1960s and 1970s saw crime rise. In other words, what appeared quite old-fashioned – respect for others – he saw as the answer to a growing modern phenomenon. I believe he was right in this. He saw – and I agree with him – no contradiction between a liberal view of personal lifestyle or action against prejudice and a tough view of violence or wrong-doing that harmed others."

"I think Jim Callaghan is a wonderful political personality, easily the most accomplished politician in the Labour Party, and I think he is quite able as well."

"He likes the Ulster Unionists – much more than the Liberals – because they are his kind of straight, tough old-fashioned conservative people."

"[H]e of all people is the best man to oppose Thatcher – the calm bedside manner beside the raucous authoritarian figure. Also the best man to handle unemployment and make it an issue which really wins for Labour. JC really cares about unemployment, not in a soft bleeding way...but is affronted by it... Jim cares more about the party, or rather the movement, than Wilson. Wilson was an academic, Callaghan a trade unionist. Their origins are very important. Wilson ultimately got fed up with the party because it became too much of a problem to control it. Callaghan never really has. Wilson was not at heart a trade-union man, Callaghan is totally a trade-union man or he is nothing."

"Watching James Callaghan over the coming months and years, I observed a very commendable man, quite different in style and character from Harold Wilson... Most different from the previous regime was his strong sense of values – really like those of a nonconformist Victorian, with deep feelings of responsibility towards the underprivileged and a strong sense of right and wrong (where Harold was often ambivalent)."

"The most hopeful sign I have seen in Britain was the talk which your Labour prime minister gave to the Labour conference at the end of September [1976]. That was, I think, one of the most remarkable talks – speeches – which any government leader has ever given."

"In my opinion, Jim Callaghan was, for most of his time, the best of Britain's post-war prime ministers after Attlee. ... Once Prime Minister, he had no ambition except to serve his country well. The political skills he had perfected in his unregenerate days were now just what his office needed. Without them the Government would never have survived the negotiations with the IMF, or preserved its fragile hold on Parliament."

"What I have in common with the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) is that, undeniably, our generation came into Parliament because we were determined to prevent what happened in the 1930s from occurring again and to prevent a breakdown in the social structure and the political institutions that led to the rise of authoritarianism in Europe and finally to the Second World War. That was our determination, and for 25 years, from 1950 to 1975, the people we represented had a better standard of living, bigger and better homes, better education, a better Health Service, better roads and better transport and were able to enjoy holidays such as they had not envisaged before."

"Jim Callaghan was and always will be a rather gnarled tree with huge, sturdy roots, a magnificent piece of political foliage which, in its prime ministerial flowering (except for those last dreadful months), was rather glorious to behold. We can safely say that we shall not see his like again. For the Labour movement – and the Britain – that made him is no more."

"The Keeper of the Cloth Cap."

"There is nobody in politics I can remember and no case I can think of in history where a man combined such a powerful political personality with so little intelligence."

"One point seems to me of enormous importance, and it is this. Mr Callaghan is now giving a splendid imitation of the common man's Stanley Baldwin. He is appearing as stability and common sense in person."

"To see Callaghan on the move in Cardiff, subtly adapting his approach as he ambles on from proletarian Splott through the mixed residential population of Llanrumney and on to the genteel villadom of Penarth, taking in myriad ethnic minorities in the old dockside communities en route, is to see a master craftsman at work, his technique tempered by a genuine humanity and directness."

"In Britain, Thatcher's predecessor, Labour's James Callaghan, explained to party members in 1976 that they used to believe recessions could be ended through higher spending and more inflation: ‘I tell you now, in all candour, that that option no longer exists,’ and in so far as it ever did exist, it was only by ‘injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step.’ Thatcher’s fight against the unions to close 115 loss-making and environmentally damaging coal mines made her admired and hated, but did you know that the two previous Labour prime ministers, Callaghan and Harold Wilson, closed no less than 257 coal mines in total?"

"Jim is a populist. He is conscious of this, welcomes the description. This means that on many issues he is well to the right of me. But nevertheless he is a man for the moment. He has produced stability, a stable style and stable government. What he believes in is the regeneration of industry. He likes the company of businessmen, feels at home with them, shares most of the same attitudes. He likes them almost as much as he likes the Labour Party. What he cannot abide is the long-haired intellectual and all his works."

"Jim Callaghan was a formidable opponent, one who could best me across the dispatch box. In other circumstances he would have been a successful prime minister. He was a superb party manager. Despite our disagreements, I always respected him because I knew he was moved by deep patriotism."

"Jim has never been pro-Europe. He is an English nationalist and a party man. He saw renegotiation as a way of keeping the Labour Party together... He has become, despite himself, a strong advocate that the renegotiation must succeed... Jim played it absolutely straight, and I admire him for that."

"We are not the same people that we have been, either in our social characteristics, in our patriotic sentiments, or in the tone of our moral and religious feelings."

"On reflection, I am convinced that turbulence as well as every other evil temper of this evil age belongs not to the lower but to the middle classes."

"In an age when national greatness depends not on numbers or on territory, but on intelligence, the development of intelligence is a duty the neglect of which will hazard our national position. In a day when thought, not force, is the ruler of mankind, and when in domestic government numbers are more powerful than wealth, it is of the most vital importance to the stability of our institutions that that thought should be sound and those numbers enlightened."

"The fact was, that articles of prime necessity, such as tea and sugar, were adulterated to such an extent as materially to affect the health of an enormous portion of the population, and, the poor man being unable to protect himself, he contended that it was the duty of this House to step in and protect him."

"A gram of experience is worth a ton of theory."

"Now if Conservative has any meaning at all, it means anti-Radical. The Radicals are the only inheritors of the revolutionary views which the Conservative party was set up to counteract; and the two can no more act together, if both are honest, than a weasel can act with a rat. Hostility to Radicalism, incessant, implacable hostility, is the essential definition of Conservatism. The fear that the Radicals may triumph is the only final cause that the Conservative party can plead for their own existence."

"[T]he splitting up of mankind into a multitude of infinitesimal governments, in accordance with their actual differences of dialect or their presumed differences of race, would be to undo the work of civilisation and renounce all the benefits which the slow and painful process of consolidation has procured for mankind...It is the agglomeration and not the comminution of states to which civilisation is constantly tending; it is the fusion and not the isolation of races by which the physical and moral excellence of the species is advanced. There are races, as there are trees, which cannot stand erect by themselves, and which, if their growth is not hindered by artificial constraints, are all the healthier for twining round some robuster stem."

"[T]hough it is England's right to enforce the law of Europe [i.e. treaties] as between contending states, she has no claim, so long as her own interests are untouched, to interfere in the national affairs of any country, whatever the extent of its misgovernment or its anarchy."

"Not the number of noses, but the magnitude of interests, should furnish the elements by which the proportion of representation should be computed...The classes that represent civilisation, the holders of accumulated capital and accumulated thought have a right to require securities to protect them from being overwhelmed by hordes who have neither knowledge to guide them nor stake in the Commonwealth to control them."

"The days and weeks of screwed-up smiles and laboured courtesy, the mock geniality, the hearty shake of the filthy hand, the chuckling reply that must be made to the coarse joke, the loathsome, choking compliment that must be paid to the grimy wife and sluttish daughter, the indispensable flattery of the vilest religious prejudices, the wholesale deglutition of hypocritical pledges."

"And above and beyond the mere commercial gain, there rose under Mr. Gladstone's magic wand the vista of an age of security and peace—disbanded armaments, forgotten jealousies, immunity not only from the scourge but from the panic of war; pleasant dreams, constantly belied by experience, constantly renewed by theorists, but too closely linked to the hopes of all who believe either in material progress or in the promises of religion ever to be abandoned as chimera."

"Wherever democracy has prevailed, the power of the State has been used in some form or other to plunder the well-to-do classes for the benefit of the poor."

"It was a part of a budget which even three months had proved to be a mass of miscalculation; it was the pet scheme of a cosmopolitan school who love England little, and whom England loves less, whose sympathies are half-American and half-French; and it was the first application of a theory of combined taxation and reform, according to which the poor were exclusively to fix the revenue which the rich were exclusively to pay."

"The really remarkable fact which is to be inferred from the conduct of the Southern States is, the genuine alarm with which they regarded the workings of Democracy. ... They had acted in partnership with one for seventy years. They had watched it ripening year by year to the full development of mob supremacy. ... They deliberately decided that civil war, with all its horrors, and with all its peculiar risks to themselves as slaveowners, was a lighter evil than to be surrendered to the justice or the clemency of a victorious Democracy. It is not for Europe to dispute the accuracy of their judgment."

"First-rate men will not canvass mobs; and if they did, the mobs would not elect the first-rate men."

"[T]here is no more formidable obstacle than the Established Church to the spirit of rash and theoretic change which we, almost alone among the nations, have escaped ."

"In the supreme struggle of social order against anarchy, we cannot deny to the champions of civilised society the moral latitude which is by common consent accorded to armed men fighting for their country against a foreign foe."

"If any fact was clear amid the bewildering confusion of the French Revolution, it was that the gentleness, the concessions, the morbid tenderness of Louis XVI had only tended to precipitate his own and his people's doom, and aggravate the ferocity of those he tried by kindness to disarm."

"The struggle for power in our day lies not between Crown and people, or between a caste of nobles and a bourgeoisie, but between the classes who have property and the classes who have none."

"Political equality is not merely a folly—it is a chimera. It is idle to discuss whether it ought to exist; for, as a matter of fact, it never does. Whatever may be the written text of a Constitution, the multitude always will have leaders among them, and those leaders not selected by themselves. They may set up the pretence of political equality, if they will, and delude themselves with a belief of its existence. But the only consequences will be, that they will have bad leaders instead of good. Every community has natural leaders, to whom, if they are not misled by the insane passion for equality, they will instinctively defer. Always wealth, in some countries by birth, in all intellectual power and culture, mark out the men whom, in a healthy state of feeling, a community looks to undertake its government. They have the leisure for the task, and can give it the close attention and the preparatory study which it needs. Fortune enables them to do it for the most part gratuitously, so that the struggles of ambition are not defiled by the taint of sordid greed. They occupy a position of sufficient prominence among their neighbours to feel that their course is closely watched, and they belong to a class brought up apart from temptations to the meaner kinds of crime, and therefore it is no praise to them if, in such matters, their moral code stands high. But even if they be at bottom no better than others who have passed though greater vicissitudes of fortune, they have at least this inestimable advantage—that, when higher motives fail, their virtue has all the support which human respect can give. They are the aristocracy of a country in the original and best sense of the word. Whether a few of them are decorated by honorary titles or enjoy hereditary privileges, is a matter of secondary moment. The important point is, that the rulers of the country should be taken from among them, and that with them should be the political preponderance to which they have every right that superior fitness can confer. Unlimited power would be as ill-bestowed upon them as upon any other set of men. They must be checked by constitutional forms and watched by an active public opinion, lest their rightful pre-eminence should degenerate into the domination of a class. But woe to the community that deposes them altogether!"

"A few years ago a delusive optimism was creeping over the minds of men. There was a tendency to push the belief in the moral victories of civilisation to an excess which now seems incredible. It was esteemed heresy to distrust anybody, or to act as if any evil still remained in human nature. At home we were exhorted to show "our confidence in our countrymen," by confiding the guidance of our policy to the ignorant, and the expenditure of our wealth to the needy. Abroad we were invited to believe that commerce had triumphed where Christianity had failed, and that exports and imports had banished war from the earth. And generally we were encouraged to congratulate ourselves that we were permanently lifted up from the mire of passion and prejudice in which our forefathers had wallowed. The last fifteen years have been one long disenchantment; and the American civil war is the culmination of the process."

"That great moral teacher, Mr. Punch, some years ago proclaimed a society which he called "The Anti-meddling-in-other-people's-business Society." Now, he sometimes wished in private that Her Majesty's Government belonged to that society. (Laughter and cheers.)"

"For two hundred years these tests had been constantly and cheerfully subscribed by some six generations of clergymen. All these men, all the great lights of the Church since 1662, were by the sweeping denunciation of his hon. Friend accused without exception of having been compelled to tamper with their consciences. ... That long experience was the best answer to the statements which had been made. They might depend upon it that an experience of two hundred years was a better guide than the experience of his hon. Friends the Members for Canterbury or Plymouth. Oxford life was but three years in duration, and it was the experience of three years against that of two hundred. Two hundred years furnished a better average of the ordinary tendencies of humanity."

"[T]hat shapeless, formless, fibreless mass of platitudes which in official cant is called "unsectarian religion"."

"Moderation, especially in the matter of territory, has never been characteristic of democracy. Wherever it has had free play, in the ancient world or in the modern, in the old hemisphere or the new, a thirst for empire, and a readiness for aggressive war, has always marked it."

"In the real business of life no one troubles himself much about 'moral titles'. No one would dream of surrendering any practical security, for the advantages of which he is actually in possession, in deference of the a priori jurisprudence of a whole Academy of philosophers."

"As property is in the main the chief subject-matter of legislation, so it is almost the only motive power of agitation. A violent political movement (setting aside those where religious controversy is at work) is generally only an indication that a class of those who have little see their way to getting more by means of a political convulsion."

"To give 'the suffrage' to a poor man is to give him as large a part in determining that legislation which is mainly concerned with property as the banker whose name is known on every Exchange in Europe, as the merchant whose ships are in every sea, as the landowner who owns the soil of a whole manufacturing town. An extension of the suffrage to the working classes means that upon a question of taxation, or expenditure, or upon a measure vitally affecting commerce, two day-labourers shall outvote Baron Rothschild. ... The bestowal upon any class of a voting power disproportionate to their stake in the country, must infallibly give that class a power pro tanto of using taxation as an instrument of plunder, and expenditure and legislation as a fountain of gain."

"[T]he common sense of Christendom has always prescribed for national policy principles diametrically opposed to those that are laid down in the Sermon on the Mount."

"The North is fighting for no sentimental cause—for no victory of a 'higher civilization'. It is fighting for a very ancient and vulgar object of war—for that which Russia has secured in Poland—that which Austria clings to in Venetia—that which Napoleon sought in Spain. It is a struggle for empire, conducted with a recklessness of human life which may have been paralleled in practice, but has never been avowed with equal cynicism. If any shame is left in the Americans, the first revision they will make in their constitution will be to repudiate formally the now exploded doctrine laid down in the Declaration of Independence, that 'Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed'."

"Resistance is folly or heroism—a virtue or a vice—in most cases, according to the probabilities there are of its being successful. The perils of change are so great the promise of the most hopeful theories is so often deceptive, that it is frequently the wiser part to uphold the existing state of things, if it can be done, even though, in point of argument, it should be utterly indefensible."

"A Government which is strong enough to hold its own will generally command an acquiescence which with all but very speculative minds, is the equivalent of contentment."

"Conflict in free states is the law of life."

"Opinions upon moral questions are more often the expression of strongly felt expediency than of careful ethical reasoning; and the opinions so formed by one generation become the conscientious convictions or the sacred instincts of the next."

"We might as well hope for the termination of the struggle for existence by which, some philosophers tell us, the existence or the modification of the various species of organized beings upon our planet are determined. The battle for political power is merely an effort, well or ill-judged, on the part of the classes who wage it to better or to secure their own position. Unless our social activity shall have become paralyzed, and the nation shall have lost its vitality, this battle must continue to rage. In this sense the question of reform, that is to say, the question of relative class power, can never be settled."

"It is said,—and men seem to think that condemnation can go no further than such a censure—that they brought us within twenty-four hours of revolution. ... But is it in truth so great an evil, when the dearest interests and the most sincere convictions are at stake, to go within twenty-four hours of revolution?"

"There can be no finality in politics."

"I have for so many years entertained a firm conviction that we were going to the dogs that I have got to be quite accustomed to the expectation."

"As long as I sit for a Conservative borough, I must continue to rank in the party and I will do what I can to promote good legislation. But I cannot look upon them as more likely to promote any cause I may have at heart than the other side. The suffrage is gone: they are lukewarm about the Church, and would no doubt give it up, as they have given up other things, for the sake of office. And beyond these two there is nothing, so far as I know, of which the Conservatives are in any special way the protectors."

"He ventured to enter his most earnest protest against the mode in which several Members of that House were inclined to treat anything that ran out of the common ruck—and introduced them to schemes and ideas which former debates had not reached. The scheme of the hon. Gentleman was not new—he should not have thought that it was new to many Members of that House; the literature of the country had been full of it for three or four years. They all instinctively felt that it was a scheme that had no chance of success. It was not of our atmosphere—it was not in accordance with our habits; it did not belong to us. They all knew that it could not pass. Whether that was creditable to the House or not was a question into which he would not inquire; but every Member of the House the moment he saw the scheme upon the Paper saw that it belonged to the class of impracticable things."

"The Lieutenant Governor of Bengal was to the fullest extent responsible for not having made any preparation against the famine...The doctrines of political economy had been worshipped as a sort of "fetish" by officials who, because they believed that in the long run supply and demand would square themselves, seemed to have utterly forgotten that human life was short, and that men could not subsist without food beyond a few days. They mechanically left the laws of political economy to work themselves out while hundreds of thousands of human beings were perishing from famine."

"The great evil, and it was a hard thing to say, was that English officials in India, with many very honourable exceptions, did not regard the lives of the coloured inhabitants with the same feeling of intense sympathy which they would show to those of their own race, colour, and tongue. If that was the case it was not their fault alone. Some blame must be laid upon the society in which they had been brought up, and upon the public opinion in which they had been trained. It became them to remember that from that place, more than from any other in the kingdom, proceeded that influence which formed the public opinion of the age, and more especially that kind of public opinion which governed the action of officials in every part of the Empire. If they would have our officials in distant parts of the Empire, and especially in India, regard the lives of their coloured fellow-subjects with the same sympathy and with the same zealous and quick affection with which they would regard the lives of their fellow-subjects at home, it was the Members of that House who must give the tone and set the example. That sympathy and regard must arise from the zeal and jealousy with which the House watched their conduct and the fate of our Indian fellow-subjects. Until we showed them our thorough earnestness in this matter—until we were careful to correct all abuses and display our own sense that they are as thoroughly our fellow-subjects as those in any other part of the Empire, we could not divest ourselves of all blame if we should find that officials in India did treat with something of coldness and indifference such frightful calamities as that which had so recently happened in that country."

"We have heard from the opposite Bench several very animated appeals to this House, and several constitutional lectures as to our duties. The noble Earl the late Foreign Secretary (the Earl of Clarendon) went so far, as I understood him, as to tell us that we must watch public opinion more closely, and pay greater attention to the majorities in the other House of Parliament. My Lords, it occurs to me to ask the noble Earl whether he has considered for what purpose this House exists, and whether he would be willing to go through the humiliation of being a mere echo and supple tool of the other House in order to secure for himself the luxury of mock legislation? I agree with my noble Friend the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) below me that it were better not to be than submit to such a slavery."

"On...rare and great occasions, on which the national mind has fully declared itself, I do not doubt your Lordships would yield to the opinion of the country—otherwise the machinery of Government could not be carried on. But there is an enormous step between that and being the mere echo of the House of Commons...I have no fear of the conduct of the House of Lords in this respect. I am quite sure—whatever judgment may be passed on us, whatever predictions may be made, be your term of existence long or short—you will never consent to act except as a free, independent House of the Legislature, and that you will consider any other more timid or subservient course as at once unworthy of your traditions, unworthy of your honour, and, most of all, unworthy of the nation you serve."

"Social stability is ensured, not by the cessation of the demand for change—for the needy and the restless will never cease to cry for it—but by the fact that change in its progress must at last hurt some class of men who are strong enough to arrest it. The army of so-called reform, in every stage of its advance, necessarily converts a detachment of its force into opponents. The more rapid the advance the more formidable will the desertion become, till at last a point will be reached where the balance between the forces of conservation and destruction will be redressed, and the political equilibrium be restored."

"It is only by the renunciation of all present hopes of office that Conservatives can save what yet remains to be saved of the institutions for which they profess to fight. To act the part of the fulcrum from which the least Radical portion of the party opposed to them can work upon their friends and leaders, is undoubtedly not an attractive future. In the changes of political life it may well end in the moderate Liberals enjoying a permanent tenure of office, propped up mainly by their support. Such a result, constituted as human nature is, would no doubt be irritating. Yet it is the only policy by which the Conservatives can now effectively serve their country."

"But an Ethiopian cannot change his skin—nor can I put off my "Toryism"—my deep distrust of the changes which are succeeding each other so rapidly. Numbers of men support them who are not of the spirit that bred them; but that spirit is essentially a pagan spirit, discarding the supernatural, and worshipping not God but man. It is creeping over Europe rapidly: and I can not put off the conviction that it is dissolving every cement that holds society together. I have given you enough and too much of my gloomy thoughts. They have been excited by reading in a Liberal paper "that learning is too high and sacred a thing to be sectarian". Bah!"

"I do hope he Bismarck] will burn down the Faubourg St. Antoine and crush out the Paris mob. Their freaks and madnesses have been a curse to Europe for the last eighty years."

"It is our political machinery which fails. Unrivalled as an instrument for enfeebling the arm of Government, and therefore hindering an excess of executive interference, it has prevented the oppressions into which the zeal of Continental bureaus constantly betrays them. It satisfies the most imperious want of a free people, which is to be let alone. It is not ineffective for purposes of mere destruction, especially when it is driven by the forces of sectarian animosity. But in matters where it is necessary that Government should govern and create, it lamentably breaks down. All the virtues that are attributed to it—in many respects justly—for the concerns of peace, make it helpless for the purposes of war."

"The revolution of 1832 was, therefore, in its ultimate results, a democratic revolution, though its earlier form was transitional and incomplete. This form was productive of great advantages for the time: indeed, for some years it might be said, without exaggeration, that the accidental equilibrium of political forces which it had produced presented the highest ideal of internal government the world had hitherto seen. But it was not the less provisional on that account. The forces by which political organisms are destroyed were, for the time, balanced by influences which still lingered, and were, therefore, neutralised. But these were increasing, and the others were decaying, and the balance could not last for any length of time. It has now been finally upset, and we have now fully reached the phase of political transformation to which the revolution of 1832 logically led."

"So long as we have government by party, the very notion of repose must be foreign to English politics. Agitation is, so to speak, endowed in this country. There is a standing machinery for producing it. There are rewards which can only be obtained by men who excite the public mind, and devise means of persuading one set of persons that they are deeply injured by another. The production of cries is encouraged by a heavy bounty. The invention and exasperation of controversies lead those who are successful in such arts to place, and honour, and power. Therefore, politicians will always select the most irritating cries, and will raise the most exasperating controversies the circumstances will permit."

"The conflict between Socialism and existing civilisation must be a death-struggle. If the combat is once commenced, one or other of the combatants must perish. It is idle to plead that the schemes of these men are their religion. There are religions so hostile to morality, so poisonous to the life-springs of society, that they are outside the pale of human tolerance."

"I wish that there was any chance of awakening England to the necessity or the duty of sustaining upon the Continent the position which she acquired and held in former times. Such a revival of feeling on her part would not only draw classes together in this country and purify our internal conflicts from the material element which is coming to be dominant in them; but it would prove an important guarantee for the maintenance of the present structure of Europe. ... [A]ny such revival of feeling in England is chimerical. ... The fault really lies in the change in the nature of spirit of the English nation. They do not wish, as they formerly did, for great national position, and they are glad to seclude themselves from European responsibilities by the protection which their insular position is supposed to give them. ... The great middle classes and the professional classes with whom power in this country really resides, have deliberately turned away from the ancient aims and policy of England in foreign affairs."

"Some persons, I know, entertain a notion that the proper way to educate a young man of 18 is to put before him all the arguments and systems of belief which ever have been or can be devised, and let him take his choice; but I am quite convinced that no such notion will ever commend itself to the general mass of parents in this country. They are well aware that thorny questions of controversy are not fit for men of unripe and unpractised minds, and that the only effect of asking them to choose impartially between all beliefs is to make them think that no belief is of much importance, and that at an age when temptations are strongest they may come to the conclusion that the moral maxims which rest on belief and belief alone are mere ancient and valueless superstitions."

"I am sure that no more certain method, not only of dechristianizing, but demoralizing the youth of the classes who send their children to the Universities could be found than subjecting them to the influence of tutors who would start with the idea that all beliefs should be submitted for free selection to the consciences and intelligences of their pupils."

"I am afraid a belief is prevalent that the advancement of morality is due to the action of Government authority. If so, we are in danger of abandoning the highest standard of morality, that of Christianity, and of seeking another in Acts of Parliament and regulations of police. Is there any country in the world in which the action of the Legislature has been able to supply the calls of the moralist and the teacher? 150 years ago the upper and middle classes of this country were as bad with regard to drunkenness as the lower classes are now. People did not then trust to legislative action, they resorted to civilization and religion. They trusted to allegiance to a principle, and in the upper and middle classes of this country at present drunkenness is not a prevailing vice. Why, then, not believe that the influences which had been so powerful with the upper and middle classes will be equally operative with the lower? I trust that in any measures your Lordships may be asked to pass, you will shrink from attempting a task which it is impossible for any Legislature to perform—namely, by the action of Government to insure morality among the people."

"So far as positive religion goes, the Tests Act...has left Oxford better off than it was before. There is more security for religious teaching than there was. The great effect of the Tests Act—or rather of that great movement of public opinion of which the Tests Act was only the outcome—has been negative. All hindrance to the teaching of infidelity has been taken away, and that is the great danger of the future. (Hear, hear.) The great danger is that there should be found inside our Universities—especially, I fear, inside Oxford—a nucleus and focus of infidel teaching and influence—(hear, hear)—not infidel in any coarse or abusive sense, but in that sense which Professor Palmer used the words "heathen virtue." I fear that the danger we have to look to is that some Colleges in Oxford may in the future play a part similar to that disastrous part which the German Universities have played in the de-Christianization of the upper and middle classes."

"The whole of our conduct towards the Yankees is too disgusting to think calmly of. ... If we had recognised the South ten years ago, America would have now been nicely divided into hostile states."

"On Tory principles the case presents much that is painful, but no perplexity whatever. Ireland must be kept, like India, at all hazards: by persuasion if possible; if not, by force."

"The two parties represent two opposite moods of the English mind, which may be trusted, unless past experience is wholly useless, to succeed each other from time to time. Neither of them, neither the love of organic changes nor the dislike of it, can be described as normal to a nation. In every nation, they have succeeded each other at varying intervals during the whole of the period which separates its birth from its decay. Each finds in the circumstances and constitution of individuals a regular support which never deserts it. Among men, the old, the phlegmatic, the sober-minded, among classes, those who have more to lose than to gain by change, furnish the natural Conservatives. The young, the envious, the restless, the dreaming, those whose condition cannot easily be made worse, will be rerum novarum cupidi. But the two camps together will not nearly include the nation: for the vast mass of every nation is unpolitical."

"[T]he central doctrine of Conservatism, that it is better to endure almost any political evil than to risk a breach of the historic continuity of government."

"One thing at least is clear—that no one believes in our good intentions. We are often told to secure ourselves by their affections, not by force. Our great-grand children may be privileged to do it, but not we."

"[Permitting discussions in the Indian Council seems to me] an unmeaning mimicry of the forms of popular institutions where the reality is impossible. What is called public opinion in India is frequently the opinion of a clique, and presents none of the guarantees for sound judgment possessed by a public opinion which represents the combined views of a large mass of different interests and classes. I have the smallest possible belief in 'Councils' possessing any other than consultative functions."

"I am afraid a mistake was made by Lord Macaulay and others in the direction they gave to educational efforts in India. Popular education would have enabled the millions to raise themselves a little out of their extreme poverty. The University education only manufactures a redundant supply of candidate for the liberal professions in a country where the demand is small, and as a by-product turns out a formidable array of seditious article-writers."

"I believe...all the enduring institutions which human societies have attained have been reached, not of the set design and forethought of some group of statesmen, but by that unbidden and unconscious convergence of many thoughts and wills in successive generations to which, as it obeys no single guiding hand, we may give the name of "drifting"."

"As to action the matter is simple: India is held by the sword: and its rulers must in all essentials be guided by the maxims which benefit the Government of the sword."

"It was time to put a stop to the growing idea that England ought to pay tribute to India as a kind of apology for having conquered her: & you have done it effectively."

"The vast multitudes of India I thoroughly believe are well contented with our rule. They have changed masters so often that there is nothing humiliating to them in having gained a new one."

"Speaking generally, I am desirous to push forward the argument from the interests of the people more than has hitherto been done. As I have said, I consider it to be our true rule and measure of action, and our observance of it is the one justification for our presence in India."

"If England is to remain supreme, she must be able to appeal to the coloured against the white, as well to the white against the coloured. It is therefore not merely as a matter of sentiment and of justice, but as a matter of safety, that we ought to try and lay the foundation of some feeling on the part of coloured races towards the crown other than the recollection of defeat and the sensation of subjection."

"It is clear enough that the traditional Palmerstonian policy [of British support for Ottoman territorial integrity] is at an end."

"Diplomacy which does not rest on force is the most feeble and futile of weapons, and except for bare self-defence, we have not the force."

"English policy is to float lazily downstream, occasionally putting out a diplomatic boat-hook to avoid collisions."

"The commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcass of dead policies."

"I would have devoted my whole efforts to securing the waterway to India – by the acquisition of Egypt or of Crete, and would in no way have discouraged the obliteration of Turkey."

"No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense."

"Salisbury said two things which are more decided than any former utterances of his: that Russia at Constantinople would do us no harm: and that we ought to seize Egypt."

"Mohammedanism has the only organization and pretty nearly the only ambition hostile to us that is left in India."

"War is righteous or unrighteous according as it is opportune or inopportune."

"[I]f our ancestors had cared for the rights of other people, the British empire would not have been made."

"Englishmen are moderate, careful to avoid unnecessary offence, slow to come to a dangerous and violent conclusion, and tenacious and resolute when the conclusion has once been arrived at."

"We are trustees for the British Empire. We have received that trust with all its strength, all its glory, all its traditions; and the one thing we have to care for is that we pass them untarnished to our successors."

"In Europe good government and other qualities may secure the sympathy of a population. In the East the first quality that secures the sympathy of a population is the possession of strength, and the moment they were convinced that strength had gone from Turkey, the power of Turkey to maintain her Empire was gone. Are your Lordships prepared to see the allegiance of the people of Asia given up to the advancing Power? If so, I ask whether there would be any chance of maintaining the loyalty of the people of India, when once they knew that the Russian power was dominant down to the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, and that the English power was nothing compared with it? That was the real danger which we had to fear."

"You must ask yourselves, supposing 150 years ago a school had arisen similar to schools that we have heard now, who had told and who had persuaded the English Government that such things as the conquest of India, or of Canada, or Gibraltar, or Malta, or the Cape of Good Hope—that these things were unimportant, and that the one thing was to look at home at our own parochial politics? Supposing this had been said 150 years ago, do you imagine you would now be the great, the numerous, the prosperous nation that you are?"

"The hurricane that has swept us away is so strange & new a phenomenon that we shall not for some time understand its real meaning. ... It seems to me to be inspired by some definite desire for change: & means business. It may disappear as rapidly as it came: or it may be the beginning of a serious war of classes. Gladstone is doing all he can to give it the latter meaning."

"I hope that we shall not go too far in accepting the clôture. ... It is not our interest to grease the wheels of all legislation: on the contrary it may do all the Conservative classes of the country infinite harm."

"I am afraid that in Asia allegiance is merely the recognition of superior strength, and that the Afghans will, on the whole, ask themselves, when they are determining to whom their allegiance shall be given, which is the stronger Power—which is the Power that can protect their friends and punish their enemies—and I am afraid that they will conclude that the stronger Power is that which advances and never retreats, and not the Power which retreats and preaches all the way."

"[A]s individuals and as nations we live in states of society utterly different from each other. As a collection of individuals, we live under the highest and latest development of civilization, in which the individual is rigidly forbidden to defend himself, because society is always ready and able to defend him. As a collection of nations we live in an age of the merest Faustrecht, in which each one obtains his rights precisely in proportion to his ability, or that of his allies, to fight for them. ... In practice it is found that International Law is always on the side of strong battalions. ... It is puerile...to apply to the dealings of a nation with its neighbour's territory the morality which would be applicable to two individuals possessing adjoining property, and protected from mutual wrong by a law superior to both."

"I earnestly hope that the House of Lords will always continue to justify your confidence; that it will conscientiously and firmly fulfil the duties for which I think it is eminently fitted, and which are to represent the permanent and enduring wishes of the nation as opposed to the casual impulses which some passing victory at the polls may in some circumstances have given to the decisions of the other House."

"The Afghan looks upon an Englishman in two lights—first, as a person who is an infidel, and next as a person who has money. In the first character he is anxious to kill him, in the second he is anxious to rifle him. (Cheers and laughter.)"

"Much has been said in the present debate about conciliation and the value of conciliatory measures to Ireland...Conciliatory legislation is infinitely superior; but it depends for its efficacy on the circumstances under which it is used, and on the manner in which it is applied. Deterrent legislation, if vigorous and strong, at least deters, whatever the value of that process may be. But conciliatory legislation only conciliates where there is a full belief on the part of those with whom you are dealing that you are acting on a principle of justice, and not that you are acting on motives of fear. Where there is a suspicion or a strong belief that your conciliatory measures have been extorted from you by the violence which they are meant to put a stop to, all the value of that conciliation is taken away."

"I believe there is a great deal of Villa Toryism which requires organization."

"[T]he opinions which some politicians loudly express...that the maintenance of the honour of this country and jealousy for her military fame are bygone emotions which cannot live in the face of the practical spirit of the present day. ... Now, if you wish to learn whether it is true that industry can be pursued and trade can prosper while glory is tarnished and empire is destroyed, look...on this case of Egypt. You see at once what destruction there is of capital, of industry, of all those solid material advantages which your counsellors would induce you to believe are the one thing for human beings to regard. You will see how all these advantages are dissipated and destroyed at once directly the old traditional jealousy for the honour of the country is renounced by the Government."