British Ambassadors To The Netherlands

"I take with pleasure this opportunity of doing justice to that great man, whose faults I knew, whose virtues I admired; and whose memory, as the greatest general and as the greatest minister that our country or perhaps any other has produced, I honor."

"The Duke of Marlborough talking over some Point of English History once with Bishop Burnet, and advancing some Anachronisms and strange Matters of Fact, his Lordship, in a great Astonishment at this new History, enquired of His Grace where He had met with it. The Duke, equally surprised on His side to be ask’d That Question by so knowing a Man in History as the Bishop, replied, Why dont you remember? It is in the only English History of those Times that ever I red, in Shakespear's Plays."

"His splendid military genius was united with an almost unparalleled evenness of temper, and a regard for, and sympathy with, his troops, which earned for him a devotion scarcely less than that which the Tenth Legion felt for Caesar, or the Old Guard for Napoleon. From a moralist's point of view, Marlborough's character was not faultless, but as a General he had few equals and no superior. He never fought a battle which he did not win, never besieged a city which he did not take, and, in spite of obstructive allies and jealous continental rivals, he curbed the aggression of France, and restored the balance of power in Europe."

"If he had been suffered to end the war which he so gloriously carried on, we should not have had the wars we have had since."

"Marlborough's talents had no flaw. As a strategist he saw clearly and simply the great issues – the relationship of war and policy, the interdependence between one theatre and another, the inter-relation between sea-power and land war. He constantly outwitted his enemies, one success paving the way for the next. As an organizer, he made a nonsensical military system work. His care for his troops, his understanding of them, led to his nickname of ‘Corporal John’. On the battlefield his grasp of confused tactical situations was uncannily clear and accurate; he kept cool and thought fast. To all these qualities he added unflexing will and resolution, and unflagging energy."

"[I]n the ten campaigns he made against [the French]; during all which time it cannot be said that he ever slipped an opportunity of fighting, when there was any probability of coming at his enemy: and upon all occasions he concerted matters with so much judgement and forecast, that he never fought a battle which he did not gain, nor laid siege to a town which he did not take."

"He completed William's work in converting Britain from a peripheral and quasi-isolationist kingdom of little influence into a great power. He defeated the French bid to establish hegemony. ... [I]t can be claimed that he and his achievement lived on in the career of Winston Churchill...by studying his career and the reasons for his success Winston Churchill equipped himself for the supreme tests which he was to have to endure after 10 May 1940."

"I have not time to say more but to beg you will give my duty to the Queen, and let her know Her army has had a Glorious Victory."

"What gave to this country the advantage in the war of the Spanish Succession was the genius and the overwhelming personal ascendency of Marlborough. ... It is due to him that England became one of the great Powers of the world, and next to France, the first of Powers."

"I see that you are in fears again from your White Boys, and have destroyed a good many of them; but I believe, that if the military force had killed half as many landlords, it would have contributed more effectually to restore quiet. The poor people in Ireland are used worse than negroes by their Lords and Masters, and their Deputies of Deputies of Deputies. For there is a sentiment in every human breast that asserts man's natural right to liberty and good usage, and that will, and ought to rebel when oppressed and provoked to a certain degree."

"Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in a mixed company."

"Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years; but we don't choose to have it known."

"Marriage is the cure of love, and friendship the cure of marriage."

"The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom."

"He adorned whatever subject he either spoke or wrote upon, by the most splendid eloquence."

"Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so."

"Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well."

"The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet."

"An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult."

"There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time."

"I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later."

"Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in."

"The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel through it one's self to be acquainted with it."

"Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing."

"Take the tone of the company you are in."

"I knew once a very covetous, sordid fellow, who used to say, "Take care of the pence, for the pounds will take care of themselves.""

"The young leading the young, is like the blind leading the blind; “they will both fall into the ditch.”"

"I recommend you to take care of the minutes: for hours will take care of themselves."

"Patience, to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable applications: with address enough to refuse, without offending; or, by your manner of granting, to double the obligation: dexterity enough to conceal a truth, without telling a lie: sagacity enough to read other people’s countenances: and serenity enough not to let them discover anything by yours; a seeming frankness, with a real reserve. These are the rudiments of a politician; the world must be your grammar."

"Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least."

"Speak of the moderns without contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry."

"Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one."

"Sacrifice to the Graces."

"In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal and so ill-bred, as audible laughter."

"I am sure that since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh."

"The characteristic of a well-bred man is, to converse with his inferiors without insolence, and with his superiors with respect and with ease."

"Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world. Like a great rough diamond, it may do very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value."

"Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings; but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces; for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome."

"Little minds mistake little objects for great ones, and lavish away upon the former that time and attention which only the latter deserve. To such mistakes we owe the numerous and frivolous tribe of insect-mongers, shell-mongers, and pursuers and driers of butterflies, etc. The strong mind distinguishes, not only between the useful and the useless, but likewise between the useful and the curious."

"A strong mind sees things in their true proportions; a weak one views them through a magnifying medium, which, like the microscope, makes an elephant of a flea: magnifies all little objects, but cannot receive great ones."

"The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think; their notions are almost all adoptive; and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so; as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet, than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are."

"Without some dissimulation no business can be carried on at all."

"I recommend to you, in my last, an innocent piece of art: that of flattering people behind their backs, in presence of those who, to make their own court, much more than for your sake, will not fail to repeat, and even amplify, the praise to the party concerned. This is of all flattery the most pleasing, and consequently the most effectual."

"Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds."

"Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity."

"Style is the dress of thoughts."

"Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love; these are their universal characteristics."

"We must not draw general conclusions from certain particular principles, though, in the main, true ones. We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will therefore always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in the pursuit of it. No. We are complicated machines: and though we have one main-spring, that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometimes stop that motion."

"Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day."

"Dispatch is the soul of business."