British Statesman Quotations

The great business of life is to be, to do, to do without and to depart.

No man can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character.

He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work.

Nobody ever did anything very foolish except from some strong principle.

Literature, the most seductive, the most deceiving, the most dangerous of professions.

It wounds a man less to confess that he has failed in any pursuit through idleness, neglect, the love of pleasure, etc., etc., which are his own faults, than through incapacity and unfitness, which are the faults of his nature.

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

A proverb is good sense brought to a point.

My esoteric doctrine, is that if you entertain any doubt, it is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular, is easy... but from the popular to the unpopular is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it.

Even good opinions are worth very little unless we hold them in the broad, intelligent, and spacious way.

It is not much matter which we say, but mind, we must all say the same.

Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.

You cannot demonstrate an emotion or prove an aspiration.

A doctrinaire is a fool but an honest man.

That is no use at all. What I want is men who will support me when I am in the wrong.

And here a most heinous charge is made, that the nation has been burdened with unnecessary expenses for the sole purpose of preventing the discharge of our debts and the abolition of taxes.

The whole duty of government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.

Have I given any symptoms of an avaricious disposition? Have I obtained any grants from the crown since I have been placed at the head of the treasury? Has my conduct been different from that which others in the same station would have followed?

I wish I was as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything.

When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace.

A great interpreter of life ought not himself to need interpretation.

Evolution is not a force but a process. Not a cause but a law.

If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done.

They act as if they supposed that to be very sanguine about the general improvement of mankind is a virtue that relieves them from taking trouble about any improvement in particular.

I am called repeatedly and insidiously prime and sole minister.

They are the guiding oracles which man has found out for himself in that great business of ours, of learning how to be, to do, to do without, and to depart.

Admitting, however, for the sake of argument, that I am prime and sole minister in this country, am I, therefore, prime and sole minister of all Europe? Am I answerable for the conduct of other countries as well as for that of my own?

And therefore, for the sake of my mater, without any regard for my own, I hope all those that have a due regard for our constitution and for the rights and prerogatives of the crown, without which our constitution can not be preserved, will be against this motion.

But I have the satisfaction, at the same time, to reflect that the impression to be made depends upon the consistency of the charge and the motives of the prosecutors.

I happened to be one of those who thought all these expenses necessary, and I had the good fortune to have the majority of both houses of Parliament on my side.

Some members of both Houses have, it is true, been removed from their employments under the Crown; but were they ever told, either by me or by any other of his majesty's servants, that it was for opposing the measures of the administration in Parliament?

The public treasure has been duly applied to the uses to which it was appropriated by Parliament, and regular accounts have been annually laid before Parliament, of every article of expense.

But I must think that an address to his majesty to remove one of his servants, without so much as alleging any particular crime against him, is one of the greatest encroachments that was ever made upon the prerogatives of the crown.

In a progressive country change is constant; change is inevitable.

In those days he was wiser than he is now - he used frequently to take my advice.

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.

It is easier to be critical than correct.

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

Words, which are the dress of thoughts, deserve surely more care than clothes, which are only the dress of the person.

My great and principal crime is my long continuance in office; or, in other words, the long exclusion of those who now complain against me.

It is always right to detect a fraud, and to perceive a folly; but it is very often wrong to expose either. A man of business should always have his eyes open, but must often seem to have them shut.

Wherever they have been arraigned, a plain charge has been exhibited against them. They have had an impartial trial and have been permitted to make their defense.

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.

Women are only children of a larger growth. A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humours and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly and forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters.

There is not a man among them whose particular aim I am not able to ascertain, and from what motive they have entered into the lists of opposition.

A young man, be his merit what it will, can never raise himself; but must, like the ivy round the oak, twine himself round some man of great power and interest.

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.

Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked.

Gratitude is a burden upon our imperfect nature, and we are but too willing to ease ourselves of it, or at least to lighten it as much as we can.

Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions.

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

What we anticipate seldom occurs, what we least expected generally happens.