Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
95 quotes
“If our armies are not so numerous as those of other nations, they have qualities which render them more valuable. Those raised by voluntary enlistment are more effective than those raised by conscription; and I should think a general would feel much more confidence in an army raised as our armies are raised, than he could possibly have while leading to battle a band of slaves torn from their homes by force.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1813 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (23 June 1813), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than…
“I will venture to lay it down as a general principle, that there are no better means for securing the continuance of peace, than to have it known that the possessions in the neighbourhood of a foreign state are in a condition to repel attack. I am firmly persuaded that among nations, weakness will never be a foundation for security.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1816 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (26 February 1816), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More …
“It has been said that that which has made England a great and an energetic nation, is the principle heretofore acted upon of maintaining a very low Peace establishment, while the Peace establishments of the continent have been uniformly high. I do not agree in that view of the subject. For my own part, I believe much of our financial embarrassment to have been caused by our former low Peace establishments, and to this circumstance the failure of many of our military operations may be traced.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1816 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (25 April 1816), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Tha…
“We shall drink the cause of Liberalism all over the world. The reign of Metternich is over and the days of the Duke's policy might be measured by algebra, if not by arithmetic.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Henry Sulivan in response to the French Revolution of 1830 (1 August 1830), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 103
“The landed interest is the great foundation upon which rest the fabric of society, and the institutions of the country. I mean no disparagement to manufactures and commerce; I know how essential they are to the happiness and prosperity of the country, and how much they add even to the value of the land. But the land of the country is the country itself, and the owner of the land has the deepest and most permanent interest in its well-being; tied down to the soil, he must share the fortunes of his country, whether in its greatness or its fall.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1831 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (3 March 1831), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than…
“I never can admit that it can be wise to give way to the unjust pretensions of France for the purpose of gaining for the French government...the support of the violent party, or even of the moderate encroachers. Depend upon it, no good is gained by such concessions; you only whet the appetite instead of satisfying it. We should betray our own weakness and encourage fresh demands.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1831 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Viscount Granville (2 April 1831), quoted in Henry Lytton Bulwer, The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, with Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume II (1870), pp. 74-75
“Governments are not at liberty to act solely from motives of generous sympathy for the sufferings of an oppressed people, they are bound by the severer rules of general principles, to respect rights which are inherent in other nations.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1831 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Viscount Granville on the Portuguese Civil War (10 August 1831), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 166
“Constitutional States I consider to be the natural Allies of this country and whoever may be in office conducting the affairs of Great Britain, I am persuaded that no English Ministry will perform its duty if it be inattentive to the interests of such States.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (2 August 1832)
“I will not talk of non-intervention, for it is not an English word.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Answer to an MP who sought to correct Palmerston when he said "non-interference" instead of "non-intervention" in the House of Commons (2 August 1832)
“The interests of civilization, the interests of commerce, and the interests of political independence, were all the interests of England, and all had been signally promoted by the emancipation of Greece.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the Greek War of Independence (8 August 1832)
“Any insult offered to His Majesty's flag, however small the vessel which bears it, would be resented and avenged by all the means which Great Britain can command, [and] any hindrance opposed to the execution of these orders will be considered as an act of hostility.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord William Russell, who was on a special mission in Portugal (15 September 1832), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 170
“I cannot help regretting that honourable gentlemen on the other side of this House should, in all the views which they announce on questions of foreign policy, seem always, by some fatality, to sympathize with arbitrary and despotic government. I cannot help regretting that they should view with averted and disdainful eye the efforts of every country which is endeavouring to establish freedom, and that they should condemn those so pointedly, who, by good offices or friendly co-operation, engage in the attempt to assist such nations in forming free establishments”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1837 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (10 March 1837), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Tha…
“Now the English nation is able to make war, but it will only do so where its own interests are concerned. We are a simple and practical nation, a commercial nation; we do not go in for chivalrous enterprises or fight for others as the French do.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to Adam Jerzy Czartoryski (10 March 1839), quoted in Memoirs of Prince Adam Czartoryski and His Correspondence with Alexander I, Vol. II, ed. Adam Gielgud (1888), p. 340
“In the outset, I must deny the charge made personally against myself, and against the Government to which I belong, of an identification with the interests of other nations...I am satisfied that the interest of England is the Polar star—the guiding principle of the conduct of the Government; and I defy any man to show, by any act of mine, that any other principle has directed my conduct, or that I have had any other object in view than the interests of the country to which I belong.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (19 March 1839), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Tha…
“[T]he object they [the Five Powers] have in view is to maintain the integrity of the Turkish Empire; and they have a right to maintain that integrity, because its maintenance is necessary for upholding the balance of power in Europe, and is essential to the preservation of peace in the world.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Beauvale during the Egyptian–Ottoman War (1 August 1839), quoted in Correspondence Relative to the Affairs of the Levant, Vol. I (1841), p. 232
“Half the wrong conclusions at which mankind arrive are reached by the abuse of metaphors, or by mistaking general resemblance or imaginary similarity for real identity. Thus, people compare an ancient monarchy with an old building, an old tree, or an old man, and because the building, tree, or man must, from the nature of things, crumble, or decay, or die, they imagine that the same thing holds good with a community, and that the same laws which govern inanimate matter, or vegetable or animal life, govern also nations and states.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to H. L. Bulwer (1 September 1839), quoted in Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer's Life of Palmerston (1871), vol. 2, pp. 261-62. (Palmerston was criticizing descriptions of the Ottoman Empire as "decaying," etc.)
“It is indeed remarkable how contradictory are the assertions which the partizans of Mehemet Ali are driven to have recourse to; for while at one time and for one purpose they represent him as the great champion of Mahommedan feeling, at another time, and for another purpose, they extol him as the subduer of Mahommedan prejudice, and as a man who has had energy enough to coerce that religious fanaticism which rendered the Mahommedans so overbearing and intolerable to the Christians in all the transactions and intercourse of life.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Beauvale (16 October 1839), quoted in Correspondence Relative to the Affairs of the Levant, Vol. I (1841), p. 449
“Your Lordship cannot too strongly impress upon the Portuguese Government that the conclusion of a Slave Trade Treaty is a matter which now concerns Portugal only but that the British Claims are a matter upon which Her Majesty's Government cannot admit any further delay. I have to remark to Your Lordship that as yet the new Portuguese Ministry differs from the preceding one in words only; that Her Majesty's Government expects deeds; and that evasion and delay cannot be accepted.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1840 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Howard de Walden (31 January 1840), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 194
“The rivalship of European manufacturers is fast excluding our productions from the market of Europe, and we must unremittingly endeavour to find in other parts of the world new vents for the products of our industry. The world is large enough and the wants of the human race ample enough to afford a demand for all we can manufacture: but it is the business of government to open and secure the roads for the merchant.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Auckland (22 January 1841), quoted in C. K. Webster, The Foreign Policy of Palmerston, Vol. II (1951), pp. 750-751
“You have obtained the Cession of Hong Kong, a barren Island with hardly a House upon it... it seems obvious that Hong Kong will not be the Mart of Trade... it is impossible that you should continue to hold your appointment in China.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Captain Charles Elliot, RN, 21 April 1841
“He alluded to that grievance which was expressed by the demand for fixity of tenure. He held that it would be unjust for Parliament to interfere in the arrangements between the landlord and tenant. To do so, would be to establish a principle of confiscation—to interfere with the rights of property, the foundation of all human society—property which the poorest man by his own industry and exertions, might acquire, as well as the wealthy and powerful.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1843 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (23 June 1843)
“Sir, a wise Government in its home policy considers the reasonable wants of the people; in its foreign policy, it is prepared to resist the unjust demands and the unreasonable views of foreign powers. The present Government inverts this method; it is all resistance at home, all concession abroad.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1843 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (28 July 1843)
“[I]f anything were calculated to render permanent and secure our friendly relations with great neighbouring Powers, it was the placing ourselves in a position of security against any sudden or unforeseen attack. There was no complete security for friendly relations between different countries, except in a state of mutual defence.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons in favour of rearmament (13 June 1845)
“[I]f we arrived at that situation [when]...the one country was fully prepared for aggression, and the other wholly unprepared for events, the result must be either some very dreadful disaster or some deep humiliation to be sustained by the country so undefended.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons in favour of rearmament (13 June 1845)
“[I]f they were negotiating with a foreign country on a matter which might threaten war, it was so far from embarrassing the negotiation, that it would strengthen it, to place ourselves in a position to repel any sudden and unforeseen attack.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons in favour of rearmament (13 June 1845)
“Louis Philippe and Guizot have carried their point by boldness. Louis Philippe and Guizot, like practical and sagacious men, determined to knock us down at once, and make an apology afterwards if necessary to pacify us.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1846 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord John Russell on the Affair of the Spanish Marriages (10 September 1846), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 315
“I cannot make out in what respect our conduct with regard to China is to bear out the charge of contempt for liberty and love of despotism which Mr. Harney has imputed to us. He says that we tried to compel the Chinese to smoke opium. Why, that charge is much the same as if a man were to be accused of compelling the people of England to drink beer or spirits or wine, or anything else of which they are exceedingly fond.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1847 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Tiverton (31 July 1847), quoted in Speech of Lord Viscount Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to the Electors of Tiverton, on the 31st July, 1847 (1847), p. 30
“Prince Metternich thinks he is a conservative, in clinging obstinately to the status quo in Europe; we think ourselves conservative in preaching and advising everywhere concessions, reforms and improvements, where public opinion demands them; you on the contrary refuse them.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1847 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to Count Dietrichstein recorded in Dietrichstein to Metternich (13 March 1848), quoted in A. J. P. Taylor, The Italian Problem in European Diplomacy, 1847–1849 (1934), p. 32
“What business is it of ours to ask whether the French nation thinks proper to be governed by a king, an emperor, a president, or a consul? Our object and our duty is to cement the closest ties of friendship between ourselves and our nearest neighbour... There is nothing, I am convinced, in the real interests of England and France which can stand in the way of the most cordial friendship between the two nations.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1849 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (2 February 1849)
“Talk to me of the aristocracy of England! Why, look to that glorious charge of the cavalry at Balaklava—look to that charge, where the noblest and the wealthiest of the land rode foremost, followed by heroic men from the lowest classes of the community, each rivalling the other in bravery, neither the peer who led nor the trooper who followed being distinguished the one from the other. In that glorious band there were the sons of the gentry of England; leading were the noblest of the land, and following were the representatives of the people of this country.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1855 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (19 February 1855)
“I noticed, I must confess, with great pain the tenor and tone of the speech of the hon. Member for the West Riding, because there pervaded the whole of it an anti-English feeling, an abnegation of all those ties which bind men to their country and to their fellow-countrymen, which I should hardly have expected from the lips of any Member of this House. Everything that was English was wrong, and everything that was hostile to England was right.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1857 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons during the debate on the Second Opium War (3 March 1857)
“An insolent barbarian wielding authority at Canton had violated the British flag, broken the engagements of treaties, offered rewards for the heads of British subjects in that part of China, and planned their destruction by murder, assassination, and poisons.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1857 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Election address to the electors of Tiverton, quoted in The Times (24 March 1857), p. 9. The "insolent barbarian" was the Chinese official Ye Mingchen
“Carlisle is right in saying that there is no serious danger to be apprehended from Ireland, but what I want to prevent is any, even the slightest, outbreak, and this is only to be done by showing that we have in Ireland a sufficient Saxon force to make any movement on the part of the Celts perfectly hopeless, and sure to bring immediate destruction on those who take part in it. Any outbreak of any kind in Ireland would be magnified by our enemies and rivals, and would greatly weaken our political position in Europe.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1857 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Panmure (11 October 1857), quoted in Sir George Douglas and Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay (eds.), The Panmure Papers (1908), pp. 446-447
“My dear John Russell, Till lately I had strong confidence in the fair intentions of Napoleon towards England, but of late I have begun to feel great distrust and to suspect that his formerly declared intention of avenging Waterloo has only lain dormant and has not died away. He seems to have thought that he ought to lay his foundation by beating with our aid or with our concurrence, or our neutrality first Russia and then Austria: and by dealing with them generously to make them his friends and in any subsequent quarrel with us.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord John Russell (4 November 1859), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 534
“Our interests require that Egypt should remain what it is, an integral part of the Turkish empire. We do not want it or wish it for ourselves, any more than any rational man with an estate in the North of England and a residence in the South would have wished to possess the inns on the North Road.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Cowley (25 November 1859), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 542
“I am heartily glad that Elgin and Grant determined to burn down the Summer Palace and that "the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood"… It was absolutely necessary to stamp by some such permanent record our indignation at the treachery and brutality of these Tartars, for Chinese they are not.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Sidney Herbert (20 December 1860), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), pp. 538-539
“It is in the highest degree likely that the North will not be able to subdue the south, and it is no doubt certain that if the Southern union is established as an independent state it would afford a valuable and extensive market for British manufactures but the operations of the war have as yet been too indecisive to warrant an acknowledgement of the southern union.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Sir Austen Henry Layard (20 October 1861) on the American Civil War, quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 552
“Great Britain is in a better state than at any former time to inflict a severe blow upon and to read a lesson to the United States which will not soon be forgotten.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Queen Victoria (5 December 1861), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 554
“It is difficult not to come to the conclusion that the rabid hatred of England which animates the exiled Irishmen who direct almost all the Northern newspapers, will so excite the masses as to make it impossible for Lincoln and Seward to grant our demands; and we must therefore look forward to war as the probable result.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to John Russell (6 December 1861), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 554
“It would be very delightful if your Utopia could be realized and if the nations of the earth would think of nothing but peace and commerce, and would give up quarrelling and fighting altogether. But unfortunately man is a fighting and quarrelling animal; and that this is human nature is proved by the fact that republics, where the masses govern are far more quarrelsome, and more addicted to fighting, than monarchies, which are governed by comparatively few persons.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1862 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Richard Cobden (8 January 1862), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 590
“As to the American [Civil] War it has manifestly ceased to have any attainable object as far as the Northerns are concerned, except to get rid of some more thousand troublesome Irish and Germans. It must be owned, however, that the Anglo-Saxon race on both sides have shown courage and endurance highly honourable to their stock.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1862 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon (20 October 1862), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 559
“We see in the East some of the evils which are incident to arbitrary sway. We witness in the West the widespread misery and desolation which are sometimes created by democratic and Republican institutions. We enjoy a happy medium between the extremes of these two forms of Government. Our institutions not only confer happiness and tranquillity upon the people of these realms, but enable them to enjoy the most perfect freedom of thought, of speech, of writing, and of action, unawed and uncontrolled either by the edicts of despotic authority, or by the Lynch law of an ungovernable mob.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1863 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (17 February 1863)
“The King of Prussia seems to have made his models of action Charles the first of England and Charles the Tenth of France and Bismarck is an humble Imitator of the Ministers of those Two unfortunate Sovereigns. I hope the King's fate will not be like theirs. The King...is quite wrong in attempting unconstitutionally to force his opinions upon his Parliament. He ought to give way and he will be compelled to give way.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1863 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to King Leopold I of Belgium (15 November 1863), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 569
“[Richard Cobden and John Bright] have run a muck against everything that the British Nation respects and values – Crown, Aristocracy, Established Church, Nobility, Gentry and Landowners. They have laboured incessantly to set class against class, and the Poor against the rich.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord John Russell (18 February 1864), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 526
“Mackieson gave me the other day a buffalo hide whip from Africa called in those regions a Peace Maker and used as such in the households of chieftains. Our Peace Makers are our Armstrongs and Whitworths and our engineers.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Austen Henry Layard (23 October 1864), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 590
“If I have in any Degree been fortunate enough to have obtained some share of the Good Will and Confidence of my Fellow-Countrymen, it has been because I have rightly understood the Feelings and Opinions of the Nation, and because they think that I have...endeavoured to maintain the Dignity and to uphold the Interests of the country abroad, and to provide for its security at home.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to William Ewart Gladstone (7 November 1864), quoted in Donald Southgate, ‘The Most English Minister...’ The Policies and Politics of Palmerston (1966), p. xxix
“As to tenant-right, I may be allowed to say that I think it is equivalent to landlords' wrong.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1865 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (27 February 1865). The origin of the famous epigram, "Tenant right is landlord wrong.
“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.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1865 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to Lord Shaftesbury at the dissolution of Parliament (July 1865), quoted in Edwin Hodder, The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G. Volume III (1886), pp. 187-188. Gladstone said in a speech (18…
“Lord Palmerston: Then you did not vote for me, friend Rowcliffe; you preferred voting for a Tory. William Rowcliffe: I did not vote for you, my Lord, for if I had, I should have voted for a Tory.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1865 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: During the general election of July 1865 when the Chartist Rowcliffe voted for a Conservative and another Liberal in an attempt to oust Palmerston from the two-member constituency; quoted in F. J. Snell, Palmerston's Bo…
“Russia will in due time become a power almost as great as the old Roman Empire. She can become mistress of all Asia, except British India, whenever she chooses to take it; and when enlightened arrangements shall have made her revenue proportioned to her territory, and railways shall have abridged distances her command of men will become enormous, her pecuniary means gigantic, and her power of transporting armies over great distances most formidable. Germany ought to be strong in order to resist Russian aggression, and a strong Prussia is essential to German strength.”
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) first seen 1846 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord John Russell (13 September 1865), quoted in E. Ashley (ed.), The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston 1846-1865 (1876), pp. 270-271