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Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
186 quotes
“The commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcass of dead policies.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Lytton (25 May 1877), quoted in G. Cecil, The Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury. Volume II, p. 145
“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.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Lytton (15 June 1877), quoted in G. Cecil, The Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury. Volume II, pp. 145-146
“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.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Lytton (15 June 1877), quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999) Elizabeth M. Knowles, p. 642; this has also been published without the word "insipid".
“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.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to the Cabinet, as recorded in Lord Derby's diary (16 June 1877), quoted in John Vincent (ed.), The Diaries of Edward Henry Stanley, Fifteenth Earl of Derby (1994), p. 410
“Mohammedanism has the only organization and pretty nearly the only ambition hostile to us that is left in India.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Lytton (25 June 1877), quoted in David Steele, Lord Salisbury: A Political Biography (2001), p. 122 and Shih-tsung Wang, Lord Salisbury and Nationality in the East Viewing Imperialism in Its Proper Perspe…
“War is righteous or unrighteous according as it is opportune or inopportune.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (17 January 1878)
“[I]f our ancestors had cared for the rights of other people, the British empire would not have been made.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to the Cabinet, as recorded in Lord Derby's diary (8 March 1878), quoted in John Vincent (ed.), The Diaries of Edward Henry Stanley, Fifteenth Earl of Derby (1994), p. 523
“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.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (8 April 1878)
“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.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (8 April 1878)
“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?”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the London and Westminster Working Men's Constitutional Association in Hatfield Park (4 August 1879), quoted in The Times (5 August 1879), p. 4
“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.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1880 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Arthur Balfour after the Conservatives' defeat in the general election (10 April 1880), quoted in Salisbury–Balfour Correspondence, ed. Robin Harcourt Williams (1988), p. 40
“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.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Arthur Balfour (15 January 1881), quoted in Salisbury–Balfour Correspondence, ed. Robin Harcourt Williams (1988), p. 58
“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.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (3 March 1881)
“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.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (11 October 1881), quoted in The Times (12 October 1881), p. 7
“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.)”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (12 October 1881), quoted in The Times (13 October 1881), p. 7
“I believe there is a great deal of Villa Toryism which requires organization.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Sir Stafford Northcote (25 June 1882), quoted in James Cornford, 'The Transformation of Conservatism in the Late Nineteenth Century', Victorian Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1 (September 1963), p. 52
“It is right to be forward in the defence of the poor; no system that is not just as between rich and poor can hope to survive.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Edinburgh (24 November 1882), quoted in G. Cecil, The Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury, Volume III, p. 65
“A party whose mission is to live entirely upon the discovery of grievances are apt to manufacture the element upon which they subsist.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Edinburgh (24 November 1882), quoted in G. Cecil, The Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury, Volume III, p. 65
“As I have said, there are two points or two characteristics of the Radical programme which it is your special duty to resist. One concerns the freedom of individuals. After all, the great characteristic of this country is that it is a free country, and by a free country I mean a country where people are allowed, so long as they do not hurt their neighbours, to do as they like. I do not mean a country where six men may make five men do exactly as they like. That is not my notion of freedom.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the third annual banquet of the Kingston and District Working Men's Conservative Association (13 June 1883), quoted in The Times (14 June 1883), p. 7
“It is patent on the face of history that the aggregates of men who form communities, like the aggregates of atoms that form living bodies, are subject to laws of progressive change – be it towards growth or towards decay.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Disintegration', Quarterly Review, vol. 156 (July & October 1883), p. 570
“Constitutional institutions are splendid things, but whoever heard of any nation which was purely Mahomedan being able to enjoy them. A constitution depends upon the character of the people to whom it is applied, and there is no circumstance which influences those people more than the religion which they profess, and I will venture to say that there is no instance in the history of the world of any purely Mahomedan, or mainly Mahomedan, population flourishing under what we call popular institutions.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester (16 April 1884), quoted in The Times (17 April 1884), p. 6
“We know Mr. Gladstone is an authority...that the Soudanese are struggling for their liberty. My impression of the matter is that the Soudanese are struggling for abridging the liberty of other people in the shape of the slave trade. (Laughter and cheers.)”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Plymouth on the Mahdist War (4 June 1884), quoted in The Times (5 June 1884), p. 6
“[W]hen I am told that my ploughmen are capable citizens, it seems to me ridiculous to say that educated women are not just as capable. A good deal of the political battle of the future will be a conflict between religion and unbelief: & the women will in that controversy be on the right side.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lady John Manners (14 June 1884), quoted in Paul Smith (ed.), Lord Salisbury on Politics: A Selection From His Articles in the Quarterly Review, 1860–83 (1972), p. 18, footnote
“Egypt stands in a peculiar position. It is the road to India. The condition of Egypt can never be indifferent to us; and, more than that, after all the sacrifices that we have made, after all the efforts that this country has put forth, after the position that we have taken up in the eyes of the world, we have a right, and it is our duty to insist upon it, that our influence shall be predominant in Egypt.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (26 February 1885)
“My idea of the manner of dealing with Russia is not to extract from her promises which she will not keep (cheers), but to say to her, "There is a point to which you shall not go (cheers), and if you go we will spare neither men nor money until you go back." (Loud cheers.)”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Wrexham (21 April 1885), quoted in The Times (22 April 1885), p. 10
“Remember what it is for which we struggle. In the first place, it is for the maintenance of religion. You know there is an old proverb, "You may know a man by his associates," and you may notice, if you will follow the course of literature, that infidels are always Liberals.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Welshpool, Montgomeryshire (22 April 1885), quoted in The Times (23 April 1885), p. 8
“He certainly agrees with your Majesty in thinking that the [Irish] Nationalists cannot be trusted: and that any bargain with them would be full of danger.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Queen Victoria (20 July 1885), quoted in Viscount Gladstone, After Thirty Years (1928), p. 392
“[I]t is idle to attempt to dispose of a particular proposal by saying that it is Socialistic. Prove that it is against public policy; show that it discourages thrift; above all, show that it interferes with justice, that it benefits one class by injuring another—do these things, and you have proved your case. But do not imagine that by merely affixing to it the reproach of Socialism you can seriously affect the progress of any great legislative movement, or destroy those high arguments which are derived from the noblest principles of philanthropy and religion.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (31 July 1885), defending the Housing of the Working Classes Bill
“If I like to drink beer it is no reason that I should be prevented from taking it because my neighbour does not like it. If you sacrifice liberty on the matter of alcohol you will eventually sacrifice it on more important matters also, and those advantages of civil and religious liberty for which we have fought hard will gradually be whittled away.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Newport, Montgomeryshire (7 October 1885), quoted in The Times (8 October 1885), p. 7
“As to religious education, which Mr. Morley desires to get rid of, it is one of our most cherished privileges. (Loud cheers.) I am not speaking for my own alone. What I claim I would extend equally to the Nonconformists of Wales or the Roman Catholics of Ireland. But I do claim that whatever Church or form of Christianity they belong to, there should be given the opportunity to educate the people in the belief of Christianity which they profess, instead of giving them a lifeless, boiled down, mechanical, unreal religious teaching which is prevalent in the Board schools.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Newport, Montgomeryshire (7 October 1885), quoted in The Times (8 October 1885), p. 7
“The traditions of our party are well known. The integrity of the Empire is more precious to us than any other possessions. (Cheers.) If I may add another consideration, we are bound by motives not only of expediency, not only of legal principles, but by motives of honour, to protect the minority, if such exist, who have fallen into unpopularity and danger because they have maintained either as champions or as instruments the policy which England has deliberately elected to pursue. (Cheers.)”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Mansion House, London (9 November 1885), quoted in The Times (10 November 1885), p. 6
“[S]omehow or other another prospect of unlimited vestry confiscation, something like the three acres and a cow, seems to have affected the electorate of this country. ... The discussion that has taken place has pretty well convinced those who did not know it before, that small tenancies were not the source of unbounded wealth and happiness to those who had the privilege of enjoying them; and I have noticed that the offer has fallen perfectly flat on those agricultural labourers who know what they are doing. Their observation was, "Give me three or four acres? I cannot live upon that.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in St. Stephen's Club, London (23 November 1885), quoted in The Times (24 November 1885), p. 7
“I never admired the political transformation scenes of 1829, 1846, 1867; and I certainly do not wish to be the chief agent in adding a fourth to the history of the Tory party.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1815 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Bath rejecting Irish Home Rule (27 December 1885), quoted in H. J. Hanham (ed.), The Nineteenth-Century Constitution, 1815-1914: Documents and Commentary (1969), p. 235
“There are other countries in the world where your Empire is maintained by the faith which men have that those who take your side will be supported and upheld. Whenever the thought crosses you that you can safely abandon those who for centuries have taken your side in Ireland, I beseech you to think of India, I beseech you to think of the effect it will have if the suspicion can get abroad there that, should convenience once dictate such a policy, like the Loyalists of Ireland, will be flung aside like a sucked orange when their purpose has been fulfilled.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to a Conservative Party banquet against Irish Home Rule (18 February 1886), quoted in Stephen J. Lee, Gladstone and Disraeli (2005), p. 140
“[T]here is no middle term between government at Westminster and independent and entirely separate government at Dublin. (Cheers.) If you do not have a government in some form or other issuing from this centre, you must have absolute separation.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to a meeting convened by the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union in the Opera House, Haymarket (14 April 1886), quoted in The Times (15 April 1886), p. 6
“We give our confidence to the people of England because they have always been loyal to the Queen, have always loved the law, and have always been passionately attached to the Empire. (Cheers.) Has that characterised the Irish dominant faction? ... Why they have always sought support from time to time from whatever nation happened to be in hostility to England—first the Spaniards, then the French, and now the Americans.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to a banquet of the Merchant Taylors' Company, London (10 May 1886), quoted in The Times (11 May 1886), p. 12
“I believe that any repeal of the Union [with Ireland] or any substantial tampering with it is fraught with danger to this country. That has always been the opinion of the Conservative party and always will remain so. It is granting a separate government and separate executive. ... The result is that the [Protestant] minority will not only have laws passed of which they disapprove, but they will have to depend on the toleration and good will of their enemies for the common privileges of civilised life and securities.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to a banquet of the Merchant Taylors' Company, London (10 May 1886), quoted in The Times (11 May 1886), p. 12
“Mr. Parnell said the other night, that Ireland is a "nation". Well, if a nation only means a certain number of individuals collected between certain latitudes and longitudes, I admit in that sense Ireland is a nation. But if there is anything further necessary—if to make a nation you require a past united history, traditions in which you can all join, achievements of which you all are proud, interests which you share in common, and sympathies which belong to all—then emphatically Ireland is not a nation; Ireland is two nations.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations in St. James's Hall, London (15 May 1886), quoted in The Times (17 May 1886), p. 6
“There is now before us one great issue by which all others are overshadowed. We have to determine whether the great Empire that we have inherited from our forefathers and which is the glory of us all (cheers) is to exist or to be destroyed.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Leeds against Irish Home Rule (18 June 1886), quoted in The Times (19 June 1886), p. 12
“It is as close an alliance as the Parliamentary character of our institutions will permit. Your Majesty's advisers recommend it on the whole as necessary in order to avoid serious danger. If, in the present grouping of nations, which Prince Bismarck tells us is now taking place, England was left out in isolation, it might well happen that the adversaries, who are coming against each other on the Continent, might treat the English Empire as divisible booty, by which their differences might be adjusted; and, though England could defend herself, it would be at fearful risk and cost.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Queen Victoria on the Mediterranean Agreements (10 February 1887), quoted in The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 7: 1886–1890, ed. G. E. Buckle (1930), p. 272
“We have entered upon a period of struggle. Our national fault is that too much softness has crept into our councils, and we imagine that great national dangers can be conjured by a plentiful administration of platitudes and rose-water.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the inaugural dinner of the National Conservative Club in Willis's Rooms (5 March 1887), quoted in The Times (7 March 1887), p. 7
“We are a Teutonic people. We hold steadily to our opinions.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Conference of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations in Oxford (23 November 1887), quoted in The Times (24 November 1887), p. 6
“Law and order are the privilege of the poor. So far as they affect the rich they are the restraint of the rich. It is for all those who are interested in the industry and commerce of this country, not for those who are interested merely in fixed capital and the leisurely enjoyment of its fruits, to struggle to maintain the idea of the supremacy of the law.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Conference of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations in Oxford (23 November 1887), quoted in The Times (24 November 1887), p. 7
“All these things we have to do in the midst of other nations who are striving by our side, envying our Empire, occupying our markets, encroaching upon our sphere, and whose efforts, unless we are wide-awake and united and enterprising, will end in diminishing still further our means of supporting our vast industrial population.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Carnarvon (10 April 1888), quoted in The Times (11 April 1888), p. 12
“...institutions like the House of Lords must die, like all other organic beings, when their time comes.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Alfred Austin (29 April 1888), from Paul Smith (ed.), Lord Salisbury on politics: a selection from his articles in the Quarterly Review, 1860–83 (1972), p. 39, footnote
“What advantage does my noble Friend think could be derived by humanity, civilization or commerce from leaving the vast tracts of territory which he has described to be simply wandered over by naked savages or to be the hunting ground of slavers?”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (6 July 1888), quoted in Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (2001), p. 231
“On general grounds I object to Parliament trying to regulate private morality in matters which only affects the person who commits the offence.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Sir Henry Peek (1888)
“We are in a state of bloodless civil war. No common principles, no respect for common institutions or traditions unite the various groups of politicians, who are struggling for power. To loot somebody or something is the common object under a thick varnish of pious phrases.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to W. H. Smith (5 February 1889), quoted in Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (2001), p. 65
“The fabric of our prosperity is so artificial, we have raised such a vast edifice of industry and manufacture and wealth within so narrow an area, that the progress of a hostile army through our country would shatter our prosperity with a ruin which centuries would not repair. (Hear, hear.) In proportion to the danger must be our precaution. (Cheers.) We have to protect ourselves.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Defending increased naval expenditure; speech in Bristol (22 April 1889), quoted in The Times (24 April 1889), p. 6
“Just conceive what London would be without the Empire. It would be a collection of multitudes, without employment, without industrial hope, sinking down into misery and decay.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the East End Conservative Associations in Mile End, London (16 July 1889), quoted in The Times (17 July 1889), p. 9