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

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

186 quotes

“[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.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Willis's Rooms (29 June 1882), quoted in The Times (30 June 1882), p. 8
“Depend upon it, firmness at the right moment is the real secret of a policy of peace. (Cheers.) There is little reason to doubt that if we had Ministers of the old English type all these terrible things would not have occurred. ... I...appeal to the names...of Lord Russell and Lord Palmerston, and you will be readily sensible of the policy which they...in difficulties not unlike this, pursued, because it recognised the danger at the right time; because there was no fear of employing force when force was necessary, and therefore they escaped the terrible disasters upon which the country now seems to be rushing.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Willis's Rooms (29 June 1882), quoted in The Times (30 June 1882), p. 8
“In the present temper of the Irish people...the extension of the suffrage now would be merely to strengthen the element which opposes the connexion with England, and strikes for independence. ... You, the constituencies of England, must settle how this question is to be dealt with. (Cheers.) If you show firmness and resolution, if you remember the great traditions of the country to which you belong, if you resolve that no disputative formulae or Liberal superstitions shall induce you to barter away the greatness of your country, I believe that a final issue may be arrived at. But if you allow the play of parties to bring about imprudent concessions, if you allow the mere impotence of a divided English opinion to permit the establishment of an independence or a quasi independence in Ireland, the days of England's great pre-eminence among the nations of the earth are numbered. (Loud cheers.)”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Birmingham (29 March 1883), quoted in The Times (30 March 1883), p. 10
“[A] great and vital question has been raised in India. (Hear, hear.) It is...the question whether Englishmen in that part of the empire shall or shall not be placed at the mercy of native judges. ... [I]n dealing with foreign countries we have been singularly sensitive of the danger of subjecting Europeans to Oriental tribunals. In Turkey, in Egypt, on the shore of Africa, in China, in Japan, we have always pursued the same policy—to insist that an Englishman, if he has a cause to try, or if he were indicted or attacked in law by any native, should have someone of his own blood and religion...in the Court by which he was tried. ... What would your feelings be if you were in some distant and thinly-populated land, far from all English succour, and your life or honour were exposed to the decision of some tribunal consisting of a coloured man; what would your feelings of security be? (Hear, hear.) You would know that his thoughts were not your thoughts, that he could not justly estimate the circumstances or feelings in which you acted (hear, hear), and that, perhaps, his view of judicial duties was not such as Englishmen are accustomed to find in the Judges to whom their fortunes are consigned. (Cheers.)”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Birmingham (29 March 1883), quoted in The Times (30 March 1883), p. 10
“In our belief, the great empire of England, which we have inherited from our forefathers, concerns all alike, but it concerns those most who depend most for trade and employment upon the constant prosperity of the country. (Cheers.) I do not believe that England, stripped of India, stripped of its colonies, humbled before Europe, would be a happy England for the working classes. (Cheers.) We have received from the self-denial, the heroic actions of our forefathers a great empire. We mean, if we can, to keep it (cheers), to develop it, to strengthen it, to enrich it, and that not in the interests of a class, but of all, and most of all the industrial classes of this country. (Loud and prolonged cheers.)”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Birmingham (29 March 1883), quoted in The Times (30 March 1883), p. 10
“Half a century ago, the first feeling of all Englishmen was for England. Now, the sympathies of a powerful party are instinctively given to whatever is against England. It may be Boers or Baboos, or Russians or Affghans, or only French speculators—the treatment these all receive in their controversies with England is the same: whatever else my fail them, they can always count on the sympathies of the political party from whom during the last half century the rulers of England have been mainly chosen. .. . It is striking, though by no means a solitary indication of how low, in the present temper of English politics, our sympathy with our own countrymen has fallen. Of course, we shall be told that a conscience of exalted sensibility, which is the special attribute of the Liberal party, has enabled them to discover, what English statesmen had never discovered before, that the cause to which our countrymen are opposed is generally the just one. ... For ourselves, we are rather disposed to think that patriotism has become in some breasts so very reasonable an emotion, because it is ceasing to be an emotion at all; and that these superior scruples, to which our fathers were insensible, and which always make the balance of justice lean to the side of abandoning either our territory or our countrymen, indicate that the national impulses which used to make Englishmen cling together in face of every external trouble are beginning to disappear.”
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), pp. 562-563
“[T]here are no absolute truths or principles in politics. We must never forget that there is a moral as well as a material contagion, which exists by virtue of the moral and material laws under which we live, and which forbid us to be indifferent, even as a matter of interest, to the well-being in every respect of all the classes who form part of the community. ... After all, whatever political arrangements we may adopt, whatever the political constitution of our State may be, the foundation of all its prosperity and welfare must be that the mass of the people shall be honest and manly, and shall have common sense. How are you to expect that these conditions will exist amongst people subjected to the frightful influences which the present overcrowding of our poor produce?”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (22 February 1884)
“I fear that the history of the past will be repeated in the future; that, just again, when it is too late, the critical resolution will be taken; some terrible news will come that the position of General Gordon is absolutely a forelorn and helpless one; and then, under the pressure of public wrath and Parliamentary Censure, some desperate resolution of sending an expedition will be formed too late to achieve the object which it is desired to gain, too late to rescue this devoted man whom we have sent forward to his fate, in time only to cast another slur upon the statesmanship of England and the resolution of the statesmen who guide England's councils.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (4 April 1884)
“The terror of the Russian name has enabled them to subdue the people of Merv. The terror of the English name has disappeared since the Government retreated from Kandahar. (Cheers.) They will not learn that these tribes, these vast uncivilized multitudes, are not governed merely by the sword. They are governed by their imagination. (Hear, hear.) They are governed by their fears. They ask themselves, "Which is the Power which is strong and advancing?" and "Which is the Power which is irresolute and retreating?" They saw Russia advancing every succeeding year, they saw England giving up the advantages she had gained, and they concluded that it was for their interest to conciliate and obey Russia, and that they might safely treat England with contempt. In all these matters the Government have equally failed. (Hear, hear.) In the Transvaal and in Zululand and in Afghanistan they reversed our policy and their action is stamped with the brand of impotence, and it is impotence which they have succeeded in persuading the Asiatic is the chief characteristic of the policy of Great Britain. (Cheers.)”
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
“You only have to go on working together as you have hitherto done, not allowing yourselves to be discouraged by any temporary reverses, not believing that any evil day, when it comes, must necessarily be permanent, but trying to convince—what is truth—that in the steadiness and stability of our institutions lies the great hope of industry of the working man (hear, hear)—trying to impress upon him that any adventurous policy or change at home which sets class against class, and fills all men's minds with disquiet and mistrust, is a dangerous thing for industry, and is the most certain poison which trade and commerce can suffer under. (Hear, hear.) If you can bring these facts before the minds of the working men they will observe as time goes on that a policy which appeals to discontent does not produce internal prosperity. (Hear, hear.) They will see that a policy which neglects the Empire of England does not open to us the markets of the world. (Hear, hear.) They will see that the path of national prosperity and national dishonour are not parallel, and they will recognise with this that the party which sustained the old institutions—institutions under which England grew great—which upholds the traditions under which her name has ever been illustrious abroad—that to that party most rightly belongs, and most safely can be confided, the interests of the complicated industry and commerce on which the existence of so many millions of our countrymen depends. (Loud cheers.)”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Glasgow (1 October 1884), quoted in The Times (2 October 1884), p. 7
“Now the terrible responsibility and blame rests upon the Government, because they were warned in March and April of the danger to General Gordon; because they received every intimation which men could reasonably look for that his danger would be extreme; and because they delayed from March and April right down to the 15th of August before they took a single measure to relieve him. What were they doing all that time? It is very difficult to conceive. ... Some people think there were divisions in the Cabinet, and that, after division on division, a decision was put off lest the Cabinet should be broken up. I am rather inclined to think that it was due to the peculiar position of the Prime Minister [William Gladstone]. He came in as the apostle of the Midlothian campaign, loaded with all the doctrines and all the follies of that pilgrimage.”
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 after the Fall of Khartoum (26 February 1885)
“The disease is not in Ireland. The disease is here—in Westminster. If you had pursued—if you would now pursue—any steady, unvarying, and consistent policy with regard to Ireland, you would find that the problems that that country offered to you in respect of government are not greater than the problems of government which have been successively overcome by every Government in the world. There is nothing in them of that extraordinary or extreme character that should set at defiance the resources of civilization. But it is necessary, above all things, that the play of our Party system shall not call into question the foundations upon which our polity rests. It is necessary that men should not be able to speculate on the change of Party to Party in the hope of altering the fundamental laws on which the union of the United Kingdom is based. If you have instability of purpose, if you have a policy shifting from five years to five years with each change in the wheel of political fortune, or the humour of political Parties in this country, you are drifting straight to a ruin which will engulf England and Ireland alike. Your hope is not so much in this or that particular plan or panacea for restoring order, or maintaining law, or reviving the conditions of civilized life in Ireland. Your hope is in this—that Parliament shall school itself to adopt a steady, consistent policy, and maintain it when it is once adopted. A resolution of that kind manfully carried out will restore that prosperity to which Ireland has for so long been a stranger.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (12 January 1886)
“There is a state in Europe which has had very often to hear the word autonomy, which has had more than once to grant Home Rule and to see separation following Home Rule. The state I have referred to is...the Empire of Turkey. (Cheers.) Let any one who thinks that separation is consistent with the strength and prosperity of the country look to its effect, its repeated effect when applied to another country. ... Turkey had first to give autonomy to Roumania, autonomy was followed by independence; it had to give autonomy to Servia, autonomy was followed by independence. ... Turkey is a decaying empire; England, I hope, is not. (Cheers.) But I want to point out to you by a striking and conspicuous example that this process of giving autonomy to provinces which is certain to slide into separation is not consistent with the prosperity or the maintenance of an empire. (Cheers.)”
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
“The truth is that the connection of Ireland with England has been full of trouble, and I fear there is no remedy. ... It is a chronic disease, and even if it is not to be cured we have proved in the past that we can get on with it and yet carry on our Empire to a vast pitch of prosperity. What has been done in the past can be done in the future. ... [D]o not let us attempt to cure it by a measure which will put this island into a condition which never during 700 years of our history has existed—which will hand over those who have had the courage to defend us to the maltreatment of their worst enemies, and which will establish at our very doors a post—a hostile post—which will be at the pleasure of any foreign power which may sometimes be hostile to us.”
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
“Confidence depends upon the people in whom you are to confide. You would not confide free representative institutions to the Hottentots, for instance. Nor, going higher up the scale, would you confide them to the Oriental nations whom you are governing in India—although finer specimens of human character you will hardly find than some of those who belong to these nations, but who are simply not suited to the particular kind of confidence of which I am speaking. Well, I doubt whether you could confide representative institutions to the Russians with any great security. You have done it to the Greeks, but I do not know whether the result has been absolutely what you wish. And when you come to narrow it down you will find that this which is called self-government, but which is really government by the majority, works admirably well when it is confided to people who are of Teutonic race, but that it does not work so well when people of other races are called upon to join in it.”
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
“If they will abandon the habit of mutilating, murdering, robbing, and of preventing honest persons who are attached to England from earning their livelihood, they may be sure there will be no demand for coercion. Well, you will be told you have no alternative policy. My alternative policy is that Parliament should enable the Government of England to govern Ireland. Apply that recipe honestly, consistently, and resolutely for 20 years, and at the end of that time you will find that Ireland will be fit to accept any gifts in the way of local government or repeal of coercion laws that you may wish to give her. What she wants is government—government that does not flinch, that does not vary—government that she cannot hope to beat down by agitations at Westminster—government that does not alter in its resolutions or its temperature by the party changes which take place at Westminster.”
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. The Liberal MP John Morley responded by claiming that Sali…
“I consider the loss of Constantinople would be the ruin of our party and a heavy blow to the country: and therefore I am anxious to delay by all means Russia's advance to that goal. A pacific and economical policy is up to a certain point very wise: but it is evident that there is a point beyond which it is not wise either in a patriotic or party sense—and the question is where we shall draw the line. I draw it at Constantinople. My belief is that the main strength of the Tory party, both in the richer and poorer classes, lies in its association with the honour of the country. It is quite true that if, in order to save that honour, we have to run into expense, we shall suffer as a party—that is human nature. But what I contend is, that we shall suffer as a party more—much more—if the loss of Constantinople stands on our record.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Randolph Churchill (1 October 1886), quoted in Winston Churchill, Lord Randolph Churchill, Vol. II (1906), pp. 161-162
“We have two duties before us; we have the duty of maintaining law and order for the sake, not only of the loyal population, but also for the population which breaks it, and we have the duty of securing the loyal population from such a change in the Constitution of the country as shall place their dearest interests in peril. It is idle to talk of leaving the Irish people to govern themselves. You know very well that they will not govern themselves, but that the majority will govern the minority in a way utterly inconsistent with its rights, and in a manner utterly fatal to all its industrial and commercial hopes.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (27 January 1887)
“The business which brings you here to-day is of a peculiar character, due to the very peculiar character of the Empire over which the Queen rules. It yields to none, it is perhaps superior to all in its greatness, in its extent, in the vastness of its population, in the magnificence of its wealth. But it has this peculiarity which separates it from other empires—the want of continuity. The Empire is separated into parts, and distant parts, by large stretches of ocean, and what we are really here to do is to see how far we must acquiesce in the conditions which that separation causes, how far we can obliterate them by agreement and by organization.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Colonial Conference, London (4 April 1887), quoted in The Times (5 April 1887), p. 11
“As a rule I think that wherever communities are in close geographical proximity, and are related to each other by an identity or a close similarity of language, one of two things must happen to them. Either they must combine absolutely or they must separate absolutely. (Hear, hear.) I do not believe that there is an instance of any permanent solution, any permanent settlement, involving an imperfect and an incomplete subordination. The reason is very obvious, that the smaller nation becomes the basis of operations for the enemy of the larger nation, whether they are enemies from abroad or at home. ... We have seen this kingdom gradually made up, first by the Heptarchy, then Wales, then Scotland, then Ireland. ... The force of circumstances has dictated to those communities the decree that they shall be one (cheers), and if you glance over the history of Ireland you at once see why they must be one. You see a succession of the enemies of England always using her as their opportunity (hear, hear), first from the Yorkists and Perkin Warbeck, then from the times of the Reformation and Philip II, then to the rebellion because of the Puritan movement in England, then to Louis XIV, and, later on, to the Jacobites. ... It was always the same thing. Was there any period or any nation that desired to fight another at home or abroad, they always selected Ireland as the basis of their operations; and unless your fame is absolutely erased, unless your energies have gone, unless your lamp among nations is put out, you may depend upon it that whatever sentiments are dominant now...you will come in the long run to the determination that consolidation, and consolidation alone, is the remedy for the evils under which Ireland suffers. (Cheers.)”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Liverpool (11 January 1888), quoted in The Times (12 January 1888), p. 7
“I see it stated on good authority that there are no less than 12 millions of men, of armed men, maintained by the five Powers of Continental Europe. I do not say that this should diminish our confidence in peace, but I feel that there is a general impression pervading the community—one of those wide public impressions affecting every mind and every class which carries by its very universality the warrant of its truth—which tells us that in the midst of so much preparation we must not remain unprepared. (Cheers.) ... Your preparation is for the purpose of meeting any force which, by any sinister and unforeseen contingency, may be brought against you; and in proportion as the forces which might be brought against you increase in volume and in power, in that proportion is laid upon you the stern and inevitable necessity of increasing your preparations also. (Cheers.)”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Defending increased naval expenditure; speech in the Guildhall, London (9 November 1888), quoted in The Times (10 November 1888), p. 10
“If you intrust independent executive and legislative power to the Government of Ireland, can you say it will never be hostile? On the contrary...you know that a very considerable proportion of the population of Ireland is unfortunately at this time, and has been for generations past, animated with the most bitter sentiments against England. Well, is there any impediment to prevent them in case of some European war, where you might be fighting for your existence, is there anything to prevent the Government of an independent Ireland...from placing those splendid harbours which lie opposite you at the disposal of a foreign fleet?”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Bristol (22 April 1889), quoted in The Times (24 April 1889), p. 6
“Representative Government answers admirably so long as all those who are represented desire much the same thing, and have interests tolerably analogous; but it is put to an intolerable strain when it rests upon a community divided into two sections, one of which is bitterly hostile to the other, and desirous of opposing it upon all occasions. We do not know how the Mahommedan and Hindoo populations if placed face to face with each other in elective representative Government would view each other; but we know, at all events, that one of the heaviest responsibilities and severest duties of the Government of India is to prevent the outbreak of hostilities caused by the profound differences between those two communities—differences in race, traditions, history, and creed.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1890 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (6 March 1890)
“I take Socialism in its strict meaning to be for the State to do that which is usually done by private people for the sake of gain. I believe that that is sometimes a very unwise thing; on the other hand, it is sometimes a very wise thing. There is nothing so Socialistic as the Mint or the Post Office. No doubt my noble Friend is right in saying that at the present day there is a strong leaning towards bringing in the interference of the State on every possible occasion, and I think that is a tendency against which it is right that we should be upon our guard. It is not that we sin against any principle, but that we expect from the State what it cannot possibly do if we impose upon it tasks which it cannot fitly perform or burdens beyond its power; all we shall do will be to create an indefinite source of expense, and ultimately an unlimited cause of corruption and inefficiency.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1890 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (19 May 1890)
“There is no danger which we have to contend with which is so serious as an exaggeration of the power, the useful power, of the interference of the State. It is not that the State may not or ought not to interfere when it can do so with advantage, but that the occasions on which it can so interfere are so lamentably few and the difficulties that lie in its way are so great. But I think that some of us are in danger of an opposite error. What we have to struggle against is the unnecessary interference of the State, and still more when that interference involves any injustice to any people, especially to any minority. All those who defend freedom are bound as their first duty to be the champions of minorities, and the danger of allowing the majority, which holds the power of the State, to interfere at its will is that the interests of the minority will be disregarded and crushed out under the omnipotent force of a popular vote. But that fear ought not to lead us to carry our doctrine further than is just. I have heard it stated — and I confess with some surprise — as an article of Conservative opinion that paternal Government — that is to say, the use of the machinery of Government for the benefit of the people — is a thing in itself detestable and wicked. I am unable to subscribe to that doctrine, either politically or historically. I do not believe it to have been a doctrine of the Conservative party at any time. On the contrary, if you look back, even to the earlier years of the present century, you will find the opposite state of things; you will find the Conservative party struggling to confer benefits — perhaps ignorantly and unwisely, but still sincerely — through the instrumentality of the State, and resisted by a severe doctrinaire resistance from the professors of Liberal opinions. When I am told that it is an essential part of Conservative opinion to resist any such benevolent action on the part of the State, I should expect Bentham to turn in his grave; it was he who first taught the doctrine that the State should never interfere, and any one less like a Conservative than Bentham it would be impossible to conceive... The Conservative party has always leaned — perhaps unduly leaned — to the use of the State, as far as it can properly be used, for the improvement of the physical, moral, and intellectual condition of our people, and I hope that that mission the Conservative party will never renounce, or allow any extravagance on the other side to frighten them from their just assertion of what has always been its true and inherent principles.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1891 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the United Club (15 July 1891), quoted in The Times (16 July 1891), p. 10
“We must learn this rule, which is true alike of rich and poor — that no man and no class of men ever rise to any permanent improvement in their condition of body or of mind except by relying upon their own personal efforts. The wealth with which the rich man is surrounded is constantly tempting him to forget the truth, ad you see in family after family men degenerating from the position of their fathers because they live sluggishly and enjoy what has been placed before them without appealing to their own exertions. The poor man, especially in these days, may have a similar temptation offered to him by legislation, but this same inexorable rule will work. The only true lasting benefit which the statesman can give to the poor man is so to shape matters that the greatest possible opportunity for the exercise of his own moral and intellectual qualities shall be offered to him by the law; and therefore it is that in my opinion nothing that we can do this year, and nothing that we did before, will equal in the benefit that it will confer upon the physical condition, and with the physical will follow the moral too, of the labouring classes in the rural districts, that measure for free education which we passed last year. It will have the effect of bringing education home to many a family which hitherto has not been able to enjoy it, and in that way, by developing the faculties which nature has given to them, it will be a far surer and a far more valuable aid to extricate them from any of the sufferings or hardships to which they may be exposed than the most lavish gifts of mere sustenance that the State could offer.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Devonshire Conservatives (January 1892), as quoted in The Marquis of Salisbury (1892), by James J. Ellis, p. 185
“We live in an age of a war of tariffs. ... [I]n this great battle Great Britain has deliberately stripped herself of the armour and the weapons by which the battle has to be fought. ... The weapon with which they all fight is admission to their own markets. ... I would impress upon you that if you intend, in this conflict of commercial treaties, to hold your own, you must be prepared, if need be, to inflict upon the nations which injure you the penalty which is in your hands, that of refusing them access to your markets. (Loud and prolonged cheers and a voice, "Common sense at last.") There is a reproach in that interruption, but I have never said anything else.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the annual conference of the Home Counties Division of the National Union of Conservative Associations in Hastings (18 May 1892), quoted in The Times (19 May 1892), p. 10
“I think there are...parts of the Poor Law which are more severe than it is necessary they should be, and that they may with advantage be modified. It would be a tremendous evil if by maintaining provisions of undue severity we were to disgust our people with a system which undoubtedly has contributed to the security and prosperity we have hitherto enjoyed. There can be no doubt that some of the dangers which in 1834 were menacing and real have ceased to have the same character at present. In 1834 you had the terrible fact to deal with that the masses of the population felt it no disgrace to receive the aid of the Poor Law; rather they thought it the natural end and condition of their being. An enormous change has taken place in the opinions of the working classes on that point. Their sense of self-respect and their dislike to receiving parochial relief have greatly increased, and thus the dangers of an abusive use of Poor Law relief have in that proportion diminished.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1893 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (31 January 1893)
“You do not imagine that the adversary of centuries can be converted by the honeyed words of two or three months into a fast, benevolent, and trusty friend. ... That section of Irishmen, of the inhabitants of Ireland who are commanded by Archbishop Walsh and Mr. Healy (hisses), represent the enemy which England has contended for centuries. They represent the enemy against whom England appealed to settlers from Great Britain to come here and help her in her almost impossible task; they are the people who resisted you and threatened you and threatened the English interest again and again in 1641, in 1690, in 1798.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1893 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Belfast against Irish Home Rule (24 May 1893), quoted in The Times (25 May 1893), p. 6
“I earnestly urge that, in pressing our right over those countries, we are not actuated by any merely ambitious view of extending the boundaries of the British Empire, or the grandeur of the claims which that Empire can put forward. There is a much more solid reason: to keep our trade, our industries alive we must open new sources of consumption in the more untrodden portions of the earth, and we are the only nation that can occupy those countries without shutting them to all the world besides. If we occupy a distant, large, and uncivilised country and attempt to make it subservient to the purposes of commerce, we injure no others, because all others are as free to use it for commercial purposes as ourselves. But there are other countries which, if they occupy any of these regions, entirely shut it out from British commerce, as though the access to it was physically impossible. In the interests of our industry and our trade...I earnestly hope we shall do all we can to maintain, push forward, and strengthen our power in these rich and extensive regions, and that we shall not by any weakness, or feebleness, or undue economy now forfeit the brilliant hopes which a stronger policy might give us in the future.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1894 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (1 June 1894)
“I feel it is our duty to sustain the federated action of Europe. I think it has suffered by the somewhat absurd name which has been given to it—the Concert of Europe—and the intense importance of the fact has been buried under the bad jokes to which the word has given rise. But the federated action of Europe—if we can maintain it, if we can maintain this Legislature—is our sole hope of escaping from the constant terror and the calamity of war, the constant pressure of the burdens of an armed peace which weigh down the spirits and darken the prospects of every nation in this part of the world. ["Hear, hear!"] The federation of Europe is the only hope we have; but that federation is only to be maintained by observing the conditions on which every Legislature must depend, on which every judicial system must be based—the engagements into which it enters must be respected.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1897 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (19 March 1897)
“You must remember what the concert of Europe is. The concert, or, as I prefer to call it, the inchoate federation of Europe, is a body which acts only when it is unanimous...remember this—that this federation of Europe is the embryo of the only possible structure of Europe which can save civilization from the desolating effects of a disastrous war. (Cheers.) You notice that on all sides the instruments of destruction, the piling up of arms, are becoming larger and larger. The powers of concentration are becoming greater, the instruments of death more active and more numerous, and are improved with every year; and each nation is bound, for its own safety's sake, to take part in this competition. These are the things which are done, so to speak, on the side of war. The one hope that we have to prevent this competition from ending in a terrible effort of mutual destruction which will be fatal to Christian civilization—the one hope we have is that the Powers may gradually be brought together, to act together in a friendly spirit on all questions of difference which may arise, until at last they shall be welded in some international constitution which shall give to the world, as a result of their great strength, a long spell of unfettered and prosperous trade and continued peace.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1897 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Guildhall (9 November 1897), quoted in The Times (10 November 1897), p. 6
“I have a strong belief that there is a danger of the public opinion of this country undergoing a reaction from the Cobdenic doctrines of 30 or 40 years ago, and believing that it is our duty to take everything we can, to fight everybody, and to make a quarrel of every dispute. That seems to me a very dangerous doctrine, not merely because it might incite other nations against us—though that is not a consideration to be neglected, for the kind of reputation we are at present enjoying on the Continent of Europe is by no means pleasant, and by no means advantageous; but there is a much more serious danger, and that is lest we should overtax our strength. However strong you may be, whether you are a man or a nation, there is a point beyond which your strength will not go. It is madness; it ends in ruin if you allow yourselves to pass beyond it.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1898 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (8 February 1898)
“You may roughly divide the nations of the world as the living and the dying. On the one side you have great countries of enormous power growing in power every year, growing in wealth, growing in dominion, growing in the perfection of their organization. Railways have given to them the power to concentrate upon any one point the whole military force of their population and to assemble armies of a magnitude and power never dreamt of in the generations that have gone by. Science has placed in the hands of those armies weapons ever growing in their efficacy of destruction, and, therefore, adding to the power—fearfully to the power—of those who have the opportunity of using them. ... [T]he weak States are becoming weaker and the strong States are becoming stronger. It needs no specialty of prophecy to point out to you what the inevitable result of that combined process must be. ... [T]he living nations will gradually encroach on the territory of the dying, and the seeds and causes of conflict amongst civilized nations will speedily appear.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1898 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Primrose League in the Albert Hall (4 May 1898), quoted in The Times (5 May 1898), p. 7
“It was stated as clearly as possible in that protocol, and was evidently the object of the action of the two Powers at the time, that an era of friendly co-operation should be introduced, in which both races should have, under the conduct of both Governments, the utmost equality it was possible to confer on them. That was the guiding principle of the Government in 1881. I do not affect to sympathise with the view they took. ... I did not support it at the time; on the contrary, I resisted it to the utmost of my power. I thought it was a policy tainted with the fault, which is a virtue in many men's eyes, but in my eyes is almost the most dangerous fault a policy can have—it was an optimistic policy. It was an undue belief in the effect of amiable acts not supported by requisite strength.”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1899 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Lords (28 July 1899)
“It is true that there had been spread about in the world the impression that we should never fight again, and that every adversary had only to press hardly and boldly upon us to be certain that we should yield. It was a gross miscalculation on their part. (Cheers.) I have no doubt that the converse is true, and now that we have shown what powers we can exercise, what qualities we can display, how really we can copy the brilliant example of those who have gone before us, that the power of England is not only illustrated by the example, but that it is safe—that the cause of peace is now more secure than it was before the strength of England was conclusively shown. (Cheers.)”
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Nonconformist Unionist Association on the Boer War (13 May 1901), quoted in The Times (14 May 1901), p. 10