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William Ewart Gladstone
177 quotes
“I wish to dissipate, if I can, the idle dreams of those who are always telling you that the strength of England depends, sometimes they say upon its prestige, sometimes they say upon its extending its Empire, or upon what it possesses beyond the seas. Rely upon it the strength of Great Britain and Ireland is within the United Kingdom.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Edinburgh (25 November 1879), quoted in W. E. Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches 1879 (Leicester University Press, 1971), p. 46.
“Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. My second principle of foreign policy is this—that its aim ought to be to preserve to the nations of the world—and especially, were it but for shame, when we recollect the sacred name we bear as Christians, especially to the Christian nations of the world—the blessings of peace. That is my second principle.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in West Calder, Scotland (27 November 1879), quoted in W. E. Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches 1879 (Leicester University Press, 1971), p. 115.
“[My sixth principle is that] the foreign policy of England should always be inspired by the love of freedom. There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom you lay the firmest foundations both of loyalty and order; the firmest foundations for the development of individual character; and the best provision for the happiness of the nation at large.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in West Calder, Scotland (27 November 1879), quoted in W. E. Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches 1879 (Leicester University Press, 1971), p. 117.
“What did the two words "Liberty and Empire" mean in the Roman mouth? They meant simply this: liberty for ourselves, empire over the rest of mankind.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in West Calder, Scotland (27 November 1879), quoted in The Times (28 November 1878), p. 10. The Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli had proclaimed his policy as "Imperium et Libertas".
“The Government of India is the most arduous and perhaps the noblest trust ever undertaken by a nation.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Glasgow (5 December 1879), quoted in Michael Balfour, Britain and Joseph Chamberlain (1985), p. 212
“We must fall back upon the broad, the incorruptible power of national liberty; that we decline to recognise any class whatever, be they peers or be they gentry, be they what you like, as entitled to direct the destinies of this nation against the will of the nation.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1880 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Pathhead, Scotland (23 March 1880), quoted in Political Speeches in Scotland, March and April 1880 (1880), p. 268
“As he lived, so he died — all display, without reality or genuineness.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Of Benjamin Disraeli, in May 1881 to his secretary, Edward Hamilton, regarding Disraeli's instructions to be given a modest funeral. Disraeli was buried in his wife's rural churchyard grave. Gladstone, Prime Minister at…
“I am not by any means much pained, but I am much surprised at this rapid development of a national sentiment and party in Egypt. ... ‘Egypt for the Egyptians’ is the sentiment to which I should wish to give scope: and could it prevail it would I think be the best, the only good solution of the ‘Egyptian question’.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Granville (4 January 1882), quoted in The Gladstone Diaries, with Cabinet Minutes and Prime-Ministerial Correspondence: Volume X: January 1881–June 1883, ed. H. C. G. Matthew (1990), p. lxviii
“Sir, there are three principles, greater than all others, on which, in my opinion, all good finance should be based. The first of them is that there should always be a certainty that whatever the charge may be it can be paid. That, I believe, is of vital importance. The second is that, in times of peace and prosperity, the people of the country should reduce their Debt; and the third point is that they should reduce their Expenditure.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (24 April 1882)
“What is meant by "Boycotting?" In the first place, it is combined intimidation. In the second place, it is combined intimidation made use of for the purpose of destroying the private liberty of choice by fear of ruin and starvation.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (24 May 1882)
“I have had the honour to receive the resolutions passed at the meeting recently held in Willis's Rooms, which your lordship has been good enough to forward to me. I can assure your lordship that the subject of those resolutions is engaging the earnest attention of Her Majesty's Government, who will avail themselves of every opportunity for securing the suppression of slavery and the slave trade.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Shaftesbury, chairman of the meeting of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (22 November 1882), quoted in The Times (27 November 1882), p. 4
“What I hope for and desire, what I labour for and have at heart, is to decentralise authority in Ireland. We have disestablished the Church, we have relieved the tenant class of many grievances, and we are now going to produce a state of things which will make the humblest Irishman realise that he is a governing agency and that the government is to be carried on by him and for him.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Georges Clemenceau (winter 1882), quoted in Bernard Henry Holland, The Life of Spencer Compton, Eighth Duke of Devonshire, Volume I (1911), p. 383
“I am convinced that upon every religious, as well as upon every political ground, the true and the wise course is not to deal out religious liberty by halves, by quarters, and by fractions; but to deal it out entire, and to leave no distinction between man and man on the ground of religious differences from one end of the land to the other.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Except from a speech in the House of Commons (26 April 1883) in support of the atheist Charles Bradlaugh being permitted to take his seat in Parliament.
“The reason why the foreign producer gets his produce to market cheaper, relatively, is this — that foreign produce is collected and brought in such large quantities and is sent in great masses to the market. That is the secret of cheap carriage... We must try to make our pounds of produce into tons — or must bring together a number of producers. If you small agriculturists can collectively offer a great bulk of merchandise to the railway companies, they will give you good terms.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Hawarden (5 January 1884), quoted in Gladstone as Financier and Economist (1931) by F. W. Hirst, p. 258
“Ideal perfection is not the true basis of English legislation. We look at the attainable; we look at the practicable; and we have too much of English sense to be drawn away by those sanguine delineations of what might possibly be attained in Utopia, from a path which promises to enable us to effect great good for the people of England.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (28 February 1884) during a debate on the Representation of the People Bill.
“I have even the hope that...the sense of justice which abides tenaciously in the masses will never knowingly join hands with the Fiend of Jingoism.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Acton (11 February 1885), quoted in John Morley, The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Volume III (1903), p. 173
“[An] Established Clergy will always be a tory Corps d'Armée.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Sir William Harcourt (3 July 1885), quoted in H. C. G. Matthew (ed.), The Gladstone Diaries, Volume 10: January 1881-June 1883 (1990), p. clxix
“The rule of our policy is that nothing should be done by the state which can be better or as well done by voluntary effort; and I am not aware that, either in its moral or even its literary aspects, the work of the state for education has as yet proved its superiority to the work of the religious bodies or of philanthropic individuals. Even the economical considerations of materially augmented cost do not appear to be wholly trivial.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Liberal Manifesto (September 1885)
“I deeply deplore the oblivion into which public economy has fallen; the prevailing disposition to make a luxury of panics, which multitudes seem to enjoy as they would a sensational novel or a highly seasoned cookery; and the leaning of both parties to socialism, which I radically disapprove.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to the Duke of Argyll (30 September 1885), quoted in John Morley, The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Volume III (1903), p. 221
“Socialism. Here I am at one with you. I have always been opposed to it. It is now taking hold of both parties, in a way I much dislike: & unhappily Lord Salisbury is one of its leaders, with no Lord Hartington (see his speech at Darwen) to oppose him.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Southesk (27 October 1885)
“I would tell them of my own intention to keep my counsel...and I will venture to recommend them, as an old Parliamentary hand, to do the same.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (21 January 1886)
“Ireland stands at your bar expectant, hopeful, almost suppliant. Her words are the words of truth and soberness. She asks a blessed oblivion of the past, and in that oblivion our interest is deeper than even hers. ...She asks also a boon for the future; and that boon for the future, unless we are much mistaken, will be a boon to us in respect of honour, no less than a boon to her in respect of happiness, prosperity, and peace. Such, Sir, is her prayer. Think, I beseech you, think well, think wisely, think, not for the moment, but for the years that are to come, before you reject this Bill.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons during the Second Reading of the Irish Home Rule Bill (7 June 1886)
“This I must tell you, if we are compelled to go into it—your position against us, the resolute banding of the great, and the rich, and the noble, and I know not who against the true genuine sense of the people compels us to unveil the truth; and I tell you this—that, so far as I can judge, and so far as my knowledge goes, I grieve to say in the presence of distinguished Irishmen that I know of no blacker or fouler transaction in the history of man than the making of the Union.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Liverpool (28 June 1886), quoted in The Times (29 June 1886), p. 11
“I will venture to say that upon the one great class of subjects, the largest and the most weighty of them all, where the leading and determining considerations that ought to lead to a conclusion are truth, justice and humanity—upon these, gentlemen, all the world over, I will back the masses against the classes.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Liverpool (28 June 1886), quoted in The Times (29 June 1886), p. 11
“I affirm that Welsh nationality is as great a reality as English nationality. It may not be as big a reality in that it does not extend over so large a country, but with the traditions and history of Wales, with the language of Wales (hear, hear), with the religion of Wales (cheers), with the feelings of Wales, I maintain that the Welsh nationality is as true as the nationality of Scotland, to which by blood I exclusively belong.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Swansea (4 June 1887), quoted in The Times (6 June 1887), p. 10
“I have said, and I say again, "Remember Mitchelstown".”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Nottingham (18 October 1887), quoted in The Times (19 October 1887), p. 6
“Public economy is part of public virtue.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1846 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Welby (26 October 1887), quoted in Anthony Howe, Free Trade and Liberal England 1846–1946 (1997), p. 19
“The coercion which has been introduced has not been a coercion against crime...It has been a coercion against combination. And combination—it stands and glares upon us from every page in the history of Ireland—is the only arm by which a poor and destitute and feeble population are able to make good their ground, even in the slightest degree, against the domineering power of the State and of the wealthy with England at their back.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in London (9 May 1888), quoted in The Times (10 May 1888), p. 8.
“This Coercion Act professes to be in the main an Act directed against conspiracy, and conspiracy is a bad thing. But under the name of conspiracy we say that it is directed against combination. Combination is not always a very good thing, but combination is very often the sole means by which the weak can protect themselves against the strong, the poor against the wealthy.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in London (30 June 1888), quoted in The Times (2 July 1888), p. 7.
“Think, ladies and gentlemen, of your "Men of Harlech". In my judgment, for the purpose of a national air...and without disparagement of old "God save the Queen" or anything else, it is perhaps the finest national air in the world.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Eisteddfod in Wrexham (8 September 1888), quoted in A. W. Hutton and H. J. Cohen (eds.), The Speeches of The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone on Home Rule, Criminal Law, Welsh and Irish Nationality, National Deb…
“The Welsh made a very good and a very hard fight against the English in self-defence, and what was the consequence? That the English were obliged to surround your territory with great castles; and the effect of this has been that, as far as I can reckon, more by far than one-half of the great remains of the castles in the whole island south of the Tweed are castles that surround Wales. That shows that Wales was inhabited by men, and by men who valued and were disposed to struggle for their liberties.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Eisteddfod in Wrexham (8 September 1888), quoted in A. W. Hutton and H. J. Cohen (eds.), The Speeches of The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone on Home Rule, Criminal Law, Welsh and Irish Nationality, National Deb…
“As regards to the sincerity of the Liberal party...I...refer with some confidence to the labours of that party for the last 50 years in setting free both capital and handicraft of all kinds, both from much undue taxation and from restraints devised for the benefit of special interests at the cost of the people at large—labours which have resulted not in a uniform, but in a very general and a very large improvement of the condition of the working community.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reply to the memorial submitted to him by unemployed workmen (18 December 1888), quoted in The Times (20 December 1888), p. 7
“We are servants of the Crown as well as servants of the people... I am not ashamed to say that in my old age I rejoice in any opportunity which enables me to testify that, whatever may be thought of my opinions, whatever may be thought of my proposals in general politics, I do not forget the service which I have borne for so many years to the illustrious representative of the British Monarchy.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (25 July 1889)
“An enlightened impartial observer...will be disposed to think that in the common interests of humanity this remarkable strike and the results of this strike, which have tended somewhat to strengthen the condition of labour in the face of capital, is the record of what we ought to regard as satisfactory, as a real social advance; that it tends to a greater, a more uniform, and a more firm establishment of just relations; that it tends to a fair principle of division of the fruits of industry.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Cheshire (23 September 1889) on the London dock strike, quoted in The Times (24 September 1889), p. 10
“The serious disintegration of the Liberal party did not begin in 1886. For a long time the wealthy and the powerful had been detaching themselves from the body of the Liberal party, and finding their most natural associations in Toryism, in stagnation, and in resistance. For many of them it was a perfect godsend when Home Rule turned up and supplied them with a plausible excuse for doing ostensibly or even ostentatiously that which in their hearts they had been longing for an excuse to do.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the National Liberal Federation in Manchester (3 December 1889), quoted in The Times (4 December 1889), p. 6
“We are not to judge individuals hastily on account of social mischiefs, that may be due to them as a body, through their holding of a position inherited from their forefathers, the whole nature of which they have not had strength and depth of wisdom to detect.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ‘Memorials of a Southern Planter’, The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 26, Issue 154 (December 1889), pp. 984-986
“I think we certainly must recognise...how much ground has been lost by the doctrines of free trade within the last 25 years. It is a great and heavy disappointment. I have no doubt that the dreadful militarism which lies like an incubus, like a vampire upon Europe, is responsible for much of the mischief.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1890 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Prince's Hall, Piccadilly (12 May 1890), quoted in The Times (13 May 1890), p. 11
“Do not let us conceal from ourselves that this country is almost at the present time the solitary citadel of free trade. ... I confidently anticipate...that these doctrines of free trade will in the long run be found to mean nothing in the world except that each man and each country shall turn to the best account, without artificial interference or interruption, the powers and the gifts which God has given them. This is the sum and substance, the Alpha and the Omega, of our creed.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1890 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Prince's Hall, Piccadilly (12 May 1890), quoted in The Times (13 May 1890), p. 11
“All selfishness is the great curse of the human race, and when we have a real sympathy with other people less happy than ourselves that is a good sign of something like a beginning of deliverance from selfishness.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1890 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Hawarden (28 May 1890), quoted in The Times (29 May 1890), p. 12
“I am not slow to claim the name of Scotchman, and undoubtedly, even if I were slow to claim it, there is the fact staring me in the face that not a drop of blood runs in my veins except what is derived from a Scottish ancestry.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1890 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Dundee (29 October 1890), quoted in The Times (30 october 1890), p. 4
“[T]he finances of the country is intimately associated with the liberties of the country. It is a powerful leverage by which English liberty has been gradually acquired. Running back into the depths of antiquities for many centuries, it lies at the root of English liberty, and if the House of Commons can by any possibility lose the power of the control of the grants of public money, depend upon it your very liberty will be worth very little in comparison.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Hastings (17 March 1891), quoted in A. W. Hutton and H. J. Cohen (eds.), The Speeches of The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone on Home Rule, Criminal Law, Welsh and Irish Nationality, National Debt and the Queen's Re…
“I name next a word that it requires some courage to utter these days—the word of economy. It is like a echo from the distant period of my early life. The wealth of the country, and the vast comparative diffusion of comfort, has, I am afraid, put public economy, at least in its more rigid and severe forms, sadly out of countenance.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the National Liberal Federation in Newcastle (2 October 1891), quoted in A. W. Hutton and H. J. Cohen (eds.), The Speeches of The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone on Home Rule, Criminal Law, Welsh and Irish National…
“That reform of the land laws, that abolition of the present system of entail, together with just facilities for the transfer of land, is absolutely necessary in order to do anything like common justice to those who inhabit the rural parts of this country, and whom, instead of seeing them, as we now see them, dwindle from one census to another, I, for my part, and I believe you, along with me, would heartily desire to see maintained, not in their present number only, but in increasing numbers over the whole surface of the land.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the National Liberal Federation in Newcastle outlining the Newcastle Programme (2 October 1891), quoted in A. W. Hutton and H. J. Cohen (eds.), The Speeches of The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone on Home Rule, Crim…
“It is a lamentable fact if, in the midst of our civilization, and at the close of the nineteenth century, the workhouse is all that can be offered to the industrious labourer at the end of a long and honourable life. I do not enter into the question now in detail. I do not say it is an easy one; I do not say that it will be solved in a moment; but I do say this, that until society is able to offer to the industrious labourer at the end of a long and blameless life something better than the workhouse, society will not have discharged its duties to its poorer members.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1891 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in London (11 December 1891), quoted in The Times (12 December 1891), p. 7
“I think I can truly put up all the change that has come into my politics into a sentence; I was brought up to distrust and dislike liberty, I learned to believe in it. That is the key to all my changes.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1880 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to John Morley (27 December 1891), quoted in John Morley, The Life of William Ewart Gladstone. Vol. III (1880-1898) (1903), pp. 474–475
“There is a saying of Burke's from which I must utterly dissent. "Property is sluggish and inert." Quite the contrary. Property is vigilant, active, sleepless; if ever it seems to slumber, be sure that one eye is open.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1880 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to John Morley (31 December 1891), quoted in John Morley, The Life of William Ewart Gladstone. Vol. III (1880-1898) (1903), p. 469
“Protectionism and militarism are united in an unholy but yet a valid marriage: and the one and the other are in my firm conviction alike the foes of freedom.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to the Marchese di Rudinì (30 April 1892), quoted in Vilfedo Pareto, Liberté économique et les événements d'Italie (1970), p. 49
“Let us go forward in the good work we have in hand and let us put our trust, not in squires and peers, and not in titles or in acres; I will go further and say, not in man, as such, but in Almighty God, who is the God of justice, and who has ordained the principle of right, of equity, and of freedom to be the guides and the masters of our lives.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Edinburgh (30 June 1892), quoted in The Times (1 July 1892), p. 12
“I am vexed to see portions of the labouring class beginning to be corrupted by the semblance of power as the other classes have been tainted & warped by its reality; and I am disgusted by finding a portion of them ready to thrust Ireland, which is so far ahead in claim, entirely into the background. Poor, poor, poor human nature.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to John Morley on the eight-hour day question (22 August 1892), quoted in D. A. Hamer, Liberal Politics in the Age of Gladstone and Rosebery: A Study in Leadership and Policy (1972), pp. 226–227
“George III in his private character shows to advantage when compared with Charles II or George II. But, if George III had succeeded in repressing freedom and parliamentary government, we should have had a Revolution, not probably so bad as the French, but resembling it in kind. From such a catastrophe we were preserved by that unworthy representative of good principles, Wilkes.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) first seen 1894 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to Lionel Tollemache (29 January 1894), quoted in Lionel Tollemache, Talks with Mr. Gladstone (1898), p. 121