George Canning Quotes

18 Sourced Quotes

Give me the avowed, erect and manly foe;
Firm I can meet, perhaps return the blow;
But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,
Save me, oh, save me, from the candid friend.

George Canning
I can prove anything by statistics except the truth.

George Canning
When our perils are past, shall our gratitude sleep? No—here's to the pilot that weathered the storm.

George Canning
A steady patriot of the world alone,
The friend of every country but his own.
On the Jacobin

George Canning
I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old.

George Canning
In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch
Is offering too little and asking too much.
The French are with equal advantage content,
So we clap on Dutch bottoms just twenty per cent.

George Canning
Not thus HYPERBOLA; — with subtlest art The blue-eyed wanton plays her changeful part; Quick as her conjugated axes move Through every posture of luxurious love, Her supportive limbs with easiest grace expand....

George Canning
The Whip's duty is to make a House, and keep a House, and cheer the minister.

George Canning
If hush'd the loud whirlwind that ruffled the deep, The sky if no longer dark tempests deform; When our perils are past shall our gratitude sleep? No! Here's to the pilot that weather'd the storm!

George Canning
Active beneficence is a virtue of easier practice than forbearance after having conferred, or than thankfulness after having received a benefit. I know not, indeed, whether it be a greater and more difficult exercise of magnanimity, for the one party to act as if he had forgotten, or for the other as if he constantly remembered the obligation.

George Canning
Where light Asymptotes o'er her bosom play, Nor touch her glowing skin, nor intercept the day.

George Canning
We are hated throughout Europe and that hate must be cured by fear.

George Canning
I think of those companions true Who studied with me at the University of Gottingen.

George Canning
So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourn, glides
The Derby dilly, carrying three INSIDES.

George Canning
Away with the cant of 'Measures not men'!—the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. If the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures comparatively nothing.

George Canning
Give me the avow'd, the erect, the manly foe,
Bold I can meet—perhaps may turn his blow;
But of all plagues, good heaven, thy wrath can send,
Save, save, oh! save me from the Candid Friend!

George Canning
And finds, with keen, discriminating sight,
Black 's not so black,—nor white so very white.

George Canning
I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first.

George Canning