Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston Quotes

29 Sourced Quotes

The American assault on Ireland under the name of Fenianism may be now held to have failed, but the snake is only scotched and not killed. It is far from from impossible that the American conspirators may try and obtain in our North American provinces compensation for their defeat in Ireland.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Mackieson gave me the other day a buffalo hide whip from Africa called in those regions a Peace Maker and used as such in the households of chieftains. Our Peace Makers are our Armstrongs and Whitworths and our engineers.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Our interests require that Egypt should remain what it is, an integral part of the Turkish empire. We do not want it or wish it for ourselves, any more than any rational man with an estate in the North of England and a residence in the South would have wished to possess the inns on the North Road.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
It is difficult not to come to the conclusion that the rabid hatred of England which animates the exiled Irishmen who direct almost all the Northern newspapers, will so excite the masses as to make it impossible for Lincoln and Seward to grant our demands; and we must therefore look forward to war as the probable result.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
The function of a government is to calm, rather than to excite agitation.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Young Ireland, the Catholic Party and its newspaper organs in Dublin are trying to do all the mischief they can. They are praising the mutineers, and calling upon the Irish to follow their example. I think it will be advisable to call out and embody five thousand more Militia, making twenty thousand in all, and it would be best to bring over to England all the Irish regiments belonging to the Catholic counties, and to send English regiments to Ireland. Some of the Northern Irish regiments would be well left in Ireland. They are chiefly Protestants, and would be delighted to put down the Croppys if they should rise.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Carlisle is right in saying that there is no serious danger to be apprehended from Ireland, but what I want to prevent is any, even the slightest, outbreak, and this is only to be done by showing that we have in Ireland a sufficient Saxon force to make any movement on the part of the Celts perfectly hopeless, and sure to bring immediate destruction on those who take part in it. Any outbreak of any kind in Ireland would be magnified by our enemies and rivals, and would greatly weaken our political position in Europe.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Mr. Gladstone's Doctrine which the Observer praised that every sane man has a moral Right to vote goes straight to universal suffrage which not even the most vehement Reformer has hitherto advocated. Moreover if every sane Man has that Right why does it not also belong to every sane woman Who is equally affected by Legislation and Taxation. The Truth is that a vote is not a Right but a Trust. All the Nation cannot by Possibility be brought together to vote and therefore a Selected few are appointed by Law to perform this Function for the Rest and the Publicity attached to the Performance of this Trust is a Security that it will be responsibly performed.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
I have watched the French Emperor narrowly, and have studied his character and conduct. You may rely upon it that, at the bottom of his heart, there rankles a deep and inextinguishable desire to humble and punish England, and to avenge, if he can, the many humiliations — political, naval and military — which, since the beginning of this century, England has by herself and her allies inflicted upon France. He has sufficiently organised his military means; he is now stealthily but steadily organising his naval means; and when all is ready, the overture will be played, the curtain will draw up, and we shall have a very disagreeable melodrama.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Lord Palmerston, with characteristic levity had once said that only three men in Europe had ever understood [the Schleswig-Holstein question], and of these the Prince Consort was dead, a Danish statesman (unnamed) was in an asylum, and he himself had forgotten it.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
As to tenant-right, I may be allowed to say that I think it is equivalent to landlords' wrong.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
"Only three people," said Palmerston, "have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it."

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
It would be very delightful if your Utopia could be realized and if the nations of the earth would think of nothing but peace and commerce, and would give up quarrelling and fighting altogether. But unfortunately man is a fighting and quarrelling animal; and that this is human nature is proved by the fact that republics, where the masses govern are far more quarrelsome, and more addicted to fighting, than monarchies, which are governed by comparatively few persons.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Great Britain is in a better state than at any former time to inflict a severe blow upon and to read a lesson to the United States which will not soon be forgotten.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
We do not want Egypt any more than any rational man with an estate in the north of England and a residence in the south, would have wished to possess the inns on the north road. All he could want would have been that the inns should be well kept, always accessible, and furnishing him, when he came, with mutton chops and post horses.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
The King of Prussia seems to have made his models of action Charles the first of England and Charles the Tenth of France and Bismarck is an humble Imitator of the Ministers of those Two unfortunate Sovereigns. I hope the King's fate will not be like theirs. The King... is quite wrong in attempting unconstitutionally to force his opinions upon his Parliament. He ought to give way and he will be compelled to give way.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
What is merit? The opinion one man entertains of another.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
My dear John Russell, Till lately I had strong confidence in the fair intentions of Napoleon towards England, but of late I have begun to feel great distrust and to suspect that his formerly declared intention of avenging Waterloo has only lain dormant and has not died away. He seems to have thought that he ought to lay his foundation by beating with our aid or with our concurrence, or our neutrality first Russia and then Austria: and by dealing with them generously to make them his friends and in any subsequent quarrel with us.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
As to the American [Civil] War it has manifestly ceased to have any attainable object as far as the Northerns are concerned, except to get rid of some more thousand troublesome Irish and Germans. It must be owned, however, that the Anglo-Saxon race on both sides have shown courage and endurance highly honourable to their stock.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
The Beer Shops licensed to have the Beer drunk on the Premises, are a Pest to the Community. They are Haunts of Thieves and Schools for Prostitutes. they demoralize the lower Classes. I wish you would turn your mind to consider Whether this Evil could not be abated. That Beer should be sold like anything Else, to be taken away by the Purchaser to be consumed at Home is most reasonable and the more People are enabled so to supply the labouring Classes the better, but the words licensed to be drunk on the Premises are by the common People interpreted as applicable to the Customers as well as to the Liquor, and well do they avail themselves of the License.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Last words:
Die, my dear doctor? That's the last thing I shall do.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
I will not talk of non-intervention, for it is not an English word.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
On being told that English has no word equivalent to sensibilité:
Yes we have. Humbug.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
It is in the highest degree likely that the North will not be able to subdue the south, and it is no doubt certain that if the Southern union is established as an independent state it would afford a valuable and extensive market for British manufactures but the operations of the war have as yet been too indecisive to warrant an acknowledgement of the southern union.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
I am heartily glad that Elgin and Grant determined to burn down the Summer Palace and that "the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood"… It was absolutely necessary to stamp by some such permanent record our indignation at the treachery and brutality of these Tartars, for Chinese they are not.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
He is a dangerous man; keep him in Oxford and he is partially muzzled; but send him elsewhere and he will run wild.
Of Gladstone

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Russia will in due time become a power almost as great as the old Roman Empire. She can become mistress of all Asia, except British India, whenever she chooses to take it; and when enlightened arrangements shall have made her revenue proportioned to her territory, and railways shall have abridged distances her command of men will become enormous, her pecuniary means gigantic, and her power of transporting armies over great distances most formidable. Germany ought to be strong in order to resist Russian aggression, and a strong Prussia is essential to German strength.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and these interests it is our duty to follow.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Lord Palmerston: Then you did not vote for me, friend Rowcliffe; you preferred voting for a Tory.
William Rowcliffe: I did not vote for you, my Lord, for if I had, I should have voted for a Tory.

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston