Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury Quotes
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In the real business of life no one troubles himself much about 'moral titles'. No one would dream of surrendering any practical security, for the advantages of which he is actually in possession, in deference of the a priori jurisprudence of a whole Academy of philosophers.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
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
There is not such thing as a fixed policy, because policy like all organic entities is always in the making.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
I am an utter unbeliever that anything that is violent will have permanent results.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
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
Dizzy intends to pursue the old game of talking Green in the House and Orange in the Lobby.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
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
No man was ever so yielding without ever being weak, or so stern without being obstinate.
Of William Pitt the Younger
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Wherever it has had free play in the ancient world or in the modern, in the old hemisphere or the new, a thirst for empire, and a readiness for aggressive war, has always marked it.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
She has given us foreign invasions, domestic rebellions; and in quieter times the manly sport of landlord shooting.
On Ireland
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
... the common sense of Christendom has always prescribed for national policy principles diametrically opposed to those that are laid down in the Sermon on the Mount.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
An indiscreet admirer is a far more intolerable nuisance than an acrimonious enemy.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
They who have the absolute power of preventing lamentable events, and knowing what is taking place, refuse to exercise that power, are responsible for what happens.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
A Government which is strong enough to hold its own will generally command an acquiescence which with all but very speculative minds, is the equivalent of contentment.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Not the number of noses, but the magnitude of interests, should furnish the elements by which the proportion of representation should be computed... The classes that represent civilisation, the holders of accumulated capital and accumulated thought have a right to require securities to protect them from being overwhelmed by hordes who have neither knowledge to guide them nor stake in the Commonwealth to control them.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
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
The just Nemesis which generally decrees that partisans shall be forced to do in office precisely that which they most loudly decried in opposition.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
[Whitehall] will create business for itself surely as a new railway will create traffic.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
We do not care to scrutinise too closely, the moral boundary which separates a reckless hustings pledge from premeditated fraud.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
It was a part of a budget which even three months had proved to be a mass of miscalculation; it was the pet scheme of a cosmopolitan school who love England little, and whom England loves less, whose sympathies are half-American and half-French; and it was the first application of a theory of combined taxation and reform, according to which the poor were exclusively to fix the revenue which the rich were exclusively to pay.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
I have for so many years entertained a firm conviction that we were going to the dogs that I have got to be quite accustomed to the expectation.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
It's difficult enough to go around doing what is right without going around trying to do good.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Parliament is a potent engine, and its enactments must always do something, but they very seldom do what the originators of these enactments meant. [Therefore most legislation] will have the effect of surrounding the industry which it touches with precautions and investigations, inspections and regulations, in which it will be slowly enveloped and stifled.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Whatever happens will be for the worse, and therefore it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
I had secretly indulged the hope that we should be beaten in this election. A spell in Opposition is so good for bracing up the Conservative fibre of our party.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
