Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury Quotes
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In this country we have got to look upon Budget promises as made of the same stuff as lovers' oaths.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
The result of recent experience is that 'if you wish to keep a secret you must say nothing 1. To Cabinet Ministers. 2. To Foreign Diplomats. 3. To the War Office'.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
To defend a bad policy as an 'error of judgement' does not excuse it—the right functioning of a man's judgement is his most fundamental responsibility.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
We are part of the community of Europe and we must do our duty as such.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
It is clear enough that the traditional Palmerstonian policy [of British support for Ottoman territorial integrity] is at an end.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
As a rule I observe that the places where we win seats are the places where no Tory Leader has spoken.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
If you consider the position of the Russians ethically, it is as bad as can be. Negotiating with them is like catching soaped eels.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
The perils of change are so great the promise of the most hopeful theories is so often deceptive, that it is frequently the wiser part to uphold the existing state of things, if it can be done, even though, in point of argument, it should be utterly indefensible... Resistance is folly or heroism—a virtue or a vice—in most cases, according to the probabilities there are of its being successful.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Conciliatory legislation only conciliates when there is a full belief on the part of those with whom you are dealing that you are acting on a principle of justice and not on motives of fear.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
... institutions like the House of Lords must die, like all other organic beings, when their time comes.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
The struggle for power in our day lies not between Crown and people, or between a caste of nobles and a bourgeoisie, but between the classes who have property and the classes who have none.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
In making appointments I can count on a Scotchman not falling below a certain level, they may not be very clever, but they are safe not to be stupid. There is a strong resemblance between the Scotch and the Jews. They both begin as fighters, then become very religious and finally are devoted to money-making.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
The duty was to represent the permanent as opposed to the passing feeling of the English nation.
On the House of Lords
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Wherever democracy has prevailed, the power of the State has been used in some form or other to plunder the well-to-do classes for the benefit of the poor.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
No one is fit to be trusted with a secret who is not prepared, if necessary, to tell an untruth to defend it.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
I wish party government was at the bottom of the sea. It is only insincerity codified.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
What with deafness, ignorance of French, and Bismarck's extraordinary mode of speech, Beaconsfield has the dimmest idea of what is going on—understands everything crossways—and imagines a perpetual conspiracy.
On the Congress of Berlin
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
... the vista of an age of security and peace – disbanded armaments, forgotten jealousies, immunity not only from the scourge but from the panic of war; pleasant dreams, constantly belied by experience, constantly renewed by theorists, but too closely linked to the hopes of all who believe either in material progress or in the promises of religion ever to be abandoned as chimera.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
It is right to be forward in the defence of the poor; no system that is not just as between rich and poor can hope to survive.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
To those who have found breakfast with difficulty and do not know where to find dinner, intricate questions of politics are a matter of comparatively secondary interest.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Where property is in question I am guilty…of erecting individual liberty as an idol, and of resenting all attempts to destroy or fetter it; but when you pass from liberty to life, in no well-governed State, in no State governed according to the principles of common humanity, are the claims of mere liberty allowed to endanger the lives of the citizens.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
[Property furnishes] almost the only motive power of agitation. A violent political movement (setting aside those where religious controversy is at work) is generally only an indication that a class of those who have little see their way to getting more by means of a political convulsion.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
... that shapeless, formless, fibreless mass of platitudes which in official cant is called "unsectarian religion".
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
There are marks of hurry which in so old a man are inexplicable. I suppose he still cherishes his belief in an early monastic retreat from this wicked world—and is feverishly anxious to annihilate all his enemies before he takes it.
On gladstone
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
It is said,—and men seem to think that condemnation can go no further than such a censure—that they brought us within twenty-four hours of revolution... But is it in truth so great an evil, when the dearest interests and the most sincere convictions are at stake, to go within twenty-four hours of revolution?
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
