Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury Quote

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.

Salisbury to the Cabinet (16 June 1877), from John Vincent (ed.), The Diaries of Edward Henry Stanley, Fifteenth Earl of Derby (London: The Royal Historical Society, 1994), p. 410.