We are part of the community of Europe and we must do our duty as such.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
First rate men will not canvas mobs: and mobs will not elect first rate men.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
One of the difficulties about great thinkers is that they so often think wrong.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
When great men get drunk with a theory, it is the little men who have the headache.
On political theorists
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
An indiscreet admirer is a far more intolerable nuisance than an acrimonious enemy.
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
[Whitehall] will create business for itself surely as a new railway will create traffic.
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
I wish the English army may be equal to all the work his peace-loving policy has given it.
Of gladstone
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
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
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
First-rate men will not canvass mobs; and if they did, the mobs would not elect the first-rate men.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
One of the nuisances of the ballot is that when the oracle has spoken you never know what it means.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
I have a profound distrust of government inspectors, and I am generally disposed to find them wrong.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
If I were asked to define Conservative policy, I should say that it was the upholding of confidence.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
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
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
... institutions like the House of Lords must die, like all other organic beings, when their time comes.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
... if our ancestors had cared for the rights of other people, the British empire would not have been made.
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
An emotion will shoot electrically through a crowd which might have appealed to each man by himself in vain.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
A highly-paid chairman is a luxury which should be reserved for the return of a good shareholders' dividend.
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
English policy is to float lazily downstream, occasionally putting out a diplomatic boat-hook to avoid collisions.
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
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
When a man says that he agrees with me in principle, I am quite certain that he does not agree with me in practice.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
If I had to do literary work of an absorbing character, Oxford is the last place in which I should attempt to do it.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
