Certainly Manchester is the most wonderful city of modern times!

You behold a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame flickers on a single pallid crest.

As we retain but a faint remembrance of our felicity, it is but fair that the smartest stroke of sorrow should, if bitter, at least be brief.

Apologies only account for that which they do not alter.

Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand.

All power is a trust, that we are accountable for its exercise.

Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.