Mr Speaker, I withdraw my statement that half the cabinet are asses - half the cabinet are not asses.

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.

The British people, being subject to fogs, require grave statesmen.

The art of conversation is to be prompt without being stubborn, to refute without argument, and to clothe great matters in a motley garb.

What Art was to the ancient world, Science is to the modern: the distinctive faculty. In the minds of men the useful has succeeded to the beautiful. Instead of the city of the Violet Crown, a Lancashire village has expanded into a mighty region of factories and warehouses. Yet, rightly understood, Manchester is as great a human exploit; as Athens.

The constitution of England is not a paper constitution. It is an aggregate of institutions, many of them founded merely upon prescription, some of them fortified by muniments, but all of them the fruit and experience of an ancient and illustrious people.