Free trade is not a principle, it is an expedient.

How very seldom do you encounter in the world a man of great abilities, acquirements, experience, who will unmask his mind, unbutton his brains, and pour forth in careless and picturesque phrase all the results of his studies and observation; his knowledge of men, books, and nature. On the contrary, if a man has by any chance an original idea, he hoards it as if it were old gold; and rather avoids the subject with which he is most conversant, from fear that you may appropriate his best thoughts.

Consider Ireland.... You have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish Question.

The Egremonts had never said anything that was remembered, or done anything that could be recalled.

The praise of a fool is incense to the wisest of us . . .

The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.