The Aristocratic Institutions of England [had] acted much like the Slavery Institutions of America... [in] demoralis[ing] large classes outside their own special boundaries... [in producing] a long habit of submission... [and in] enfeebl[ing] by corrupting those who should assail them.

We have had a great depression in agriculture, caused mainly by several seasons of bad harvests, and some of our traders have suffered much from a too rapid extension in prosperous years.

In the houses of the humble a little library in my opinion is a most precious possession.

The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings.

I would prefer to have one comfortable room well stocked with books to all you could give me in the way of decoration which the highest art could supply.

I am for peace, retrenchment and reform, the watchword of the great Liberal Party thirty years ago.

We may be proud that England is the ancient country of Parliaments. With scarcely any intervening period, Parliaments have met constantly for 600 years, and there was something of a Parliament before the Conquest. England is the mother of Parliaments.