Stupidity is nature's favorite resource for preserving consistency of opinion.

You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.

A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.

Life is not a set campaign, but an irregular work, and the main forces in it are not overt resolutions, but latent and half-involuntary promptings.

We must not let daylight in upon the magic.

Efficiency in an assembly requires a solid mass of steady votes; and these are collected by a deferential attachment to particular men, or by a belief in the principles that those men represent, and they are maintained by fear of those men - by the fear that if you vote against them, you may soon yourself have no vote at all.

A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.