Women--one half the human race at least--care fifty times more for a marriage than a ministry.

War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valor, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.

The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards

No man has come so near our definition of a constitutional statesman - the powers of a first-rate man and the creed of a second-rate man.

It has been said that England invented the phrase, 'Her Majesty's Opposition'; that it was the first government which made a criticism of administration as much a part of the polity as administration itself. This critical opposition is the consequence of cabinet government.

Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.

The maxim of science is simply that of common sense-simple cases first; begin with seeing how the main force acts when there is as little as possible to impede it, and when you thoroughly comprehend that, add to it in succession the separate effects of each of the incumbering and interfering agencies.