The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.

An influential member of parliament has not only to pay much money to become such, and to give time and labour, he has also to sacrifice his mind too - at least all the characteristics part of it that which is original and most his own.

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

What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.

But of all nations in the world the English are perhaps the least a nation of pure philosophers.

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

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.