The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.

The Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights - the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others.

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.

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

If you have to prove you are worthy of credit, your credit is already gone.

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea. It...makes you think that after all, your favorite notions may be wrong, your firmest beliefs ill-founded....Naturally, therefore, common men hate a new idea, and are disposed more or less to ill-treat the original man who brings it.

An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.