The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.

My objection to Liberalism is this that it is the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind namely, politics of philosophical ideas instead of political principles.

Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.

The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

There can be economy only where there is efficiency.

We cannot learn men from books.

Change is inevitable. Change is constant.

There is no education like adversity.

What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.

The services in wartime are fit only for desperadoes, but in peace are only fit for fools.

Duty cannot exist without faith.

Nature, like man, sometimes weeps from gladness.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.

Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time.

Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.

Every man has a right to be conceited until he is successful.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

Little things affect little minds.

Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.

If you’re not very clever you should be conciliatory.

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

A precedent embalms a principle.

The Youth of a Nation are the trustees of posterity.

Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future.

Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.

I never deny. I never contradict. I sometimes forget.

Worry – a God, invisible but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse; it takes away the appetite, and turns the hair gray.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.

The right honourable gentleman caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes. He has left them in the full enjoyment of their liberal positions, and he is himself a strict conservative of their garments.

Adventures are to the adventurous.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.

To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.

A man may speak very well in the House of Commons, and fail very completely in the House of Lords. There are two distinct styles requisite: I intend, in the course of my career, if I have time, to give a specimen of both.

I repeat… that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist.

We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.

What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.

Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man.

Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.

In a progressive country change is constant; change is inevitable.

There is no gambling like politics.

Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets. The rich and the poor.

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.

Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.

The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble.

Never complain and never explain.

Power has only one duty – to secure the social welfare of the People.

Without publicity there can be no public support, and without public support every nation must decay.

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

Grief is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?

Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.

Nobody is forgotten when it is convenient to remember him.

The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.

War is never a solution; it is an aggravation.

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

If a man be gloomy let him keep to himself. No one has the right to go croaking about society, or what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief.

Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.

I have been ever of opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.

Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.

Assassination has never changed the history of the world.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments’ plans.

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.

Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.

Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard.

Moderation is the center wherein all philosophies, both human and divine, meet.

London is a modern Babylon.

The very phrase ‘foreign affairs’ makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern.

Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones.

The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend.

To supervise people, you must either surpass them in their accomplishments or despise them.

We should never lose an occasion. Opportunity is more powerful even than conquerors and prophets.

King Louis Philippe once said to me that he attributed the great success of the British nation in political life to their talking politics after dinner.

Justice is truth in action.

The palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy.

Nine-tenths of the existing books are nonsense and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art.

The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven.

Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life.

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

There is moderation even in excess.

One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world.

I say that justice is truth in action.

Silence is the mother of truth.

There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.

Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.

London is a roost for every bird.

The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity.

There is no index of character so sure as the voice.

Man is only great when he acts from passion.

A University should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning.

Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.

A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

As for our majority… one is enough.

Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.

The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind.

When a man fell into his anecdotage it was a sign for him to retire from the world.

Damn your principles! Stick to your party.

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.

Frank and explicit – that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and confuse the minds of others.

Without tact you can learn nothing.

No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.

Circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power.

The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.

You can tell the strength of a nation by the women behind its men.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.

Great countries are those that produce great people.

We moralize among ruins.

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.

The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.

Genius, when young, is divine.

The more extensive a man’s knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.

The first magic of love is our ignorance that it can ever end.

Finality is not the language of politics.

Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.

To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.

Success is the child of audacity.

You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.

It is easier to be critical than correct.

It destroys one’s nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being.

Fear makes us feel our humanity.

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.

Never take anything for granted.

No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married.

Travel teaches toleration.

Youth is the trustee of prosperity.

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

That fatal drollery called a representative government.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

A consistent soul believes in destiny, a capricious one in chance.

William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.