Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery Quotes

It is always possible that that may happen here which has happened in Belgium—the elimination of Liberalism, leaving the two forces of Socialism and Reaction face to face. Whether that shall happen here depends on the Liberal Party.

There are two supreme pleasures in life. One is ideal, the other real. The ideal is when a man receives the seals of office from the hands of his Sovereign. The real pleasure comes when he hands them back.

...that new spirit which is passing from municipal into Imperial politics, which aims more at the improvement of the lot of the worker and the toiler than at those great constitutional effects in which past Parliaments have taken as their pride...It is all very well to make great speeches and to win great divisions. It is well to speak with authority in the councils of the world and to see your navies riding on every sea, and to see your flag on every shore. That is well, but it is not all. I am certain that there is a party in this country not named as yet that is disconnected with any existing political organization, a party which is inclined to say, "A plague on both your Houses, a plague on all your parties, a plague on all your politics, a plague on your unending discussions which yield so little fruit." (Cheers.) "Have done with this unending talk and come down and do something for the people." It is this spirit which animates, as I believe, the great masses of our artisans, the great masses of our working clergy, the great masses of those who work for and with the poor, and who for the want of a better word I am compelled to call by the bastard term of philanthropists.

[The British Empire is] the greatest secular agency for good now known to mankind.

Few speeches which have produced an electrical effect on an audience can bear the colorless photography of a printed record.

I believe that Liberalism is the principle in politics that neither class, nor creed, nor privilege shall hinder the progress of our natural development.

For it was not a union such as bound torn Poland to Russia, or uncrowned Venice to Austria. Such unions may enlarge a frontier; they do not create a nation. It added to both nations concerned power, wealth, and honour; it cost no drop of blood, no shadow of shame. As regarded Scotland, it was like nothing so much as a poor man marrying an heiress: mortifying to pride at first; irksome perhaps occasionally; in the long run harmonious because founded on interest; eventually it may be moulded into love by the beauty of its offspring.