Perhaps only in the shock of 1940 did we realize to what a degree the British Empire had become an organization for the purpose of liberty. What powe… - Herbert Butterfield

Because many English institutions have century upon century of the past, lying fold upon fold within them—because they preserve somewhat in the present all the previous stages of their being—they possess not merely the kind of romantic colouring which is so dear to the historical novelist, but something like the life of organic creatures; they show therefore greater elasticity in the face of those crises which are beyond prediction than do the paper constructions of yesterday. Such institutions, in their customary acceptance and in the common sentiment that they inspire, provide also the basis for at least a minimum of national unity.

The raconteur knows too well that, if he investigates the truth of the matter, he is only too likely to lose his good story.”

Let us praise, not revolution and war, but man's reconciling mind which acts the good fairy over the worst that human wilfulness may have decreed—which begins to play providence upon the past almost as soon as it has happened, redeeming the mistakes, changing evil into good and turning necessity into opportunity. Let us praise man’s reconciling mind—in other words, the wisdom of the whigs, who turned the disasters of our 17th-century Civil War into reflection and experience; and who, precisely because they were lovers of liberty, checked their wantonness and decreed: "This at least shall never happen again".