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 Sov… - Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

I used to dislike the Whigs but in my years of loneliness I have come to the conclusion that they governed England better than anybody else. They thought our their measures carefully and adapted them to their times and generation. They were not heroic but they were wise. In modern days we see much heroism but little wisdom.

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.