He entirely shares your Majesty's burning indignation at the gross and monstrous injustice which has been perpetrated in France. It is perfectly horr… - Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

I believe...all the enduring institutions which human societies have attained have been reached, not of the set design and forethought of some group of statesmen, but by that unbidden and unconscious convergence of many thoughts and wills in successive generations to which, as it obeys no single guiding hand, we may give the name of "drifting".

It is patent on the face of history that the aggregates of men who form communities, like the aggregates of atoms that form living bodies, are subject to laws of progressive change – be it towards growth or towards decay.

That great moral teacher, Mr. Punch, some years ago proclaimed a society which he called "The Anti-meddling-in-other-people's-business Society." Now, he sometimes wished in private that Her Majesty's Government belonged to that society. (Laughter and cheers.)