On the eve of the industrial revolution there were on every side signs of political change. But the French Revolution frightened statesmen, and polit… - Arnold Toynbee

Party historians go to the past for party purposes; they seek to read into the past the controversies of the present.

In the middle of the last century there was comparatively little movement of workmen from place to place; but Adam Smith's fierce attack on the law of settlement shows that migration was on the increase. The world was, in fact, on the eve of an industrial revolution; and it is interesting to remember that the two men who did most to bring it about, Adam Smith and James Watt, met, as I have mentioned, in Glasgow, when one was dreaming of the book, and the other of the invention, which were to introduce a new industrial age.

The greatest punishment for those who are not interested in politics is that they are governed by people who are.