No orator ever made an impression by appealing to men as to their plainest physical wants, except when he could allege that those wants were caused b… - Walter Bagehot

The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the most imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks about them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendour of those who eclipsed and preceded them.

Nobody will understand parliamentary government who fancies it an easy thing, a natural thing, a thing not needing explanation.

A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.