I think that the principle of the Conservative Party is jealousy of liberty and of the people, only qualified by fear; but I think the principle of t… - William Ewart Gladstone

My opinion is and has long been that the vital principle of the Liberal party, like that of Greek art, is action, and that nothing but action will ever make it worthy of the name of a party.

The difference between giving with freedom and dignity on the one side, with acknowledgment and gratitude on the other, and giving under compulsion—giving with disgrace, giving with resentment dogging you at every step of your path—this difference is, in our eyes, fundamental, and this is the main reason not only why we have acted, but why we have acted now. This, if I understand it, is one of the golden moments of our history—one of those opportunities which may come and may go, but which rarely return, or, if they return, return at long intervals, and under circumstances which no man can forecast.

Letter to the Marchese di Rudinì (30 April 1892), quoted in Vilfedo Pareto, Liberté économique et les événements d'Italie (1970), p. 49