To play King Richard to somebody else's Wat Tyler has always been a Tory fancy. - G. M. Young

It was one of Lord Salisbury's paradoxes that only uncontentious legislation should be brought before Parliament: if it were contentious, then public opinion was not ripe for it.

A historian should "go on reading (...) until you can hear people talking. Then you will understand why things happened as they did."

To attend a place of worship, to abstain from spirits, to read a serious newspaper and put money in the savings bank, was in 1840 as good an ideal as could be set before a man. To pursue it gave him rank as a citizen, the promise of a vote, and a share in a solid civilization.