John Morley: “If you determine, he said, to hold by the annexation of the Transvaal, the country would have to be conquered and held…”

We ought to be able to separate in thought the question of the grounds and evidence for a given dogma being true, from the distinct and purely historic question of the social and intellectual conditions which made men accept it for true.

I don't myself believe in artful diplomacy; I have no gift for it.

I am trying to feel my way through the most difficult problem, the most difficult situation that a responsible Government can have to face.

The general situation in Egypt had latterly become one in which everything was governed by sheer military violence.