John Morley: “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.”

With a few exceptions, a political speech like the manna in the wilderness loses its savour on the second day.

There lay Ireland,—squalid, dismal, sullen, dull, expectant, sunk deep in hostile intent.

All alike concerned themselves with its truth or falsehood, with what they counted to be its abstract fitness or unfitness.

I think any man who lays down a firm proposition that all is well, or any man who says that all is ill--either of those two men is probably wrong.