John Morley: “The mere average of civic virtue is not sufficient to preserve this Assembly from the fate that has overcome so many…”

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.

If the idea was the direct gift of heaven, the policy was due to the sagacity and mother-wit of the great ecclesiastical statesmen.

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.

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