John Morley

People take great trouble to tell a child that he must be just, temperate, and virtuous; and has it the least idea of virtue?

Give him opportunities of being truthful, liberal, compassionate; rely on the human heart; leave these precious seeds to bloom in the air which surrounds them; do not stifle them under a quantity of frames and network.

I am not one of those who want to reject general and abstract ideas; they are necessary; but I by no means think them in their place in our method of instruction.

Not less important to the happiness of men than the manner of their education, is their own cultivation of a wise spirit of tolerance in conduct. 'I should like to see explained,' Turgot says, 'the causes of alienation and disgust between…

I believe that after living awhile with men, we perceive that bickerings, ill-humours, teasings on trifles, perhaps cause more troubles and divisions among them than serious things.

If people would only weigh in an exact balance so many little wrongs, if they would only put themselves in the place of those who have to complain of them, if they would only reflect how many times they have themselves given way to…

A single word spoken in disparagement of our intelligence is enough to make us irreconcilable, and yet how often have we been deceived in the very same matter.

Those who have not had intelligence enough, or any opportunity to acquire these things, have no right to take them away from one who has earned and deserved them by his labour.

If the idle and ignorant were to despoil the industrious and the skilful, all works would be discouraged, and misery would become universal.

It is alike more just and more useful that all those who have fallen behind either in wit or in good fortune, should lend their right arms to those who know how best to employ them, who can pay them a wage in advance, and guarantee them a…

We may regret perhaps that in demolishing the vision of perfect social equality, Turgot did not show a more lively sense of the need for lessening and softening unavoidable inequalities of condition.

There is a conspicuous absence of that peculiar boundlessness of hope, that zealous impatience for the instant realisation and fruition of all the inspirations of philosophic intelligence, which carried others immediately around him so…

No more capable set of ruling men were ever got together than the cabinet of 1880; no men who better represented the leading elements in the country, in all their variety and strength.

What is outside parliament seems to me to be fast mounting, nay to have already mounted, to an importance much exceeding what is inside.

Parliament deals with laws, and branches of the social tree, not with the root.

The farmer’s friends, they cried, had been in office for six years and had done nothing; no sooner is Gladstone at the exchequer than with magic wand he effects a transformation, and the long-suffering agriculturist has justice and relief.

Yet the lapse of nearly half a century of life in that great arena had not relaxed his stringent sense of parliamentary duty.

I write principally for the purpose of offering you my hearty congratulations on the place you have taken in diplomacy by force of mind and character, and on the services which, in thus far serving the most honourable aims a man can have…

The state, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions; if they be willing faithfully to serve it, that satisfies. ...

Take heed of being sharp, or too easily sharpened by others, against those to whom you can object little but that they square not with you in every opinion concerning matters of religion.

He had abundant and genuine public spirit, and a strong love of truth according to his own lights, and he was both a brave and a disinterested man.

They say this, that you may go any length you please in the denial of religion, provided only you do not reject the name of the Deity.

They tear religion into shreds, so to speak, and say that there is one particular shred with which nothing will ever induce them to part.

Suppose a commander has to despatch a small body of men on an expedition on which it is necessary for them to carry on their backs all that they can take with them; the men will part with everything that is unnecessary, and take only that…

I would use my best endeavours to make these States independent in matters of administration.