John Morley

Those feelings have been feelings in the first instance of sympathy, and afterwards of joy and thankfulness, almost comparable, and I venture to say only second to the strong emotions of the great nation, of which he is the appointed head.

But they have also drawn much of their strength from a cordial admiration of the simple heroism which has marked the personal conduct of the President, for we have not yet wholly lost the capacity of appreciating such an example of…

The ordinary human tendency to croak never dies, especially in the politics of party.

Men talked of humiliation abroad, ruin at home, agricultural interests doomed, trade at a standstill—calamities all obviously due to a government without spirit, and a majority with no independence.

But then humiliation, to be sure, only meant jealousy in other countries because we declined to put ourselves in the wrong, and to be hoodwinked into unwise alliances.

Decision by majorities is as much an expedient as lighting by gas.

In adopting it as a rule, we are not realising perfection, but bowing to an imperfection.

It has the great merit of avoiding, and that by a test perfectly definite, the last resort to violence; and of making force itself the servant instead of the master of authority.

A hereditary legislature in a community that has reached the self-governing stage is an anachronism that makes the easiest of all marks for mockery and attack, so long as it lasts.

Should this bill be again rejected in a definite manner, there will be only two courses open to me, one to cut out of public life, which I shall infinitely prefer; the other to become a supporter of organic change in the House of Lords…

There is perhaps the alternative of advising a large creation of peers; but to this there are great objections, even if the Queen were willing.

When people talked to him of dissolution as a means of bringing the Lords to account, he replied in scorn: “A marvellous conception!

I am sorry that Hartington the other day used the word compromise, a word which has never passed my lips, though I believe he meant nothing wrong.

If we could find anything which, though surrendering nothing substantial, would build a bridge for honourable and moderate men to retreat by, I am sure you would not object to it.

I wish to give you the assurance that in the private communications which are now going on, liberal principles such as we should conceive and term them, are in no danger.

The whole operation is essentially delicate and slippery, and I can hardly conceive any other circumstance in which it would be justified, but in the present very peculiar case I think it is not only warranted, but called for.

What weighs upon my mind is this, he said, that when the future historian speaks of the greatness of this empire, and traces the manner in which it has grown through successive generations, he will say that in that history there was one…

It is the scale of justice that will determine the issue of the conflict with Ireland, if conflict there is to be.

Let us be as strong in right as we are in population, in wealth, and in historic traditions, and then we shall not fear to do justice to Ireland.

There is but one mode of making England weak in the face of Ireland—that is by applying to her principles of inequality and principles of injustice.

And if it should happen that Irish loyalists should suffer from extension of equal civil rights to Irishmen, what sort of reason was that why the principle of exclusion and ascendency which had worked such mischief in the past, should be…

The effect of the change would be the utter annihilation of the political power of the most orderly, the most loyal, the most educated classes of Ireland, and the swamping of one-fourth of the community, representing two-thirds of its…

With characteristic frigidity, precision, and confidence, the Irish leader had defined his policy and his expectations.

Beyond a shadow of doubt,” he had said to a meeting in the Rotunda at Dublin, “it will be for the Irish people in England—separated, isolated as they are—and for your independent Irish members, to determine at the next general election…

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