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Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury Quotes
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Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, , styled Lord Robert Cecil before the death of his elder brother in 1865, Viscount Cranborne from June 1865 until his father died in April 1868, and then the Marquess of Salisbury, was a British statesman, serving as prime minister three times for a total of over thirteen years. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the last prime minister to serve his term while a member of the House of Lords .Lord Robert Cecil was first elected to the House of Commons in 1854 and served as Secretary of State for India in Lord Derby's Conservative government from 1866 until his resignation in 1867 over its introduction of Benjamin Disraeli's Reform Bill that extended the suffrage to working-class men. In 1868 upon the death of his father, Cecil was elevated to the House of Lords. In 1874, when Disraeli formed an administration, Salisbury returned as Secretary of State for India, and, in 1878, was appointed foreign secretary, and played a leading part in the Congress of Berlin, despite his doubts over Disraeli's pro-Ottoman policy.

After the Conservatives lost the 1880 general election and Disraeli's death the year after, Salisbury emerged as Conservative leader in the House of Lords, with Sir Stafford Northcote leading the party in the Commons. He became Prime Minister in June 1885 when the Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone resigned, and held the office until January 1886. When Gladstone came out in favour of Home Rule for Ireland, Salisbury opposed him and formed an alliance with the breakaway Liberal Unionists, winning the subsequent general election. He remained as Prime Minister until Gladstone's Liberals formed a government with the support of the Irish Nationalists, despite the Unionists gaining the largest number of votes and seats at the 1892 general election. The Liberals, however, lost the 1895 general election, and Salisbury once again became prime minister, leading Britain to war against the Boers, and the Unionists to another electoral victory in 1900 before relinquishing the premiership to his nephew Arthur Balfour. He died a year later, in 1903.

Historians agree that Salisbury was a strong and effective leader in foreign affairs, with a strong grasp of the issues. Paul Smith characterises his personality as "deeply neurotic, depressive, agitated, introverted, fearful of change and loss of control, and self-effacing but capable of extraordinary competitiveness." A representative of the landed aristocracy, he held the reactionary credo, "Whatever happens will be for the worse, and therefore it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible." Searle says that instead of seeing his party's victory in 1886 as a harbinger of a new and more popular Conservatism, he longed to return to the stability of the past, when his party's main function was to restrain demagogic liberalism and democratic excess. Wikipedia  

✵ 3. February 1830 – 22. August 1903
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Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury: 112 quotes1 like

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury Quotes

“Wherever democracy has prevailed, the power of the State has been used in some form or other to plunder the well-to-do classes for the benefit of the poor.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Quarterly Review, 107, 1860, p. 524
1860s

“Solitude shows us what should be; society shows us what we are.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Richard Cecil, as quoted in Remains of Mr. Cecil (1836) edited by Josiah Pratt, p. 59
Misattributed

“We are not the same people that we have been, either in our social characteristics, in our patriotic sentiments, or in the tone of our moral and religious feelings.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech at the Oxford Union (February 1850), from H. A. Morrah, The Oxford Union. 1823-1923 (1923), p. 139
1850s

“Confidence depends upon the people in whom you are to confide. You would not confide free representative institutions to the Hottentots, for instance. Nor, going higher up the scale, would you confide them to the Oriental nations whom you are governing in India—although finer specimens of human character you will hardly find than some of those who belong to these nations, but who are simply not suited to the particular kind of confidence of which I am speaking. Well, I doubt whether you could confide representative institutions to the Russians with any great security. You have done it to the Greeks, but I do not know whether the result has been absolutely what you wish. And when you come to narrow it down you will find that this which is called self-government, but which is really government by the majority, works admirably well when it is confided to people who are of Teutonic race, but that it does not work so well when people of other races are called upon to join in it.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech to the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations in St. James's Hall, London (15 May 1886), quoted in The Times (17 May 1886), p. 6
1880s

“If I were asked to define Conservative policy, I should say that it was the upholding of confidence.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Quoted in Salisbury — Victorian Titan (1999) by Andrew Roberts
1890s

“Mr Mayor and gentlemen - I have great pleasure in associating myself in how ever humble and transitory manner with this great and splendid undertaking. I am glad to be associated with an enterprise which I hope will carry still further the prosperity and power of Liverpool, and which will carry down the name of Liverpool to posterity as the place where a great mechanical undertaking first found its home. Sir William Forwood has alluded to the share which this city took in the original establishment of railways. My memory does not quite carry me back to the melancholy event by which that opening was signalised, but I can remember that which presents to my mind a strange contrast with the present state of things. Almost the earliest thing I can recollect is being brought down here to my mother's house which is close in the neighbourhood, and we took two days on the road, and had to sleep half way. Comparing that with my journey yesterday I feel what an enormous distance has been traversed in the interval, and perhaps a still larger distance and a still more magnificent rate of progress will be achieved before a similar distance of time has elapsed from the present day. I will not detain you in a room where it is perhaps difficult to hear. Of all my oratorical efforts, the one which I find most difficult to achieve is that of competing with a steam engine. Occasionally you are invited to do it at railway stations, and I know distinguished statesmen who do it with effect, but I think I have never ventured to compete in that line. I will therefore, though with some fear and trembling, fulfil the injunctions of Sir William Forwood, and proceed to handle the electric machinery which is to set this line in motion. I only hope the result will be no different from what he anticipates.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

At the opening of the Liverpool Overhead Railway, 4 February 1893. Quoted in the Liverpool Echo of the same day, p. 3
1890s

“First-rate men will not canvass mobs; and if they did, the mobs would not elect the first-rate men.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: 'Democracy on its Trial', Quarterly Review, 110, 1861, p. 281

“The commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcass of dead policies.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Letter to Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (25 May 1877), as quoted in G. Cecil, The Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury. Volume II, p. 145
1870s

“…the central doctrine of Conservatism, that it is better to endure almost any political evil than to risk a breach of the historic continuity of government.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Quarterly Review, 135, 1873, p. 544
1870s

“I have a strong belief that there is a danger of the public opinion of this country undergoing a reaction from the Cobdenic doctrines of 30 or 40 years ago, and believing that it is our duty to take everything we can, to fight everybody, and to make a quarrel of every dispute. That seems to me a very dangerous doctrine, not merely because it might incite other nations against us—though that is not a consideration to be neglected, for the kind of reputation we are at present enjoying on the Continent of Europe is by no means pleasant, and by no means advantageous; but there is a much more serious danger, and that is lest we should overtax our strength. However strong you may be, whether you are a man or a nation, there is a point beyond which your strength will not go. It is madness; it ends in ruin if you allow yourselves to pass beyond it.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1898/feb/08/the-queens-speech-reported-by-the-lord in the House of Lords (8 February 1898) <br class="br">1890s

“Not the number of noses, but the magnitude of interests, should furnish the elements by which the proportion of representation should be computed…The classes that represent civilisation, the holders of accumulated capital and accumulated thought have a right to require securities to protect them from being overwhelmed by hordes who have neither knowledge to guide them nor stake in the Commonwealth to control them.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: 'English Politics and Parties', Bentley's Quarterly Review, 1, (1859), pp. 28-29

“There can be no finality in politics.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Quarterly Review, 123, 1867, p. 557
1860s

“As I have said, there are two points or two characteristics of the Radical programme which it is your special duty to resist. One concerns the freedom of individuals. After all, the great characteristic of this country is that it is a free country, and by a free country I mean a country where people are allowed, so long as they do not hurt their neighbours, to do as they like. I do not mean a country where six men may make five men do exactly as they like. That is not my notion of freedom.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech to the third annual banquet of the Kingston and District Working Men's Conservative Association (13 June, 1883), quoted in 'The Marquis Of Salisbury At Kingston', The Times (14 June 1883), p. 7
1880s

“I say that we put all our money upon the wrong horse. ... My own conviction is strong that, unless some very essential reforms in the conduct of the government are adopted, the doom of the Turkish Empire cannot be very long postponed.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1897/jan/19/address-in-answer-to-her-majestys-most#column_29 in the House of Lords (19 January 1897), expressing regret for Britain&#x27;s support of the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War

“I grieve that so much of the resources of this country must be spent on what is essentially an unprofitable expenditure ... but, after all, safety, safety from a foreign foe comes first, before every other earthly blessing, and we must take care, in our responsibility to the many interests that depend upon us, in our responsibility to the generations that are to succeed to us, that no neglect of ours shall suffer that safety to be compromised.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: Defending increased naval expenditure; speech in Brighton (19 November 1895), quoted in The Times (20 November 1895), p. 7

“[I]n dealing with such money as you possess, I have no doubt that here in Brighton you will not differ from me that the first claim is the naval defence of England. (Loud and continued cheers.) ... It is our business to be quite sure in respect to this island-home of ours, whose inaccessibility is the source of our greatness, that no improvement of foreign fleets and no combination of foreign alliances should be able for a moment to threaten its safety.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: Defending increased naval expenditure; speech in Brighton (19 November 1895), quoted in The Times (20 November 1895), p. 7

“[T]he trade of Africa...is a motive for preventing territory from falling into the hands of other Powers, that those Powers will probably use the dominion which we concede to them for the purpose of crippling the trade that we otherwise should possess; and that seems to be a legitimate motive for the accession of territory which might otherwise be wanting.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: Speech in the House of Lords (25 November 1891), quoted in Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (2001), p. 226

“The elective principle—government by representation—is not an Eastern idea; it does not fit Eastern traditions or Eastern minds.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: Speech in the House of Lords (6 March 1890), quoted in The Times (7 March 1890), p. 6

“If you intrust independent executive and legislative power to the Government of Ireland, can you say it will never be hostile? On the contrary...you know that a very considerable proportion of the population of Ireland is unfortunately at this time, and has been for generations past, animated with the most bitter sentiments against England. Well, is there any impediment to prevent them in case of some European war, where you might be fighting for your existence, is there anything to prevent the Government of an independent Ireland...from placing those splendid harbours which lie opposite you at the disposal of a foreign fleet?”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: Speech in Bristol (22 April 1889), quoted in The Times (24 April 1889), p. 6

“The fabric of our prosperity is so artificial, we have raised such a vast edifice of industry and manufacture and wealth within so narrow an area, that the progress of a hostile army through our country would shatter our prosperity with a ruin which centuries would not repair. (Hear, hear.) In proportion to the danger must be our precaution. (Cheers.) We have to protect ourselves.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: Defending increased naval expenditure; speech in Bristol (22 April 1889), quoted in The Times (24 April 1889), p. 6

“What advantage does my noble Friend think could be derived by humanity, civilization or commerce from leaving the vast tracts of territory which he has described to be simply wandered over by naked savages or to be the hunting ground of slavers?”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: Speech in the House of Lords (6 July 1888), quoted in Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (2001), p. 231

“The hurricane that has swept us away is so strange & new a phenomenon that we shall not for some time understand its real meaning. ... It seems to me to be inspired by some definite desire for change: & means business. It may disappear as rapidly as it came: or it may be the beginning of a serious war of classes. Gladstone is doing all he can to give it the latter meaning.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: Letter to Arthur Balfour after the Conservative defeat in the general election (10 April 1880), quoted in Salisbury–Balfour Correspondence, ed. Robin Harcourt Williams (1988), p. 40

“It was time to put a stop to the growing idea that England ought to pay tribute to India as a kind of apology for having conquered her: & you have done it effectively.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: Letter to Benjamin Disraeli (16 July 1875), quoted in Marvin Swartz, Politics of British Foreign Policy in the Era of Disraeli and Gladstone (1985), p. 17

“I believe...all the enduring institutions which human societies have attained have been reached, not of the set design and forethought of some group of statesmen, but by that unbidden and unconscious convergence of many thoughts and wills in successive generations to which, as it obeys no single guiding hand, we may give the name of "drifting."”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: Minute (20 April 1875), quoted in E. D. Steele, 'Salisbury at the India Office', in Lord Blake and Hugh Cecil (eds.), Salisbury: The Man and his Policies (1987), p. 141

“Resistance is folly or heroism—a virtue or a vice—in most cases, according to the probabilities there are of its being successful. The perils of change are so great the promise of the most hopeful theories is so often deceptive, that it is frequently the wiser part to uphold the existing state of things, if it can be done, even though, in point of argument, it should be utterly indefensible.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

'Parliamentary Reform', Quarterly Review, 117, 1865, p. 550

“The North is fighting for no sentimental cause—for no victory of a 'higher civilization.'”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

It is fighting for a very ancient and vulgar object of war—for that which Russia has secured in Poland—that which Austria clings to in Venetia—that which Napoleon sought in Spain. It is a struggle for empire, conducted with a recklessness of human life which may have been paralleled in practice, but has never been avowed with equal cynicism. If any shame is left in the Americans, the first revision they will make in their constitution will be to repudiate formally the now exploded doctrine laid down in the Declaration of Independence, that 'Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed'.
Source: 'The United States as an Example', Quarterly Review, 117, 1865, pp. 252-253

“The really remarkable fact which is to be inferred from the conduct of the Southern States is, the genuine alarm with which they regarded the workings of Democracy. ... They had acted in partnership with one for seventy years. They had watched it ripening year by year to the full development of mob supremacy. ... They deliberately decided that civil war, with all its horrors, and with all its peculiar risks to themselves as slaveowners, was a lighter evil than to be surrendered to the justice or the clemency of a victorious Democracy. It is not for Europe to dispute the accuracy of their judgment.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: 'Democracy on its Trial', Quarterly Review, 110, 1861, p. 274

“Now if Conservative has any meaning at all, it means anti-Radical. The Radicals are the only inheritors of the revolutionary views which the Conservative party was set up to counteract; and the two can no more act together, if both are honest, than a weasel can act with a rat. Hostility to Radicalism, incessant, implacable hostility, is the essential definition of Conservatism. The fear that the Radicals my triumph is the only final cause that the Conservative party can plead for their own existence.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: 'English Politics and Parties', Bentley's Quarterly Review, 1, (1859), p. 12

“It is very sad, but I'm afraid America is bound to forge ahead and nothing can restore the equality between us. If we had interfered in the Confederate War it was then possible for us to reduce the power of the United States to manageable proportions. But two such chances are not given to a nation in the course of its career.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Letter to Lord Selborne after J.P. Morgan acquired a predominating influence in Cunard, White Star and other shipping lines (13 March 1902)
Source: Quoted in Andrew Roberts, Lord Salisbury: Victorian Titan (1999), p. 50 and David Steele, 'The Place of Germany in Salisbury's Foreign Policy, 1878-1902', in Adolf M. Birke, Magnus Brechtken and Alaric Searle (eds.), An Anglo-German Dialogue: The Munich Lectures on the History of International Relations (2000), p. 67

“[T]here is no more formidable obstacle than the Established Church to the spirit of rash and theoretic change which we, almost alone among the nations, have escaped .”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

'Church-rates', Quarterly Review, 110, 1861, p. 545
1860s

“Few men, whatever their creed, would now seek their geology in the books of their religion, or, on the other hand, would fancy that the laboratory or the microscope could help them to penetrate the mysteries which hang over the nature and the destiny of the soul of man. ... We live in a small, bright oasis of knowledge, surrounded on all sides by a vast, unexplored region of impenetrable mystery.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech to the British Association (6 August 1894), quoted in The Times (9 August 1894), p. 6
1890s

“The conflict which we have to fight is still a conflict of tariffs. In every country resolutions are being formed and plans are being worked out for limiting still further the intercourse of nations with each other and interposing new barriers of tariff... And as years go on we shall have to fight that battle. ... It is the world's conflict of the future.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech in the Mansion House, London (10 November 1890), quoted in The Times (11 November 1890), p. 4
1890s

“Law and order are the privilege of the poor. So far as they affect the rich they are the restraint of the rich. It is for all those who are interested in the industry and commerce of this country, not for those who are interested merely in fixed capital and the leisurely enjoyment of its fruits, to struggle to maintain the idea of the supremacy of the law.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech to the Conference of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations in Oxford (23 November 1887), quoted in The Times (24 November 1887), p. 7
1880s

“We have entered upon a period of struggle. Our national fault is that too much softness has crept into our councils, and we imagine that great national dangers can be conjured by a plentiful administration of platitudes and rose-water.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech to the inaugural dinner of the National Conservative Club in Willis's Rooms (5 March 1887), quoted in The Times (7 March 1887), p. 7
1880s

“There is now before us one great issue by which all others are overshadowed. We have to determine whether the great Empire that we have inherited from our forefathers and which is the glory of us all (cheers) is to exist or to be destroyed.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech in Leeds against Irish Home Rule (18 June 1886), quoted in The Times (19 June 1886), p. 12
1880s

“The truth is that the connection of Ireland with England has been full of trouble, and I fear there is no remedy. ... It is a chronic disease, and even if it is not to be cured we have proved in the past that we can get on with it and yet carry on our Empire to a vast pitch of prosperity. What has been done in the past can be done in the future. ... [D]o not let us attempt to cure it by a measure which will put this island into a condition which never during 700 years of our history has existed—which will hand over those who have had the courage to defend us to the maltreatment of their worst enemies, and which will establish at our very doors a post—a hostile post—which will be at the pleasure of any foreign power which may sometimes be hostile to us.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech to a banquet of the Merchant Taylors' Company, London (10 May 1886), quoted in The Times (11 May 1886), p. 12
1880s

“I believe that any repeal of the Union [with Ireland] or any substantial tampering with it is fraught with danger to this country. That has always been the opinion of the Conservative party and always will remain so. It is granting a separate government and separate executive. ... The result is that the [Protestant] minority will not only have laws passed of which they disapprove, but they will have to depend on the toleration and good will of their enemies for the common privileges of civilised life and securities.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech to a banquet of the Merchant Taylors' Company, London (10 May 1886), quoted in The Times (11 May 1886), p. 12
1880s

“Englishmen are moderate, careful to avoid unnecessary offence, slow to come to a dangerous and violent conclusion, and tenacious and resolute when the conclusion has once been arrived at.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1878/apr/08/message-from-the-queen-army-reserve#column_836 in the House of Lords (8 April 1878) <br class="br">1870s

“War is righteous or unrighteous according as it is opportune or inopportune.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1878/jan/17/address-in-answer-to-her-majestys-most#column_54 in the House of Lords (17 January 1878) <br class="br">1870s

“Mohammedanism has the only organization and pretty nearly the only ambition hostile to us that is left in India.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Letter to Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (25 June 1877), quoted in David Steele, Lord Salisbury: A Political Biography (2001), p. 122 and Shih-tsung Wang, Lord Salisbury and Nationality in the East Viewing Imperialism in Its Proper Perspective (2019)
1870s

“I am sure that no more certain method, not only of dechristianizing, but demoralizing the youth of the classes who send their children to the Universities could be found than subjecting them to the influence of tutors who would start with the idea that all beliefs should be submitted for free selection to the consciences and intelligences of their pupils.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech in the House of Lords (8 May 1871) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1871/may/08/committee#column_346 <br class="br">1870s

“It is the place where Collectivist and Socialistic experiments are tried. It is the place where a new revolutionary spirit finds its instruments and collects its arms.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

On the London County Council; speech to the metropolitan division of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations in the Queen's Hall, Langham Place (7 November 1894), quoted in The Times (8 November 1894), p. 4
1890s

“England is, I believe, the only country in which during a great war eminent men write and speak publicly as if they belonged to the enemy.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Letter to Miss Milner (11 November 1901), quoted in The Times (19 November 1901), p. 10
1900s

“We are a Teutonic people. We hold steadily to our opinions.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Speech to the Conference of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations in Oxford (23 November 1887), quoted in The Times (24 November 1887), p. 6
1880s

“Diplomacy which does not rest on force is the most feeble and futile of weapons, and except for bare self-defence, we have not the force.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Letter to Lord Lytton (8 March 1877), quoted in David Steele, Lord Salisbury: A Political Biography (2001), p. 108
1870s

“In the real business of life no one troubles himself much about 'moral titles.'”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

No one would dream of surrendering any practical security, for the advantages of which he is actually in possession, in deference of the a priori jurisprudence of a whole Academy of philosophers.
'The House of Commons', Quarterly Review, vol. 116 (July & October 1864), p. 263
1860s

“We are in a state of bloodless civil war. No common principles, no respect for common institutions or traditions unite the various groups of politicians, who are struggling for power. To loot somebody or something is the common object under a thick varnish of pious phrases.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Letter to W. H. Smith (5 February 1889), quoted in Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (2001), p. 65
1880s