William Ewart Gladstone: Trending quotes (page 6)

“Protectionism and militarism are united in an unholy but yet a valid marriage: and the one and the other are in my firm conviction alike the foes of freedom.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Letter to the Marchese di Rudinì (30 April 1892), quoted in Vilfedo Pareto, Liberté économique et les événements d'Italie (1970), p. 49
1890s

Marriage , Freedom

“Individual servitude, however abject, will not satisfy the Latin Church. The State must also be a slave.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Pamflet The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance: A Political Exposition (November 1874), quoted in All Roads lead to Rome? The Ecumenical Movement (2004) by Michael de Semlyen.
1870s

“The rule of our policy is that nothing should be done by the state which can be better or as well done by voluntary effort; and I am not aware that, either in its moral or even its literary aspects, the work of the state for education has as yet proved its superiority to the work of the religious bodies or of philanthropic individuals.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Even the economical considerations of materially augmented cost do not appear to be wholly trivial.
Source: Liberal Manifesto (September 1885) http://oll.libertyfund.org/EBooks/Smith_0306.pdf

Education , Effort

“Let me endeavour, very briefly to sketch, in the rudest outline what the Turkish race was and what it is. It is not a question of Mohammedanism simply, but of Mohammedanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mohammedans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went a broad line of blood marked the track behind them, and, as far as their dominion reached, civilization vanished from view. They represented everywhere government by force as opposed to government by law. – Yet a government by force can not be maintained without the aid of an intellectual element.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Hence there grew up, what has been rare in the history of the world, a kind of tolerance in the midst of cruelty, tyranny and rapine. Much of Christian life was contemptuously left alone and a race of Greeks was attracted to Constantinople which has all along made up, in some degree, the deficiencies of Turkish Islam in the element of mind!
Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East. (1876)
1870s
Source: [Gladstone, William Ewart, Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East, J Murray, London, 1876, http://www.archive.org/details/bulgarianhorrors00gladiala, 31, 2 September 2013]

Law , Question

“There is a saying of Burke's from which I must utterly dissent. "Property is sluggish and inert."”

William Ewart Gladstone

Quite the contrary. Property is vigilant, active, sleepless; if ever it seems to slumber, be sure that one eye is open.
Source: Remarks to John Morley (31 December 1891), quoted in John Morley, The Life of William Ewart Gladstone. Vol. III (1880-1898) (Macmillan, 1903), p. 469

“The Government of India is the most arduous and perhaps the noblest trust ever undertaken by a nation.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Speech in Glasgow (5 December 1879), quoted in Michael Balfour, Britain and Joseph Chamberlain (1985), p. 212
1870s

“I must painfully record my opinion that grave injury has been done to religion in many minds — not in instructed minds, but in those which are ill-instructed or partially instructed, which have a large claim on our consideration — in consequence of steps which have, unhappily, been taken. Great mischief has been done in many minds through the resistance offered to the man elected by the constituency of Northampton, which a portion of the community believe to be unjust. When they see the profession of religion and the interests of religion ostensibly associated with what they are deeply convinced is injustice, they are led to questions about religion itself, which they see to be associated with injustice. Unbelief attracts a sympathy which it would not otherwise enjoy; and the upshot is to impair those convictions and that religious faith, the loss of which I believe to be the most inexpressible calamity which can fall either upon a man or upon a nation.”

William Ewart Gladstone

1880s
Source: Except from a speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1883/apr/26/second-reading-adjourned-debate-second in the House of Commons (26 April 1883) in support of the atheist Charles Bradlaugh being permitted to take his seat in Parliament.

Loss , Faith , Religion , Question

“I am convinced that upon every religious, as well as upon every political ground, the true and the wise course is not to deal out religious liberty by halves, by quarters, and by fractions; but to deal it out entire, and to leave no distinction between man and man on the ground of religious differences from one end of the land to the other.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Source: Except from a speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1883/apr/26/second-reading-adjourned-debate-second in the House of Commons (26 April 1883) in support of the atheist Charles Bradlaugh being permitted to take his seat in Parliament.

“Whether Protection is a universal poison, or whether it may be conceived to operate as food in cases where it is granted for a few years in order to shelter the first investments in a new industry, I do not now inquire. We at least have never seen or known it in that mitigated form. With us it has sheltered nothing but the most selfish instincts of class against the just demands of the public welfare. These it has supplied with strongholds, from whose portals our producers have too generally marched forth in the day of need, armed from head to foot with power and influence largely gotten at the expense of the community, to do battle with a perverted prowess, against nature, liberty, and justice.”

William Ewart Gladstone

'Free Trade, Railways, and the growth of Commerce', The Nineteenth Century, No. XXXVI (February 1880), quoted in The Nineteenth Century, Vol. VII (January–June 1880), p. 377
1880s

Universe , Selfishness , Justice , Food

“Sir, there were other days, when England was the hope of freedom. Wherever in the world a high aspiration was entertained, or a noble blow was struck, it was to England that the eyes of the oppressed were always turned—to this favourite, this darling home of so much privilege and so much happiness, where the people that had built up a noble edifice for themselves would, it was well known, be ready to do what in them lay to secure the benefit of the same inestimable boon for others. You talk to me of the established tradition and policy in regard to Turkey. I appeal to an established tradition, older, wider, nobler far—a tradition not which disregards British interests, but which teaches you to seek the promotion of those interests in obeying the dictates of honour and of justice.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1877/may/07/postponement-of-orders-of-the-day#column_437 in the House of Commons (7 May 1877)
1870s

Home , Justice , Freedom , Happiness

“For my own part I am deeply convinced that all excess in the public expenditure beyond the legitimate wants of the country is not only a pecuniary waste—for that is a comparatively trifling matter—but a great political and a great moral evil. It is a characteristic of the mischief which arise from financial prodigality, that they creep onwards with a noiseless and surreptitious step; that they are unseen and unfelt until they have reached a magnitude absolutely overwhelming, and then at length, we see them, as perhaps they now exist in the case of one at least among the great European nations, so fearful and menacing in their aspect that they seem to threaten the very foundations of national existence.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1861/apr/15/first-night#column_595 in the House of Commons (15 April 1861)
1860s

Parting , Fear , Evil , Country

“War taken at the best is a frightful scourge to the human race; but because it is so the wisdom of ages has surrounded it with strict laws and usages, and has required formalities to be observed which shall act as a curb upon the wild passions of man, to prevent that scourge from being let loose unless under circumstances of full deliberation and from absolute necessity. You have dispensed with all these precautions.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1857/mar/03/resolution-moved-resumed-debate-fourth#column_1802 in the House of Commons against the Second Opium War (3 March 1857)
1850s

Law , Age , Passion , War

“Now is the time for the true friend of his country to remind the masses that their present political elevation is owing to no principles less broad and noble than these—the love of liberty, of liberty for all without distinction of class, creed, or country, and the resolute preference of the interests of the whole to any interest, be it what it may, of a narrower scope.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Letter to Sir John Cowan (17 March 1894), quoted in The Times (22 March 1894), p. 8
1890s

Love , Making love , Time , Country

“Sir, there are three principles, greater than all others, on which, in my opinion, all good finance should be based. The first of them is that there should always be a certainty that whatever the charge may be it can be paid. That, I believe, is of vital importance. The second is that, in times of peace and prosperity, the people of the country should reduce their Debt; and the third point is that they should reduce their Expenditure.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1882/apr/24/ways-and-means-financial-statement#column_1298 in the House of Commons (24 April 1882)
1880s

Peace , Time , People , Country

“I am delighted to see how many young boys and girls have come forward to obtain honourable marks of recognition on this occasion, — if any effectual good is to be done to them, it must be done by teaching and encouraging them and helping them to help themselves.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Speech to the Hawarden Amateur Horticultural Society (17 August 1876), as quoted in "Mr. Gladstone On Cottage Gardening", The Times (18 August 1876), p. 9
1870s

Girl , Help , Boy

“I am not slow to claim the name of Scotchman, and undoubtedly, even if I were slow to claim it, there is the fact staring me in the face that not a drop of blood runs in my veins except what is derived from a Scottish ancestry.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Speech in Dundee (29 October 1890), quoted in The Times (30 october 1890), p. 4
1890s

“We are servants of the Crown as well as servants of the people... I am not ashamed to say that in my old age I rejoice in any opportunity which enables me to testify that, whatever may be thought of my opinions, whatever may be thought of my proposals in general politics, I do not forget the service which I have borne for so many years to the illustrious representative of the British Monarchy.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1889/jul/25/the-royal-grants#S3V0338P0_18890725_HOC_142 in the House of Commons (25 July 1889)
1880s

Forgetting , People , Age

“I feel with a peculiar sympathy all that relates to Scotland. The natives of Scotland, and all those who have Scotch blood in their veins—particularly if, like me, they only have Scotch blood in their veins—are not apt to forget the country from which they sprang. They know its great qualities. They know the solidity of its character.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Speech in Westminster Palace Hotel (23 May 1878), quoted in The Times (24 May 1878), p. 12
1870s

Forgetting , Feeling , Relation ships , Country

“Public economy is part of public virtue.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Letter to Welby (26 October 1887), quoted in Anthony Howe, Free Trade and Liberal England 1846–1946 (1997), p. 19
1880s

Parting

“I deeply deplore the oblivion into which public economy has fallen; the prevailing disposition to make a luxury of panics, which multitudes seem to enjoy as they would a sensational novel or a highly seasoned cookery; and the leaning of both parties to socialism, which I radically disapprove.”

William Ewart Gladstone

Letter to the Duke of Argyll (30 September 1885), quoted in John Morley, The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Volume III (1903), p. 221
1880s

Making love , Season