“Russia will in due time become a power almost as great as the old Roman Empire. She can become mistress of all Asia, except British India, whenever she chooses to take it; and when enlightened arrangements shall have made her revenue proportioned to her territory, and railways shall have abridged distances her command of men will become enormous, her pecuniary means gigantic, and her power of transporting armies over great distances most formidable. Germany ought to be strong in order to resist Russian aggression, and a strong Prussia is essential to German strength.”

— Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

Letter to Lord John Russell (13 September 1865), quoted in E. Ashley (ed.), The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston 1846-1865 (London, 1876), pp. 270-1
1860s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Feb. 3, 2025. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Russia will in due time become a power almost as great as the old Roman Empire. She can become mistress of all Asia, ex…" by Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston?

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston 72

British politician 1784–1865

Related quotes

“You may have married her, but she is mine. Do you think I shall let you take her? She may be ten times your wife, but, by God, you shall never have her.”

Georgette Heyer book Devil's Cub

Source: Devil's Cub

“If Great Britain lost her Empire and India and her share in world trade and her sea power, she would be like a vast whale stranded in one your Scottish bays, which swam in upon the tide and then was left to choke and rot upon the sands. We should be like a great shop emporium in a district from which prosperity has for ever departed. We least of all peoples and races can afford to fail. Failure to us does not mean merely that we shall not improve. It means that we shall be ruined and frozen out.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Source: Rectorial address ("The present decline of Parliamentary government in Great Britain") to Edinburgh University (5 March 1931), quoted in The Times (6 March 1931), p. 19

“One thing seems at any rate certain, that the spiritual motive will be in the future of India, as in her past, the real originative and dominating strain. By spirituality we do not mean a remote metaphysical mind or the tendency to dream rather than to act. That was not the great India of old in her splendid days of vigour, — whatever certain European critics or interpreters of her culture may say, — and it will not be the India of the future. Metaphysical thinking will always no doubt be a strong element in her mentality, and it is to be hoped that she will never lose her great, her sovereign powers in that direction…”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

The Renaissance in India (1918)

“As we begin to look beyond the war to the re-ordering of the world which must follow, we see three great Powers, the United States, Russia, and China. … In the company of these Titans Britain, apart from the rest of the Commonwealth and Empire, could hardly claim equal partnership. … If, in the future, Britain is to play her part without assuming burdens greater than she can support she must have with her in peace the same strength that has sustained her in this war. Not Great Britain only, but the British Commonwealth and Empire must be the fourth Power in that group upon which, under Providence, the peace of the world will henceforth depend.”

Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax (1881–1959) British politician

Speech to centenary dinner of the Toronto Board of Trade (24 January 1944), quoted in The Times (25 January 1944), p. 3
Ambassador to the United States