“…as individuals and as nations we live in states of society utterly different from each other. As a collection of individuals, we live under the highest and latest development of civilization, in which the individual is rigidly forbidden to defend himself, because society is always ready and able to defend him. As a collection of nations we live in an age of the merest Faustrecht, in which each one obtains his rights precisely in proportion to his ability, or that of his allies, to fight for them…In practice it is found that International Law is always on the side of strong battalions…It is puerile…to apply to the dealings of a nation with its neighbour's territory the morality which would be applicable to two individuals possessing adjoining property, and protected from mutual wrong by a law superior to both.”

— Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Quarterly Review, 151, 1881, pp. 542-544
1880s

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Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury112

British politician 1830–1903

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Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury112

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