“I am heartily glad that Elgin and Grant determined to burn down the Summer Palace and that "the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood"… It was absolutely necessary to stamp by some such permanent record our indignation at the treachery and brutality of these Tartars, for Chinese they are not.”

—  Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

Letter to Sidney Herbert (20 December 1860), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (London: Constable, 1970), pp. 538-539.
1860s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I am heartily glad that Elgin and Grant determined to burn down the Summer Palace and that "the blackness of ashes shal…" by Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston?
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston 72
British politician 1784–1865

Related quotes

Ray Bradbury photo

“Monday burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn 'em to ashes, then burn the ashes. That's our official slogan.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

George Gordon Byron photo

“I am ashes where once I was fire…”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Source: Selected Poems

George Macartney photo

“It should be never absent from our recollection that there are now two distinct nations in China--the Chinese and the Tartars--whose characters essentially differ, notwithstanding their external appearance be nearly the same. They are both subject to the most absolute authority that can be vested in a Prince(Qianlong), but with this distinction--that to the Chinese it is a foreign tyranny, to the Tartar a domestic despotism. The latter consider themselves as in some degree partakers of their Sovereign's dominions over the former, and that imagination may, perhaps, somewhat console them under the pressure of his power upon themselves--like the house servants and house negroes belonging to a great landlord in Livonia or planter in Jamaica, who, though serfs themselves, look down upon the peasantry and field negroes as much their inferiors.”

George Macartney (1737–1806) British statesman, colonial administrator and diplomat

Our First Ambassador to China (Biography, 1908)

Janet Evanovich photo

“Some men go a lifetime and never have their kid blow up a car, but I have a daughter who's knocked off three cars and burned down a funeral home. Maybe that's some kind of record.”

Janet Evanovich Four to Score

Source: Four to Score

Jack London photo

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

Jack London (1876–1916) American author, journalist, and social activist

The Bulletin, San Francisco, California, December 2, 1916, part 2, p. 1.
Also included in Jack London’s Tales of Adventure, ed. Irving Shepard, Introduction, p. vii (1956)

Buck Owens photo

“I Shall Sing No Song That Is Not A Country Song.
I Shall Make No Record That Is Not A Country Record.
I Refuse To be Known As Anything But A Country Singer.
I Am Proud To be Associated With Country Music.
Country Music And Country Music Fans Made Me What I Am Today.
And I Shall Not Forget It.”

Buck Owens (1929–2006) American country singer-songwriter

"Pledge To Country Music" in Music City News (March 1965)

Thomas Gray photo

“Where his glowing eye−balls turn,
Thousand banners round him burn.
Where he points his purple spear,
Hasty, hasty Rout is there,
Marking with indignant eye
Fear to stop and shame to fly.
There Confusion, Terror's child,
Conflict fierce and Ruin wild,
Agony that pants for breath,
Despair and honourable Death.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

"The Triumphs of Owen. A Fragment", from Mr. Evans's Specimens of the Welch Poetry (1764)

Heinrich Heine photo

“Oaks shall be rent; the Word shall shatter —
Yea, on that fiery day, the Crown,
Even the palace walls shall totter,
And domes and spires come crashing down.”

Heinrich Heine Wartet nur

Wartet nur! [Only Wait!] in Poems for the Times ; also in Poems of Heinrich Heine: Three Hundred and Twenty-five Poems (1917) Selected and translated by Louis Untermeyer, p. 263

Related topics