John Morley

I am as cautious a Whig as any Elliot, Russell, or Grey, that was ever born.

The conference of railway men will damage us gravely with the middle class, for railways are the middle class investment, and to pull profits down...as they admit to be the effect of their demand—will frighten people. And if anybody thinks …

Simplicity of character is no hindrance to subtlety of intellect.

We all know that the besetting danger of Churches is formalism; the besetting danger of State action, of corporate action, is officialism and mechanism; and we all know that it is a drawback to many modern ideals that they rest upon …

According to my observation, the change in my own generation is different. They have ceased either to trust or to distrust liberty, and have come to the mind that it matters little either way. Men are disenchanted. They have got what they …

I confess that I am in favour, if we can, of sticking to the old system by which you yourselves shall use your own judgment and your own energy in order to cultivate the virtue of thrift, and in order to see that thrift is rewarded... I …

[S]o far as sick pay is concerned, I do not see how the State is to be responsible for the payment of...sick pay, how the State is to be able to exercise that efficient control over what is known as malingering, feigning sickness, though …

There is a loud cry in these days for clues that shall guide the plain man through the vast bewildering labyrinth of printed volumes.

I half wrote a discourse on modern democracy, how the rule of numbers is to be reconciled with the rule of sage judgment, and the passion for liberty and equality is to be reconciled with sovereign regard for law, authority, and order; and …

But are you so sure...that when Ulster, or the corner of Ulster knows that Great Britain has made up its mind that there is to be an effective, a real self-government in Ireland—are you so sure Ulster will turn its back upon Ireland and …

I hope...Her Majesty's Ministers...will...say that the Soudan must be left to its own people to work out their own deliverance in their own fashion.

Yes, gentlemen, be sure that no power on earth can separate henceforth the question of mending the House of Commons from the other question of mending or ending the House of Lords. (Loud cheers, the whole assembly rising and waving their …

I'm all against your “autoritaire”. I don't believe in it, and I never did. Your Cromwells and Fredericks don't do their work half as well as slow sober free American citizens.

It is not enough to do good; one must do it the right way.

You cannot demonstrate an emotion or prove an aspiration.

Those who would treat politics and morality apart will never understand the one or the other.

Germany is the power in whose strength, prosperity, and vigorous government, Europe has the most vital interest, because she is the Power best able from her position to deal with Russia.

If the country does best, where State action is least, you at least require political effort enough to reduce those noxious forms of State action which have come down to us from the imprudence of pre-scientific days. The philosopher, for …

Do let us try to give a national, not a class tone to English politics .

You have not converted a man, because you have silenced him.

Evolution is not a force but a process; not a cause but a law.

Nature, in her most dazzling aspects or stupendous parts, is but the background and theatre of the tragedy of man.

Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.

I shall not flinch if they decapitate or flagellate all the bishops and curés in Paris.