John Russell, 1st Earl Russell

What courage! There is not a man on the Tory benches around him but doesn't disapprove of every word he says.

If you cannot afford to do justice speedily and well, you may as well shut up the Exchequer and confess that you have no right to raise taxes for the protection of the subject, for justice is the first and primary end of all government.

I have seemed cold to my friends, but it was not in my heart.

No man can complain that he has been wronged, a nation may rejoice that she has been righted.

The case appears to me to be one between the honour of the Crown of this country and the election of General Grant as President of the United States. For my part, I prefer the honour of Her Majesty—I prefer the honour and reputation of …

government by corruption was substituted for government by force

Mr. Delane is very angry because I did not kiss his hand instead of the Queen's.

[H]is heart always beat for the honour of England.

I rejoice heartily at the prospect of the negro vote.

Her Majesty's Government will turn their eyes rather to the gratifying prospect of a people building up the edifice of their liberties, and consolidating the work of their independence, amid the sympathies and good wishes of Europe.

In 1780, in 1783, and in 1829, that which had been denied to reason was granted to force. Ireland triumphed, not because the justice of her claims was apparent, but because the threat of insurrection overcame prejudice, made fear superior …

If peace cannot be maintained with honour, it is no longer peace.

The grand rule of doing to others as we wish that they should do unto us is more applicable than any system of political science. The honour of England does not consist in defending every English officer or English subject, right or wrong, …

[E]ight millions were advanced to enable the Irish to supply the loss of the potato crop and to cast about for some less precarious food.... The result has been that they have placed more dependence on the potato than ever, and have again …

I should say it is like a famine of the thirteenth century acting upon the population of the nineteenth.

I wish I knew what to do to help your country. But, as I do not, it is of no use giving her smooth words, as O’Connell told me, and I must be silent.

Our prospects are obscured for a moment, but, I trust, only for a moment; it is impossible that the whisper of a faction should prevail against the voice of a nation.

Will this House say, "We will keep our power, keep it how we may; we regard not the petitions of the people, and are ready to abide by all the consequences of our refusal"?

if by aristocracy those persons are meant who do not live among the people, who know nothing of the people, and who care nothing for them—who seek honours without merit, places without duty, and pensions without service—for such an …

[A proverb is] one man's wit, and all men's wisdom.

Who the devil will coalesce with people that don't coalesce with themselves.

May you remember, that the liberty which was acquired for you by your ancestors will be required of you by your descendants: then will you agree to a temperate and timely reform, reconcile the different classes of society, and prevent a …

They are obliged to enforce, by arms, obedience to acts of this House—which, according to every just theory, are supposed to emanate from the people themselves.

We cannot confine liberty in this country to one class of men