William Ewart Gladstone

In 1834 the Government...did themselves high honour by the new Poor Law Act, which rescued the English peasantry from the total loss of their independence.

I venture on assuring you that I regard the design formed by you and your friends with sincere interest, and in particular wish well to all the efforts you may make on behalf of individual freedom and independence as opposed to what is …

I am fundamentally a dead man: one fundamentally a Peel–Cobden man.

[The publication of The Jubilee of Free Trade is] an act of great gallantry for the Cobdenian faith is in all points at a heavy discount—Peace, Retrenchment, Free Trade and all the rest of it, to my great grief I must confess.

To serve Armenia is to serve the Civilization.

[T]he idea that the colonies add to the strength of the mother country appears to me to be as dark a superstition as any that existed in the Middle Ages.

I am not so much afraid either of Democracy or of Science as of the love of money. This seems to me to be a growing evil. Also, there is a danger from the growth of that dreadful military spirit.

I dislike the idea of its [vaccination] being compulsory. I don't like the notion of the State stepping in between parent and child when it is not absolutely necessary. The State is generally a very bad nurse.

I am a Free Trader on moral no less than on economic grounds: for I think human greed and selfishness are interwoven with every thread of the Protective system.

In 1880, Midlothian leading the way, the nation nobly answered to the call of justice and [br]oadly recognised the brotherhood of man. It was the nation, not the classes.

[W]hat I call the ‘mad and drunk’ scheme of my colleagues on the naval estimates. ... [T]hat scheme (the most wanton contribution in my view to accursed militarism that has yet been made in any quarter, unless possibly by the Crispian …

Now is the time for the true friend of his country to remind the masses that their present political elevation is owing to no principles less broad and noble than these—the love of liberty, of liberty for all without distinction of class, …

George III in his private character shows to advantage when compared with Charles II or George II. But, if George III had succeeded in repressing freedom and parliamentary government, we should have had a Revolution, not probably so bad as …

I am vexed to see portions of the labouring class beginning to be corrupted by the semblance of power as the other classes have been tainted & warped by its reality; and I am disgusted by finding a portion of them ready to thrust Ireland, …

Let us go forward in the good work we have in hand and let us put our trust, not in squires and peers, and not in titles or in acres; I will go further and say, not in man, as such, but in Almighty God, who is the God of justice, and who …

Protectionism and militarism are united in an unholy but yet a valid marriage: and the one and the other are in my firm conviction alike the foes of freedom.

There is a saying of Burke's from which I must utterly dissent. "Property is sluggish and inert." Quite the contrary. Property is vigilant, active, sleepless; if ever it seems to slumber, be sure that one eye is open.

I think I can truly put up all the change that has come into my politics into a sentence; I was brought up to distrust and dislike liberty, I learned to believe in it. That is the key to all my changes.

I name next a word that it requires some courage to utter these days—the word of economy. It is like a echo from the distant period of my early life. The wealth of the country, and the vast comparative diffusion of comfort, has, I am …

I am not slow to claim the name of Scotchman, and undoubtedly, even if I were slow to claim it, there is the fact staring me in the face that not a drop of blood runs in my veins except what is derived from a Scottish ancestry.

All selfishness is the great curse of the human race, and when we have a real sympathy with other people less happy than ourselves that is a good sign of something like a beginning of deliverance from selfishness.

I think we certainly must recognise...how much ground has been lost by the doctrines of free trade within the last 25 years. It is a great and heavy disappointment. I have no doubt that the dreadful militarism which lies like an incubus, …

We are not to judge individuals hastily on account of social mischiefs, that may be due to them as a body, through their holding of a position inherited from their forefathers, the whole nature of which they have not had strength and depth …

We are servants of the Crown as well as servants of the people... I am not ashamed to say that in my old age I rejoice in any opportunity which enables me to testify that, whatever may be thought of my opinions, whatever may be thought of …