Quote#Nature
I am heartily glad that Elgin and Grant determined to burn down the…
Quote byHenry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston · 1784–1865
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letter to Sidney Herbert (20 December 1860), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), pp. 538-539.
English (original)
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
More from Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
I never can admit that it can be wise to give way to the unjust pretensions of France for the purpose of gaining for the French government...the support of the violent party, or even of the moderate encroachers. Depend upon it, no good is …
Proneness to changes and fondness for experiment have never been the character of the English nation.
We shall drink the cause of Liberalism all over the world. The reign of Metternich is over and the days of the Duke's policy might be measured by algebra, if not by arithmetic.
But he came not here a bigoted polemic, with religious tracts in one hand, and civil persecution in the other; he came to regenerate and avenge the prostrate and insulted liberties of England; he came with peace and toleration on his lips, …
I will venture to lay it down as a general principle, that there are no better means for securing the continuance of peace, than to have it known that the possessions in the neighbourhood of a foreign state are in a condition to repel …
Governments are not at liberty to act solely from motives of generous sympathy for the sufferings of an oppressed people, they are bound by the severer rules of general principles, to respect rights which are inherent in other nations.