Quote#Politics & Power
My principles are, as I believe, the Whig principles of the…
Quote byWilliam Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne · 1779–1848
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letter to Lord Holland (10 December 1815), quoted in Philip Ziegler, Melbourne: A Biography of William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (1976), p. 70.
English (original)
My principles are, as I believe, the Whig principles of the revolution. The main foundation of them is the irresponsibility of the crown, the consequent responsibility of ministers, and the preservation of the power and dignity of parliament as constituted by law and custom. With a heap of modern additions, interpolations, facts and fictions, I have nothing to do.
— William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
You may also like
If I'd been Lord Grey, I would have knocked him down.
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
[T]he possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility.
I believe that government is for the use of the people, and not the people for the use of the government.
My object is to collect into a common fold the stray sheep, to find a home for the pariahs of every nation. I do not then hesitate to notice the catchpennies hawked in the public streets, as well as the sumptuous volumes got up for the …
In a very deep sense all human science is but the increment of the power of the eye, and all human art is the increment of the power of the hand.
There seems to be one quality of mind which seems to be of special and extreme advantage in leading him to make discoveries. It was the power of never letting exceptions go unnoticed.