Quote#Politics & Power
We are in a state of bloodless civil war. No common principles, no…
Quote byRobert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury · 1830–1903
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letter to W. H. Smith (5 February 1889), quoted in Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (2001), p. 65.
English (original)
We are in a state of bloodless civil war. No common principles, no respect for common institutions or traditions unite the various groups of politicians, who are struggling for power. To loot somebody or something is the common object under a thick varnish of pious phrases.
— Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
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