Viscount Henry John Temple Palmerston Quotes

A Frenchman, thinking to be highly complimentary, said to Palmerston: If I were not a Frenchman, I should wish to be an Englishman. To which Palmerston replied: If I were not an Englishman, I...

Viscount Henry John Temple Palmerston

William Ewart Gladstone recounting the conversation to Lord Rendel in 1889, from F. E. Hamer editor. The Personal Papers of Lord Rendel - London: Ernest Benn Ltd, 1931.

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The American assault on Ireland under the name of Fenianism may be now held to have failed, but the snake is only scotched and not killed. It is far from from impossible that the American...

Viscount Henry John Temple Palmerston

Letter to Lord de Grey - 27 September 1865.

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Russia will in due time become a power almost as great as the old Roman Empire. She can become mistress of all Asia, except British India, whenever she chooses to take it; and when enlightened...

Viscount Henry John Temple Palmerston

Letter to Lord John Russell - 13 September 1865, in E. Ashleyeditor - The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston 1846-1865 - London, 1876.

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Lord Palmerston: Then you did not vote for me, friend Rowcliffe; you preferred voting for a Tory. William Rowcliffe: I did not vote for you, my Lord, for if I had, I should have voted for a Tory.

Viscount Henry John Temple Palmerston

During the general election of summer 1865 where the Chartist Rowcliffe voted for a Conservative and another Liberal in order to oust Palmerston from the two-member constituency. Quoted in F. J. Snell, Palmerston's Borough - Tiverton, 1894.

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I beg to propose to you that toast which is the first to which honour is done in every society of Englishmen, I mean "the Health of Her Majesty the Queen" — a toast which embodies the expression of...

Viscount Henry John Temple Palmerston

Speech to the Agricultural Association at Romsey, quoted in "Lord Palmerston At Romsey," - The Times - 16 December 1864.

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Mackieson gave me the other day a buffalo hide whip from Africa called in those regions a Peace Maker and used as such in the households of chieftains. Our Peace Makers are our Armstrongs and...

Viscount Henry John Temple Palmerston

Letter to Austen Henry Layard - 23 October 1864.

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As to the notion that the Brazilian nation see the criminality of slave trade and have for ever abjured it such a notion is too childish for a grown man really to entertain, however it may suit the...

Viscount Henry John Temple Palmerston

Letter to John Russell - 5 October, 1864.

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The Truth is that a vote is not a Right but a Trust. All the Nation cannot by Possibility be brought together to vote and therefore a Selected few are appointed by Law to perform this Function for...

Viscount Henry John Temple Palmerston

Palmerston's memorandum - 15 May 1864.

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I have read your speech and I must frankly say, with much regret as there is little in it that I can agree with, and much from which I differ. You lay down broadly the Doctrine of Universal Suffrage...

Viscount Henry John Temple Palmerston

Letter to William Ewart Gladstone - 12 May, 1864. Philip Guedalla editor. Gladstone and Palmerston, being the Correspondence of Lord Palmerston with Mr. Gladstone 1851-1865 - London: Victor Gollancz, 1928.

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Nothing is so difficult to change as the traditional habits of a free people in regard to such things. Such changes may be easily made in despotic countries like Russia, or in countries where...

Viscount Henry John Temple Palmerston

Letter to Thomas Milner Gibson - 5 May 1864.

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