Quotes by Lord Melbourne

“Once is orthodox, twice is puritanical.”

“Your friends praise your abilities to the skies, submit to you in argument, and seem to have the greatest deference for you; but, though they may ask it, you never find them following your advice upon their own affairs; nor allowing you to manage your own, without thinking that you should follow theirs. Thus, in fact, they all think themselves wiser than you, whatever they may say.”

“That is no use at all. What I want is men who will support me when I am in the wrong.”

“The whole duty of government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.”

“You should never assume contempt for that which it is not very manifest that you have it in your power to possess, nor does a wit ever make a more contemptible figure than when, in attempting satire, he shows that he does not understand that which he would make the subject of his ridicule.”

“It is not much matter which we say, but mind, we must all say the same.”

“A doctrinaire is a fool but an honest man.”

“I wish I was as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything.”

“Neither man nor woman can be worth anything until they have discovered that they are fools. This is the first step towards becoming either estimable or agreeable; and until it be taken there is no hope. The sooner the discovery is made the better, as there is more time and power for taking advantage of it. Sometimes the great truth is found out too late to apply to it any effectual remedy. Sometimes it is never found at all; and these form the desperate and inveterate causes of folly, self-conceit, and impertinence.”

“God help the Minister that meddles with art!”

Solitude and retirement cherish grief, employment and exertion are the only means of dissipating it.

While I cannot be regarded as a pillar I must be regarded as a buttress of the church because I support it from outside.

Things are coming to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade private life.

The whole duty of government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.