Quotes by William E. Gladstone

“You shouldnt punish others for your own choices”

“He is the purest figure in history. [About George Washington]”

“I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.”

“Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions”

“Every writer since the beginning of time, just like other people, has been afflicted by what [a] friend of mine calls the fleas of life-you know, colds, hangovers, bills, sprained ankles and little nuisances of one sort or another.”

“Our writers are full of cliches just as old barns are full of bats. There is obviously no rule about this, except that anything that you suspect of being a cliche undoubtedly is one and had better be removed.”

“Every reader finds himself. The writers work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.”

“The fact that writers will go through so much to remain writers says something, perhaps everything. It would be far easier (and nearly always more profitable) to become a real estate agent.”

“Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.”

“Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals”

“Justice delayed is justice denied.”

“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”

“Justice may be blind, but she has very sophisticated listening devices.”

“When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers”

Commerce is the equalizer of the wealth of nations.

Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence conservatism distrust of the people tempered by fear.

Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.

Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you wont have to hunt for happiness.

Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God, as can be your own.

Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.