Category: Quote of the Day

The nation which is satisfied is lost. The nation which is not progressive is retrograding. “Rest and be thankful” is a motto which spells decay. The new world seems to possess more of this quality in its crude state, at any rate, than the old. In individuals it sometimes seems to be carried to excess. I do not by this mean the revolutions which periodically ravage the Southern and Central American Republics. I think more of the restless enterprise of the United States, with the devouring anxiety to improve existing machinery and existing methods, and the apparent impossibility of accumulating any fortune, however gigantic, which shall satisfy or be sufficient to allow of leisure and repose. There the disdain of finality, the anxiety for improving on the best seems almost a disease; but in Great Britain we can afford to catch the complaint, at any rate in a mitigated form, and give in exchange some of our own self-complacency, for complacency is a fatal gift. “What was good enough for my father is good enough for me” is a treasured English axiom which, if strictly carried out, would have kept us to wooden ploughs and water clocks. In these days we need to be inoculated with some of the nervous energy of the Americans.

Archibald Primrose

I think my friends are moving on the path that leads to Socialism. How far they are advanced on that path I will not say, but on that path I, at any rate, cannot follow them an inch. (Loud cheers.) Any form of protection is an evil, but Socialism is the end of all, the negation of faith, of family, of prosperity, of the monarchy, of Empire. (Loud cheers.)

Archibald Primrose

I used to dislike the Whigs but in my years of loneliness I have come to the conclusion that they governed England better than anybody else. They thought out their measures carefully and adapted them to their times and generation. They were not heroic but they were wise. In modern days we see much heroism but little wisdom.

Archibald Primrose

There are two supreme pleasures in life. One is ideal, the other real. The ideal is when a man receives the seals of office from the hands of his Sovereign. The real pleasure comes when he hands them back.

Archibald Primrose

It is beginning to be hinted that we are a nation of amateurs.

Archibald Primrose