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Ideal perfection is not the true basis of English legislation. We look at the attainable; we look at the practicable; and we have too much of English sense to be drawn away by those sanguine delineations of what might possibly be attained in Utopia, from a path which promises to enable us to effect great good for the people of England.

— William Ewart Gladstone

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More quotes by William Ewart Gladstone

National injustice is the surest road to national downfall.

I venture to say that every man who is not presumably incapacitated by some consideration of personal unfitness or of political danger is morally entitled to come within the pale of the Constitution.

I believe the slave trade to be by far the foulest crime that taints the history of mankind in any Christian or pagan country.

Yes; these are people struggling to be free, and they are struggling rightly to be free.

My name may have buoyancy enough to float upon the sea of time.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Ewart Gladstone (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.