A wise government knows how to enforce with temper, or to conciliate with dignity, but a weak one is odious in the former, and contemptible in the latter.

Speech in the House of Commons against the motion for expelling John Wilkes (3 February 1769), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XVI. A. D. 1765–1771 (1813), column 570