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[T]he central doctrine of Conservatism, that it is better to endure almost any political evil than to risk a breach of the historic continuity of government.

— Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

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Government

More quotes by Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

A gram of experience is worth a ton of theory.

First-rate men will not canvass mobs; and if they did, the mobs would not elect the first-rate men.

Conflict in free states is the law of life.

You may roughly divide the nations of the world as the living and the dying.

War is righteous or unrighteous according as it is opportune or inopportune.

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Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.

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The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

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Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

Leon Trotsky The Revolution Betrayed (1936)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Adams

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.