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Moderation, especially in the matter of territory, has never been characteristic of democracy. Wherever it has had free play, in the ancient world or in the modern, in the old hemisphere or the new, a thirst for empire, and a readiness for aggressive war, has always marked it.

— Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

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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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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.