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Quotes of the Day for 29 December 2004 - Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone was born at Liverpool, England on this day in 1809, the son of a Scottish merchant. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church College, Oxford where he developed a powerful command of oratory such that he was elected to Parliament almost immediately after college. Although he was extremely conservative early in his career, he became a major reformer and came to real power as leader of the Liberal party. He served as Prime Minister for a total of about fifteen years on four separate occasions, his main political rival was Benjamin Disraeli. He was also often at odds with Queen Victoria who once complained, "He always addresses me as if I were a public meeting.".

The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good and difficult for them to do evil.

Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.

Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead. I will measure exactly the sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom you lay the firmest foundations both of loyalty and order.

The disease of an evil conscience is beyond the practice of all the physicians of all the countries in the world.
     - All from William Ewart Gladstone, 1809 - 1898

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