The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

A cabinet is a combining committee—a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the
legislative part of the state to the executive part of the state.
‘The English Constitution’ (1867) ‘The Cabinet’
It has been said that England invented the phrase, ‘Her Majesty’s Opposition’; that it was the
first government which made a criticism of administration as much a part of the polity as
administration itself. This critical opposition is the consequence of cabinet government.
‘The English Constitution’ (1867) ‘The Cabinet’
The Times has made many ministries.
‘The English Constitution’ (1867) ‘The Cabinet’
The great qualities, the imperious will, the rapid energy, the eager nature fit for a great crisis
are not required—are impediments—in common times. A Lord Liverpool is better in everyday
politics than a Chatham—a Louis Philippe far better than a Napoleon.
‘The English Constitution’ (1867) ‘The Cabinet’
The soldier—that is, the great soldier—of to-day is not a romantic animal, dashing at forlorn
hopes, animated by frantic sentiment, full of fancies as to a love-lady or a sovereign; but a quiet,
grave man, busied in charts, exact in sums, master of the art of tactics, occupied in trivial detail;
thinking, as the Duke of Wellington was said to do, most of the shoes of his soldiers; despising
all manner of èclat and eloquence; perhaps, like Count Moltke, ‘silent in seven languages’.
‘The English Constitution’ (1867) ‘Checks and Balances’
The order of nobility is of great use, too, not only in what it creates, but in what it prevents. It
prevents the rule of wealth—the religion of gold. This is the obvious and natural idol of the
Anglo-Saxon.
‘The English Constitution’ (1867) ‘The House of Lords’
A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that ‘the cure for admiring the
House of Lords was to go and look at it.’
‘The English Constitution’ (1867) ‘The House of Lords’
Nations touch at their summits.
‘The English Constitution’ (1867) ‘The House of Lords’
The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government.
The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other.
‘The English Constitution’ (1867) ‘The Monarchy’
The characteristic of the English Monarchy is that it retains the feelings by which the heroic
kings governed their rude age, and has added the feelings by which the constitutions of later
Greece ruled in more refined ages.
‘The English Constitution’ (1867) ‘The Monarchy’
Women—one half the human race at least—care fifty times more for a marriage than a
ministry.
‘The English Constitution’ (1867) ‘The Monarchy’
Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person
doing interesting actions. A Republic is a government in which that attention is divided between