Public opinion is a mysterious and invisible power, to which everything must yield. There is nothing more fickle, more vague, or more powerful; yet capricious as it is, it is nevertheless much more often true, reasonable, and just, than we imagine.

Political power means the capacity to regulate national life through national representatives.

I'm a role model for those who dare to be different. For those who dare to take a stand in their life and have an opinion.

There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.

There is a kind of intolerant spirit now abroad which arises out of the growing power of party and other machinery - a spirit which resents individual opinion, which clamours for uniformity and political Test Acts.

I have lived my life in the House of Commons, having served there for 52 out of the last 54 years of this tumultuous and convulsive century. I have indeed seen all the ups and downs of fate and fortune there, but I have never ceased to love and honour the Mother of Parliaments, the model of the legislative assemblies of so many lands.