ARTHUR BALFOUR

He has only half learned the art of reading who has not added to it the more refined art of skipping and skimming.

The General Strike has taught the working class more in four days than years of talking could have done.

It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth.

Enthusiasm moves the world.

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

I never forgive, but I always forget.

We should be able to carry on extremely useful propaganda both in Russia and America where the majority of Jews ... appeared to be favorable towards Zionism.

To suppose that the races of Africa are in any sense the equals of men of European descent, so far as government, as society, as the higher interests of civilization are concerned, is really, I think, an absurdity.

Christianity, of course, but why journalism?

It has always been desirable to tell the truth, but seldom if ever necessary.

England cannot afford to go on with Irishmen in her Parliament.

He has the manners of a pirate and the courage of a governess.

His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavor to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by the Jews in any other country.

History does not repeat itself. Historians repeat each other.

I thought he [Winston Churchill] was a young man of promise, but it appears he was a young man of promises.

Nothing matters very much, and very few things matter at all.

You will be put under the heel of a majority which, if greater than you in numbers, is most undoubtedly inferior to you in political knowledge and experience …. You the wealthy, the orderly, the industrious, the enterprising portion of Ireland are to supply money for the that part of Ireland which is less orderly, less industrious, less enterprising and less law-abiding …

I suppose that the community, so far as this island is concerned, would not sink into chaos if this was a republic and not a monarchy; but in my opinion the Empire would sink into chaos. You could not have at the head of an Empire, so peculiarly constituted as ours is, a President elected, let us say, as the President of the United States is, every four years—the creation, or at all events the choice of a party, changing many times in the lifetime of every individual, and representing the abstraction of a Constitution and not the personal head of an Empire. You could never direct the Empire on that principle simply because, if you insisted on having an elected President in this country, he would be elected by the electorate of this country and not by the electorate of the Crown or of the Crown Colonies.

… science is the great instrument of social change, all the greater because its object is not change but knowledge, and its silent appropriation of this dominant function, amid the din of political and religious strife, is the most vital of all the revolutions which have marked the development of modern civilization.

Society, dead or alive, can have no charm without intimacy and no intimacy without an interest in trifles.

Though the parallel is not complete, it is safe to say that science will never touch them unaided by its practical applications. Its wonders may be catalogued for purposes of education, they may be illustrated by arresting experiments, by numbers and magnitudes which startle or fatigue the imagination but they will form no familiar portion of the intellectual furniture of ordinary men unless they be connected, however remotely, with the conduct of ordinary life.

Winston has written four volumes about himself and called it 'World Crisis'.

I am more or less happy when being praised, not very comfortable when being abused, but I have moments of uneasiness when being explained.

There are plenty of cases of war being begun before it is declared.

Our Scottish theory ... is that every country has need of Scotchmen, but that Scotland has no need of the citizens of any other country.