Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery quotes

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, was a British statesman and Liberal politician who briefly served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Known for his eloquence and aristocratic background, he played a significant role in British politics at the turn of the twentieth century. He advocated for progressive reforms and maintained a notable interest in foreign affairs. Here are 14 of his quotes:

The old Liberal party is drawing to its end. These last two elections, particularly the last, are the Mene Mene Tekel Upharsen of the Liberal banquet. The socialist does not indeed get a majority but while the two old parties are cutting each other's throats, he slips in and will continue to slip in and the encouragement to his party is great. The Liberal party will lose their industrial seats, while the Conservative party, the natural refuge in time of trouble, creams off all who will accept protection.

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

This is not a Budget, but a revolution; a social and political revolution of the first magnitude.

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

I used to dislike the Whigs but in my years of loneliness I have come to the conclusion that they governed England better than anybody else. They thought our their measures carefully and adapted them to their times and generation. They were not heroic but they were wise. In modern days we see much heroism but little wisdom.

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

[The British Empire is] the greatest secular agency for good now known to mankind.

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

There are a great many Tory Liberals in the Liberal party. There is a Toryism in Liberalism as great and as deep, though as unconscious, as any in the Carlton Club. There are men who sit still with the fly-blown phylacteries bound round their obsolete policy, who do not remember that, while they have been mumbling their incantations to themselves, the world has been marching and revolving, and if they have any hope of leading or guiding it they must march and move with it too.

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

...what is the advice I have to offer you? the first head is this, that you have to clean your slate. (Cheers.) It is six years now since you were in office. It is 16 years since you were in anything like power, and it does seem to me that under these circumstances the primary duty of the Liberal party is to wipe its slate clean and consider very carefully what it is going to write on it in future.

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

...what would be most extraordinary is this, that anybody who considered the state of the Liberal party then [1896] and now should expect me voluntarily to return to the Liberal party. (Laughter.) I left the Liberal party because I found it impossible to lead it, in the main owing to the divisions to which I referred in my letter. (Hear, hear.) The Liberal party in that respect is no better now, but rather worse; and it would indeed be an extraordinary evolution of mind if, after having left the Liberal party on that ground, I were to announce my intention of voluntarily returning to it in its present condition. No, gentlemen, so far as I am concerned, I must repeat what I have said on that subject in all my speeches, that for the present, at any rate, I must proceed alone. I must plough my furrow alone.

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

There are two supreme pleasures in life. One is ideal, the other real. The ideal is when a man receives the seals of office from the hands of his Sovereign. The real pleasure comes when he hands them back.

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

It is always possible that that may happen here which has happened in Belgium-the elimination of Liberalism, leaving the two forces of Socialism and Reaction face to face. Whether that shall happen here depends on the Liberal Party.

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery said: "The Prime Minister [Ramsay MacDonald]...circulated pamphlets by the thousand in German against our contention. It is terrible to think that such a man should be in high office with the support of anybody in this country".

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

The last piece of advice I shall venture to offer the Liberal party is this, that they shall not dissociate themselves, even indirectly or unconsciously, or by any careless words, from the new sentiment of Empire which occupies the nation. To many the word "Empire" is suspect as indicating aggression and greed and violence and the characteristics of other empires that the world has known; but the sentiment that is represented now by Empire in these islands has nothing of that in it. (Cheers.) It is a passion of affection and family feeling, of pride and of hopefulness; and the statesman, however great he may be, who dissociates himself from that feeling must not be surprised if the nation dissociates itself from him. (Cheers)

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

...my watchword if I were in office at this moment would be summed up in one single word-the word "efficiency." (Cheers.) If we have not learned from this war that we have greatly lagged behind in efficiency we have learned nothing, and our treasure and our lives are thrown away unless we learn the lesson which the war has given us...last, and, perhaps, greatest of all, there comes a question that underlies the efficiency of our nation...I mean education (loud cheers), in which we are lagging sadly, and with which we shall have peacefully to fight other nations with weapons like the bow and arrow if we do not progress. We have nothing like a national system, but a great chaos of almost haphazard arrangement.

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery