Arthur Balfour famous quotes

Enthusiasm moves the world.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Inspirational #Moving #World

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

#Peace #Work #Matter

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

#Talking #Years #Class

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

#Society #Alive #Intimacy

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

#Truth #Moving #World

Imperishable moments and immortal deeds, death itself and love stronger than death, will be as though they had never been. The energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed and the earth tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for the moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness, which in this obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence of the universe, will be at rest.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Men #Space #Race

The power of authority is never more subtle and effective than when it produces a psychological atmosphere or climate favorable to the life of certain modes of belief, unfavorable, and even fatal, to the life of others.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Atmosphere #Climate #Belief

The tyranny of majorities may be as bad as the tyranny of kings.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Kings #Majority #May

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

#Country #Scotland #Needs

Man, so far as natural science by itself is able to teach us, is no longer the final cause of the universe, the Heaven-descended heir of all the ages. His very existence is an accident, his story a brief and transitory episode in the life of one of the meanest of the planets.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Men #Heaven #Age

I do not know how it comes about, but if you sit opposite a man every day and you are engaged in fighting him, you cannot help getting a liking for him whether he deserves it or not.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Fighting #Men #Opposites

I have done nothing important or distinguished since we met except to win the handicap prize, worth ?4 10/- at North Berwick.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Winning #Important #Done

I look forward to a time when Irish patriotism will as easily combine with British patriotism as Scottish patriotism combines now.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Looks #Scottish #British

His Majesty's Government looks with favour upon the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Home #Government #Looks

Herbert Asquith's clarity is a great liability because he has nothing to say.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Clarity #Liability

His Majesty's Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours 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 Jews in any other country.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Country #Religious #Home

Ask with urgency and passion.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Passion #Questioning #Urgency

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

#Truth #Telling The Truth

In effort Happiness idleness life pleasure superstition support trouble work The superstition that all our hours of work are a minus quantity in the happiness of life, and all the hours of idleness are plus ones, is a most ludicrous and pernicious doctrine, and its greatest support comes from our not taking sufficient trouble, not making a real effort, to make work as near pleasure as it can be.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Life #Real #Work

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Enemy #Biographies #Should

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

#Funny #Art #Book

I thought Winston Churchill was a young man of promise, but it appears he is a young man of promises.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Men #Promise #Young

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

#Politics #Moments #Uneasiness

I never forgive, but I always forget.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Forgiving #Forget #Forgetfulness

But 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 civilisation.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Religious #Knowledge #Political

Science preceded the theory of science, and is independent of it. Science preceded naturalism, and will survive it.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Independent #Science #Theory

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.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Science #Men #Numbers

Every human soul is of infinite value, eternal, free; no human being, therefore, is so placed as not to have within his reach, in himself and others, objects adequate to infinite endeavor.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Soul #Adequate #Being There

And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money...and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a Big Brother or Sister...You want to do well, but if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Brother #Giving #Kitchen

I'd rather take advice from my valet than from the Conservative Party Conference
-- Arthur Balfour

#Party #Advice #Conservative

Why can't the Jews and the Arabs just sit down together and settle this like good Christians?
-- Arthur Balfour

#Christian #Together #Settling

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

#World #Four #Volume