Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success.

A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.

The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it.

The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.

Efficiency in an assembly requires a solid mass of steady votes; and these are collected by a deferential attachment to particular men, or by a belief in the principles that those men represent, and they are maintained by fear of those men - by the fear that if you vote against them, you may soon yourself have no vote at all.