Quotes by Robert Peel

“But after this natural burst of indignation, no man of sense, courage, or prudence will waste his time or his strength in retrospective reproaches or repinings.”

“The police are the public and the public are the police the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the in...”

“There seem to me to be very few facts, at least ascertainable facts, in politics.”

“Public opinion is a compound of folly weakness prejudice wrong feeling right feeling obstinacy and newspaper paragraphs.”

“Public opinion is a compound of folly weakness prejudice wrong feeling right feeling obstinacy and newspaper paragraphs.”

“[T]he aggression, usurpation, and tyranny of Buonaparté was the only subject upon which all parties united. But to resist him in his encroachments effectually, unanimity was absolutely necessary, a...”

“Let us recollect, that, under the constitution which we have derived from our ancestors, we have enjoyed more liberty, we have acquired more glory, we possess more character and power, than has hit...”

“Do not you think that the tone of England—of that great compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs, which is called public opinion—is ...”

“They propose no encroachments upon civil liberty, no extension of executive authority, no rash subversion of ancient institutions, no relinquishment of what is practically good, for the chance of s...”

“I have endeavoured to steer a middle course between the general verbosity of our English statutes, and the extreme brevity of the French criminal code. ... In the bills I have the honour of submitt...”

“I have for years attempted to maintain the exclusion of Roman Catholics from Parliament, and the high offices of the State. I do not think it was an unnatural or unreasonable struggle. I resign it ...”

“The police are the public and the public are the police.”

“I want no array of figures, I want no official documents, I want no speeches of six hours, to establish to my satisfaction the public policy of maintaining the Legislative Union [with Ireland]. I f...”

“We...were resolved, if invited, not to decline the responsibility, and to exhaust every constitutional means of ascertaining whether the country, or rather whether the constituent body, would suppo...”

“I gladly avail myself also of this, a legitimate opportunity, of making a more public appeal—of addressing myself, through you, to that great and intelligent class of society of which you are a por...”

“With respect to the Reform Bill itself, I will repeat now the declaration I made when I entered the House of Commons as a member of the Reformed Parliament—that I consider the Reform Bill a final a...”

“Then, as to the spirit of the Reform Bill, and the willingness to adopt and enforce it as a rule of government: if, by adopting the spirit of the Reform Bill, it be meant that we are to live in a p...”

“Our object will be—the maintenance of peace—the scrupulous and honourable fulfilment, without reference to their original policy, of all existing engagements with Foreign Powers—the support of publ...”

“[A]ll my own interests are identified with agricultural prosperity. It is true that I am under the deepest obligation to commerce and manufactures; and I am proud to acknowledge them; but all my pr...”

“I have read all that has been written by the gravest authorities on political economy on the subject of rent, wages, taxes, tithes, the various elements in short, which constitute or affect the pri...”