Tory Quotes - page 4
![I soon came to know in the weary debates and the 104 divisions against the European Communities Bill who it was with whom I shared feelings of anger, outrage and hatred at what was being perpetrated. I am aware that the "Left" is supposed to be motivated only by the desire to be unimpeded by "Europe" in converting Britain into a socialist state; but I am compelled to depose that the instincts and reasoning of the "Left" opponents of membership...were exactly as nationalistic, not to say patriotic, as my own...[I part company with Labour only] because of my blind, high Tory ultimate faith in the people. If they are the people I thought and still want to think that they are, those who represent them will assuredly be pulled back in time from the betrayal of their birthright of parliamentary freedom either to a European state or to a Marxist bureaucracy. (Enoch Powell)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/55/enoch-powell-anger-betrayal-429155.webp)
I don't think that would be entirely unfair. There are some things which get on one's nerves and some things that don't. And I'm, to use a rather journalistic word, allergic to the things that are typically American. I think that's fairly natural to someone who has just been described as a Tory and is always ready to describe himself as a High Tory.
Enoch Powell
To me a Tory is a person who believes that authority is vested in institutions-that's a carefully honed definition. We have made the law, not for extraneous reasons, not because it conforms with a priori specifications; it has been made by a particular institution in a particular way and can be changed by that institution in a particular way. A Tory therefore reposes the ultimate authority in institutions-he is an example of collective man.
Enoch Powell
Victor Raikes, the Tory M.P., who is an able and outspoken reactionary, made a speech which I should have considered a good one if it had referred only to Poland and Jugoslavia. But after dealing with those two countries he went on to speak about Greece, and then suddenly black became white, and white black. There was no booing, no interjections from the quite large audience-and none there, apparently, who could see that the forcing of quisling governments upon unwilling peoples is equally undesirable whoever does it.
George Orwell
Yet the Opposition refused to extend the franchise unless they were assured that there would be some manipulation or re-arrangement of seats, which, would, in fact, be taking away with one hand what was given with the other. He regretted that proportional representation should have been introduced into the debate from that side of the House, for all these schemes were but new disguises for the old Tory distrust of the people.
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn
With regard to politics and the character of princes and great men, I think I am very moderate. My views of things are more conformable to Whig principles; my representation of persons to Tory prejudices. Nothing can so much prove that men commonly regard more persons than things, as to find that I am commonly numbered among the Tories.
David Hume
I thought that I was the only historian, that had at once neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of popular prejudices; and as the subject was suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause. But miserable was my disappointment: I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation; English, Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and courtier, united in their rage against the man, who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I and the Earl of Strafford.
David Hume
This country will not always be an uncomfortable place for a country gentleman to live in, and it is most important that we should keep in this country a certain leisured class. I am afraid that Labour disagrees with me in that. On this matter I am a crusted Tory. I am of the opinion of the ancient Jewish book which says "there is no wisdom without leisure."
William Butler Yeats
The great importance of Wilbury House lies less in its appearance now than in its appearance as it was first built and illustrated in Vitruvius Britannicus. It was designed by and built for William Benson in 1710. He is notorious for having been made Wren's successor in 1718, when George I dismissed Wren as a Tory and an old man, and for having failed so completely that he himself was replaced only one year later. But he is memorable as the designer of the first, not Neo-Palladian, but neo-Inigo-Jones house in England. For this is what Wilbury was, as Sir John Summerson was the first to point out. The house then had a four-column Corinthian portico of tall columns set well away from the wall.
Nikolaus Pevsner
From France to the Philippines, from Jamaica to Japan, from Malaysia to Mexico, from Sri Lanka to Singapore, privatisation is on the move...The policies we have pioneered are catching on in country after country. We Conservatives believe in popular capitalism-believe in a property-owning democracy. And it works! ... The great political reform of the last century was to enable more and more people to have a vote. Now the great Tory reform of this century is to enable more and more people to own property. Popular capitalism is nothing less than a crusade to enfranchise the many in the economic life of the nation. We Conservatives are returning power to the people. That is the way to one nation, one people.
Margaret Thatcher
There is nothing new or unusual about the Tory commitment to protect the environment. The last thing we want is to leave environmental debts for our children to clear up...It's we Conservatives who are not merely friends of the Earth-we are its guardians and trustees for generations to come. The core of Tory philosophy and for the case for protecting the environment are the same. No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy-with a full repairing lease. This Government intends to meet the terms of that lease in full.
Margaret Thatcher
I look back with pride to the great measures of social reform-Unemployment Insurance, Labour Exchanges, Safety in the Coalmines, bringing Old Age Pensions down from seventy to sixty-five years of age, the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions-for which I have been responsible both as a Liberal and a Conservative Minister. I find comfort in the broad harmony of thought which prevails between the modern Tory democracy and the doctrines of the famous Liberal leaders of the past. I am sure that in accord with their speeches and writings, men like Asquith, Morley and Grey, whom I knew so well in my youth, would have regarded the establishment of a Socialist State and the enforcement of the collectivist theory as one of the worst evils that could befall Britain and her slowly-evolved, long-cherished way of life.
Winston Churchill
Liberalism supplies at once the higher impulse and the practicable path; it appeals to persons by sentiments of generosity and humanity; it proceeds by courses of moderation. By gradual steps, by steady effort from day to day, from year to year, Liberalism enlists hundreds of thousands upon the side of progress and popular democratic reform whom militant Socialism would drive into violent Tory reaction ... The cause of the Liberal Party is the cause of the left-out millions.
Winston Churchill
They knew what to expect when their opponents returned to power a party of great vested interests-corruption at home, aggression to cover it up abroad, the trickery of tariff juggles, the tyranny of a well-fed party machine; sentiment by the bucketful, patriotism and Imperialism by the Imperial pint, the open hand at the public Exchequer, the open door at the publichouse, dear food for the million, cheap labour for the millionaire. That was the policy which the Tory party offered them, and that was the policy which he asked them to strike at with the battle-axe of Scotland.
Winston Churchill
I can well imagine some circles of smart society, some groups of wealthy financiers, and the elements in this country which are attracted by the idea of a Government strong enough to keep the working classes in order; people who hate democracy and freedom, I can well imagine such people accommodating themselves fairly easy to Nazi domination. But the Trade Unionists of Britain, the intellectuals of Socialism and Radicalism, they could no more bear it than the ordinary British Tory. It would be intolerable.
Winston Churchill
