Robert Walpole

Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745), normally known as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British Whig statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Sourced

• The balance of power.
  • House of Commons Speech, 1741.

• All those men have their price.
  • Reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), stating "'All men have their price' is commonly ascribed to Walpole", and citing Coxe, Memoirs of Walpole, Vol. iv, p. 369: "Flowery oratory he despised. He ascribed to the interested views of themselves or their relatives the declarations of pretended patriots, of whom he said, 'All those men have their price'".

• Anything but history, for history must be false.
  • Walpoliana, No. 141.

• The gratitude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future favours.
  • Reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), stating "Hazlitt, in his Wit and Humour, says, 'This is Walpole’s phrase'". Compare: "La reconnaissance de la plupart des hommes n'est qu'une secrète envie de recevoir de plus grands bienfaits" (translated: "The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits"), François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxim 298.

Attributed

• They now ring their bells, but they will soon wring their hands.
  • On the declaration of war with Spain, 1739