Arthur Balfour

Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC (25 July 1848 – 19 March 1930) was a British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 until 1905. The author of several influential works of philosophy, he was one of the more intellectual prime ministers of the 20th century. As Foreign Secretary he authored the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which supported the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.

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• 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 a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit and all his thoughts will perish.
  • The Foundations of Belief(1895)

• 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.
  • Letter (November 2, 1917) to Lord Rothschild; this letter became known as the Balfour Declaration of 1917

• The General Strike has taught the working class more in four days than years of talking could have done.
  • Speech (May 7, 1926)

• Biography should be written by an acute enemy.
  • Observer (London, Jan. 30, 1927)

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• Nothing matters very much, and very few things matter at all.

• I never forgive, but I always forget.