Alfred Deakin

“"Alfred Deakin, 1903 — Election Speeches". moadoph.gov.au. Archived from the original on 12 March 2024”

“"Alfred Deakin Quotes". alfreddeakin.com. Archived from the original on 30 May 2024”

“He seldom, if ever, fought with an axe. His weapon was the rapier...”

“A man of talent and of clean good sense,  Who speaks with polished air —On silver floods of his own eloquence  He floats to God knows where.”

“Reid was neither federal nor anti-federal but either at need and as far as possible both at once. It is difficult indeed to describe so extraordinary a man without appearing to caricature him ...”

“He possessed for a time practically despotic authority "On the one condition", as he shrewdly said, "that I did not exercise it."”

“Knowledge was his forte and omniscience his foible.”

“Parkes said of himself and another member that they were alike in that they consistently lived above their means. He was as much an admirer of the fair sex, so that when once on a specially dashing woman appearing in the gallery of the New South Wales Assembly, and Parkes being asked who she was, replied in sardonic style: "Well I don't know myself. I've asked George Reid and Wise, and they don't know, from which I conclude that she must be a woman of good reputation."”

“One of Sir Henry Parkes's besetting foibles was a love of associating himself with notables of the day, of whom he devoutly preserved all mementoes, of whom he frequently spoke and with whom he corresponded whenever possible. At the [Federation] Conference of 1890 he managed to introduce with comments a letter from Lecky and to mention by the way that he had been introduced to him by Lord Tennyson.”

“... his politics were a chaos and his career contemptible.”

“Though a Tasmanian born he appealed at all times to the narrowest Sydney and New South Wales provincialism by the pettiest and meanest acts and proposals. He was an anti- Federalist from the first, except upon terms which should ensure the absolute supremacy of his own colony as a stepping- stone to his own elevation.”

“In public life ... he had but one aim — his own aggrandisement.”

“Sir Thomas was a man of business, stout, florid, choleric, curt and Cromwellian.”

“A splendidly built man of towering height but never unwieldy, with a high forehead, keen eyes glittering through his spectacles, strongly marked features, and manly address, his many charms of character and some powers of mind were ill conjoined. He was not only prejudiced even among the New South Welshmen of his day, but obstinate, eccentric and changeable. Converted from an ardent Free Trader into a strong Protectionist almost without an interval long enough to permit of baptism, he compared it, himself. to the miraculous conversion of St Paul.”

“He had apparently no illusions, no passions and no pre dominantly great ideals. He had the official manner, imperturbable and impenetrable, which would have made the fortune of an ambassador in Bismarck's eves.”

“He was petulent as a child, irritable to a degree at the least criticism, oscillating between apparently unaffected indifference to public opinion and the keenest appetite for its applause. The genuine indifference was that of a jaded man who has lost self-confidence and is thoroughly weak of will. His affected indifference was part of a theatrical pose he played with foolish ostentation. He was such a mass of weaknesses and wilfulnesses and insincerities that he leaned for support upon any who could win his confidence, which could always be accomplished by flatterers or intriguers.”

“His nervous instability was painful, his poses perpetual and his vanity colossal.”

“He sought rest only in perpetual physical motion.”

“He was timorous, changeable, inconsistent, erratic, gloomy and absorbed, then sparkling and excitable by turns, his fine face pale and puffy — his fine head rapidly turning grey — his figure growing too portly — his hand trembling, his eye restless, his demeanour that of one who drifted in and out of dreams and some of them bad dreams.”