Note 103 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
The celebrated Count Oxenstierna, Chancellor of Sweden, one day when his son was expressing to him his diffidence of his own abilities, and the dread with which he thought of ever engaging in the management of public affairs, made the following Latin answer to him: “Nescis, mi fili, quantulâ sapientia regitur mundus”—“You know not, my son, with what little wisdom the world is governed.”
A young Member of Parliament, recently elected, remarked to me one day: “When one gets into Parliament, one sees that a great nation is after all like an old goat whom anybody may lead by the beard!”