self-seeking quotes

Under a more heroic Minister, and in a less self-seeking age, it is probablethat England would have preferred the risk, whatever its extent, to the infamy of betraying an ally whom she had enticed into peril. But our Ministry is not heroic; and our generation, though not indifferent to glory, prefers it when it is safe and cheap.

-of Salisbury
  On Palmerston's failure to defend Denmark against Prussia, in the Quarterly Review,  Jul.