Robert Morier

Sir Robert Burnett David Morier GCB GCMG PC (31 March 1826 – 16 November 1893) was a British diplomat, who most notably served as the British Ambassador to Russia between 1884 and 1893.

Quotes

Russia is a great bicephalic creature, having one head European and the other Asiatic; but with the persistent habit of turning its European face to the East and its Asiatic face to the West.
- In conversation with M. E. Grant Duff, at York House (20 July 1888). Notes from a Diary, 1886–1888 (London: John Murray, 1900), vol. 2, p. 139. Variations of a very similar phrase are often attributed to Benjamin Disraeli; e.g. Eileen Bigland, Laughing Odyssey (London: Hodder and Stroughton, 1937), ch. 6, sec. 4 (p. 239): "But what was it Disraeli had said about Russia? That she had two faces, an Asiatic face which looked always towards Europe; and a European face which gazed always towards Asia."