If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are too heated, it will cool you; if you are depressed, it will cheer you; if you are excited it will calm you.

The saying presents tea as a kind of universal restorative—physically regulating temperature and emotionally moderating mood. Its balanced structure (cold/warm, heated/cool, depressed/cheer, excited/calm) frames tea as a civilizing, temperate habit: a small domestic ritual that steadies the body and the mind. Read this way, the quote participates in a broader Victorian ideal of moderation and self-command, suggesting that comfort and composure can be cultivated through everyday practices rather than dramatic interventions. Whether or not Gladstone actually said it, the sentiment functions as a compact celebration of tea as both medicine and moral technology.