Bernadette Devlin Quotes

• Yesterday I dared to struggle. Today I dare to win.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Inspirational, Encouraging, Courage

  64 Copy quote

• We were born into an unjust system; we are not prepared to grow old in it.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Unjust, Born, Grows

  36 Copy quote

• To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else

  Bernadette Devlin

  Inspirational, Women, Hippie

  29 Copy quote

• My function in life is not to be a politician in Parliament: it is to get something done.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Done, Life Is, Politician

  58 Copy quote

• It did not seem to me that prejudice, poverty, discrimination, repression and racism were confined to the North of Ireland. I could see them everywhere I spoke and still cannot comprehend the mentality that argues that I should have pretended not to see them, because it wasn't my business.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Should Have, Racism, Prejudice

  17 Copy quote

• I'm not good enough to be a saint and not bad enough to be interesting.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Interesting, Not Good Enough, Saint

  14 Copy quote

• Among the best traitors Ireland has ever had, Mother Church ranks at the very top, a massive obstacle in the path to equality and freedom. She has been a force for conservatism... to ward off threats to her own security and influence.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Mother, Equality, Church

  18 Copy quote

• ... in Northern Ireland, if you don't have basic Christianity, rather than merely religion, all you get out of the experience of living is bitterness.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Religion, Bitterness, Christianity

  46 Copy quote

• Should an anthropologist or a sociologist be looking for a bizarre society to study, I would suggest he come to Ulster. It is one of Europe's oddest countries. Here, in the middle of the twentieth century, with modern technology transforming everybody's lives, you find a medieval mentality that is being dragged painfully into the eighteenth century by some forward-looking people.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Country, Technology, Europe

  20 Copy quote

• It wasn't long before people discovered the final horrors of letting an urchin into Parliament.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Letting Go, Long, People

  22 Copy quote

• I went to a very militantly Republican grammar school and, under its influence, began to revolt against the Establishment, on thesimple rule of thumb, highly satisfying to a ten-year-old, that Irish equals good, English equals bad.

  Bernadette Devlin

  School, Years, Thumbs

  13 Copy quote

• Irish Catholics are more interested in the rosary beads than in the rosary.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Catholic, Rosary, Beads

  27 Copy quote

• I think my life will always be worth living, though I don't imagine it being very easy.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Thinking, Imagine, Easy

  10 Copy quote

• There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents-if the term is to be used at all.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Children, Justice, Diversity

  17 Copy quote

• I got quite bored, serving in the bar. Since I was there, the customers wouldn't talk about women, and with half their subject matter denied them, it was: horses, silence; horses, silence.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Horse, Bored, Silence

  10 Copy quote

• One American said that the most interesting thing about Holy Ireland was that its people hate each other in the name of Jesus Christ. And they do!

  Bernadette Devlin

  Jesus, Hate, Names

  13 Copy quote

• Free love is too expensive.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Love, Love Is, Free Love

  15 Copy quote

• But I make a distinction between the doctrines of the Church, which matter, and the structure invented by half a dozen Italians who got to be pope and which is of very little use to anybody.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Church, Doctrine, Use

  8 Copy quote

• The Irish aren't great singers, but they have great songs.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Song, Singers, Ireland

  7 Copy quote

• Basically, I have no place in organized politics. By coming to the British Parliament, I've allowed the people to sacrifice me at the top and let go the more effective job I should be doing at the bottom.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Letting Go, Jobs, Sacrifice

  17 Copy quote

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