House Of Lords Quotes

• I believe the children are our future

  Whitney Houston

  Children, Believe, Our Future

  Song: The Greatest Love Of All, Album: Whitney Houston

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• Everybody is entitled to believe. Churches have exactly the same right to exist as a football club, a trade union or a political party. But if you and I set up the Church of the Fairies of the Garden, then I don't think we should automatically be meeting the queen, be entitled to seats in the House of Lords or get public money for our fairy schools.

  A.C. Grayling

  Football, Queens, Party

  51 Copy quote

• The House of Lords is like a glass of champagne that has stood for five days

  Clement Attlee

  Glasses, House, Historical

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• During the last 100 years, the House of Lords has never contributed one iota to popular liberties or popular freedom, or done anything to advance the common weal; but during that time it has protected every abuse and sheltered every privilege.

  Joseph Chamberlain

  Years, House, Abuse

  Speech at Birmingham, 4th August 1884, quoted in "The House of Lords: A handbook for Liberal speakers, writers and workers" by Liberal Publication Department, (p. 96), 1910.

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• We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body.

  Oscar Wilde

  House, Body, Public Opinion

  Oscar Wilde (1997). “Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis”, p.543, Wordsworth Editions

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• Look, I'm a member of the House of Lords and I'm the first to admit that I don't understand how one gets new laws through.

  Alan Sugar

  Law, House, Looks

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• I don't believe in the hereditary principle in the House of Lords. Imagine going to the dentist, sitting in the chair and he says, 'I'm not a dentist myself, but my father was a dentist and his father before him. Now, open wide!

  Tony Benn

  Father, Believe, House

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• The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.

  Tony Benn

  House, Politics, Politician

  In Observer 4 Feb. 1962

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• Can we say that the constitutional monarchies in Spain, Belgium or England are democratic? Those with superior chambers like the House of Lords in England, that still represent the English feudal nobility in terms of positions above regional representatives, who are in the end the representatives supposedly elected by the population. Many mechanisms exist, but they are mechanisms to preserve the power of the wealthy classes, of the bourgeois classes that hold the power and rights above the rest of the society.

  Alejandro Castro Espin

  Class, Rights, House

  "The Future of Cuba". Interview with Lasonas Pipinis Velasco, www.counterpunch.org. February 27, 2015.

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• The House of Lords is a model of how to care for the elderly.

  Frank Field

  Elderly, House, Care

  1981 In the Observer, 24 May

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• I have a huge admiration for the House of Lords, I have a huge admiration for the people who work in the House of Lords, they're great public servants and they do an absolutely tremendous job.

  John Major

  Jobs, People, House

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• Every man has a House of Lords in his own head. Fears, prejudices, misconceptions - those are the peers and they are hereditary.

  David Lloyd George

  Men, House, Prejudice

  1927 Speech, Cambridge.

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• The House of Lords must go - not be reformed, not be replaced, not be reborn in some nominated life-after-death patronage paradise, just closed down, abolished, finished.

  Neil Kinnock

  House, Paradise, Lord

  Tribune, November 19, 1976.

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• Anyone from abroad will tell you that it is the class system that really lies at the root of our problems, economic and industrial. The House of Lords symbolises that.

  Tony Benn

  Lying, Class, Roots

  "The Yorkshire Post" Newspaper, November 22, 1976.

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• The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it.

  Walter Bagehot

  House, Political, Looks

  "The greatest obstacles to Lords reform sit in the Commons" by Andrew Rawnsley, www.theguardian.com. June 23, 2012.

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• The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe - responsibility without power, the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages.

  Tom Stoppard

  Responsibility, House, Age

  Lord Malquist and Mr Moon (1966) pt. 6. Cf. Rudyard Kipling

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• Scientific knowledge scarcely exists amongst the higher classes of society. The discussion in the Houses of Lords or of Commons, which arise on the occurrence of any subjects connected with science, sufficiently prove this fact.

  Charles Babbage

  Government, Class, House

  Charles Babbage, Anthony Hyman (1989). “Science and Reform: Selected Works of Charles Babbage”, p.118, Cambridge University Press

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• Twenty thousand thieves landed at Hastings. These founders of the House of Lords were greedy and ferocious dragoons, sons of greedy and ferocious pirates... Such, however, is the illusion of antiquity and wealth, that decent and dignified men now existing, boast their descent from these filthy thieves, who showed a far juster conviction of their own merits, by assuming for their types the swine, goat, jackal, leopard, wolf, and snake, which they severally resembled.

  Lewis Carroll

  Son, Men, Snakes

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• I?m not even sure I?d go into a reformed House of Lords. But let?s put it like this, the decision would have been easier had there been not even complete reform but a substantial stride.

  Neil Kinnock

  House, Decision, Reform

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• A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it.

  Walter Bagehot

  House, Looks, Fierce

  'The English Constitution' (1867) 'The House of Lords'

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• A man may speak very well in the House of Commons, and fail very completely in the House of Lords. There are two distinct styles requisite: I intend, in the course of my career, if I have time, to give a specimen of both.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Men, Careers, Two

  Benjamin Disraeli (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Benjamin Disraeli (Illustrated)”, p.836, Delphi Classics

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• Give them a corrupt House of Lords, give them a venal House of Commons, give they a tyrannical Prince, give them a truckling court, and let me have but an unfettered press. I will defy them to encroach a hair's breadth upon the liberties of England.

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan

  Hair, Giving, House

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• It is quite clear from what has been said and written that, time after time after time, there has been a conspiracy between the Conservative Front Bench in this House and the inbuilt Conservative majority in the House of Lords to defeat legislation that has passed through the House of Commons... I warn the House of Lords of the consequences... it is our strong view that the House of Lords should recall that its role is not that of a wrecking chamber, but of a revising chamber. In recent weeks, it has been wrecking legislation passed by this House.

  James Callaghan

  Strong, Views, House

  James Callaghan's speech on economic policy in the House of Commons, api.parliament.uk. November 9, 1976.

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• I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life.

  William Blake

  Wise, Hurt, Sorry

  William Blake (1988). “William Blake”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• The Government and the Parliament, even the House of Lords, will consent to a large increase of electors; and men who have not considered the subject fully will imagine they have gained much by the concession.

  John Bright

  Men, House, Imagine

  John Bright, H. J. Leech (1885). “The Public Letters of John Bright”, London : S. Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington

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