Parliament Quotes

• 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

• Parliament is more than procedure - it is the custodian of the nation's freedom.

  John Diefenbaker

  Custodians, Procedures, Nations

  John George Diefenbaker (1982). “The Wit & Wisdom of John Diefenbaker”, Hurtig Trade

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• I am a man of parliament, a man of the people. I am not a representative of the executives.

  Martin Schulz

  Men, People, Executives

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• The object of Parliament is to substitute argument for fisticuffs.

  Winston Churchill

  Argument, Substitutes, Objects

  Sir Winston Churchill (1954). “Sir Winston Churchill: a self-portrait”

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• Civility is perhaps a quaint notion but civility in Parliament is something we should always strive to uphold.

  Jay Weatherill

  Civility, Strive, Quaint

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• A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.

  Walter Bagehot

  People, Political, Politics

  Walter Bagehot (1930). “The English Constitution: And Other Political Essays”, p.121, Lulu.com

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• Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.

  Edmund Burke

  Agents, Ambassadors, Politics

  Edmund Burke (1999). “The Portable Edmund Burke”, p.172, Penguin

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• The parliament is the supreme decision-making and legislative body in any democracy. It reflects the collective desires of the citizens and makes laws.

  Ziauddin Sardar

  Law, Decision, Democracy

  Source: secularpakistan.wordpress.com

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• Parliament is a deliberate assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purpose, not local prejudices ought to guide but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.

  Edmund Burke

  Prejudice, Purpose, Reason

  Edmund Burke (1963). “Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.224, Transaction Publishers

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• Democracy has at least one merit, namely that a Member of Parliament cannot be stupider than his constituents, for the more stupid he is, the more stupid they were to elect him.

  Bertrand Russell

  Stupid, Democracies Have, Democracy

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.66, Routledge

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• Parliament will train you to talk; and above all things to hear, with patience, unlimited quantities of foolish talk.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Patience, Foolish, Unlimited

  Thomas Carlyle (2014). “The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.619, Lulu.com

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• We all know what Parliament is, and we are all ashamed of it.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Political, Politics, Ashamed

  Robert Louis Stevenson (1999). “The Lantern-Bearers and Other Essays”, p.204, Cooper Square Press

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• The law of the realm cannot be changed but by Parliament.

  Edward Coke

  Law, Changed, Realms

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• A Parliament is that to the Commonwealth which the soul is to the body. It behoves us therefore to keep the facility of that soul from distemper.

  John Pym

  Soul, Body, Commonwealth

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• England can never be ruined except by a Parliament.

  William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley

  Government, England, Ruined

  "Famous sayings and their authors". Book by Edward Latham, 1906.

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

  Bernadette Devlin

  Letting Go, Long, People

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• The protection of our liberties does not ultimately depend on parliaments or even the courts. It depends on the love of the people for liberty.

  Michael Kirby

  People, Liberty, Doe

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• Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Democracies Have, Government, Democracy

  Parliament of Whores (1991)

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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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• You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify all the ill prophecies that were made of it - low, vulgar, meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, and flattering every base passion - and sneering at everything noble refined and truly national. The direct tyranny will come on by and by, after it shall have gratified the multitude with the spoil and ruin of the old institutions of the land.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Passion, Land, House

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• That a Parliament, especially a Parliament with Newspaper Reporters firmly established in it, is an entity which by its very nature cannot do work, but can do talk only.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Nature, Entity, Newspapers

  Thomas Carlyle (2014). “The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.637, Lulu.com

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• An influential member of parliament has not only to pay much money to become such, and to give time and labour, he has also to sacrifice his mind too - at least all the characteristics part of it that which is original and most his own.

  Walter Bagehot

  Sacrifice, Giving, Political

  Walter Bagehot (1974). “The collected works of Walter Bagehot”

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• When I'm in office I always keep Members of Parliament talking. If they stopped they might start thinking.

  Winston Churchill

  Thinking, Talking, Office

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• I think we can get respect for Parliament back providing governments and oppositions are frank.

  John Major

  Thinking, Government, Frank

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• There can be no place in a 21st-century parliament for people with 15th-century titles upholding 19th-century prejudices.

  Paddy Ashdown

  People, Titles, Prejudice

  Independent, November 25, 1998.

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