Parliament Quotes - Page 3

• Slight not what's near through aiming at what's far.

  Euripides

  Literature

  "Rhesus". Play by Euripides, circa 435 BCE.

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• Parliament is the longest running farce in the West End.

  Cyril Smith

  Running, Farce, West

  On the House of Commons, in 'Big Cyril' (1977) ch. 8

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• The House of Commons starts its proceedings with a prayer. The chaplain looks at the assembled members with their varied intelligence and then prays for the country.

  Alfred Denning, Baron Denning

  Country, Prayer, House

  Daily Telegraph, October 12, 1989.

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• I know I'm not a showy politician... I don't go drinking in parliament's bars. I don't wear my heart on my sleeve, I just get on with the job in front of me and you can judge me by my record.

  Theresa May

  Jobs, Drinking, Heart

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

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• I gather, young man, that you wish to be a Member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic.

  Winston Churchill

  Baby, Learning, Science

  As cited in "The Life of Politics" by Henry Fairlie, Methuen, pp. 203-204., 1968.

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• In the parliament of the present every man represents a constituency of the past.

  James Russell Lowell

  Past, Men, Every Man

  JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1871). “THE POETICAL WORKS OF JOHN KEATS.”, p.26

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• However, democracy cannot be defined as the existence of parliaments and elections alone.

  Recep Tayyip Erdogan

  Democracy, Election, Existence

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• Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it's how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.

  Paulo Coelho

  Attitude, Political, Silent

  "Question time". Interview with Hannah Pool, www.theguardian.com. March 18, 2009.

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• When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British parliament was advised by an artful man [Sir William Keith], who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people. That it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them. But that they should not do it openly; but to weaken them and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia.

  George Mason

  Men, Gun, America

  George Mason's address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1788.

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• To all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

  Barack Obama

  Leadership, Destiny, Hands

  President-Elect Victory Speech, delivered 4 November 2008, Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois

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• We have used the presence of UNMIK, as well as other European and American agencies to establish a legal framework compatible with the European Union and that is already an advantage. We have seen the positive effects of this and our parliament will continue to go this way.

  Ibrahim Rugova

  Agency, Europe, Unions

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• I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a council chamber in Europe

  Kenneth Clarke

  Europe, Political, Looks

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• There is no more striking illustration of the immobility of British institutions than the House of Commons.

  H. H. Asquith

  Illustration, House, Institutions

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• I am seeking every day to restore faith in Parliament - to ensure we have a House of Commons which is representative, effective and reconnected to the people we serve.

  John Bercow

  People, House, Representatives

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• If the members of parliament no longer consider themselves mandatories of the taxpayers but deputies of those receiving salaries, wages, subsidies, doles, and other benefits from the treasury, democracy is done for.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Democracy, Receiving, Salary

  Ludwig Von Mises (1944). “Bureaucracy”

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• It is not because a part of the government is elective, that makes it less a despotism, if the persons so elected, possess afterwards, as a parliament, unlimited powers. Election, in this case, becomes separated from representation, and the candidates are candidates for despotism.

  Thomas Paine

  Government, Political, Politics

  Thomas Paine (1824). “The Political Writings of Thomas Paine: Secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs in the American Revolution : to which is Prefixed a Brief Sketch of the Author's Life”, p.186

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• The European Union is effectively a union dominated by the German political and economic elite. Its main function is to serve as a nucleus for financial capitalism and to ease the road for that capitalism. The other functions just irritate everyone: it's undemocratic; decisions are not made by parliament; the European Parliament is not sovereign.

  Tariq Ali

  Decision, Political, Ease

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Only that Swiss in the heart want still a king or at least a strong Upper House of Parliament. Swiss long themselves for less democracy and more dictatorship.

  Peter Bichsel

  Strong, Kings, Heart

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• We cannot insure success, but we can deserve it.

  John Adams

  Virtue, Humankind, Public Life

  Abigail Adams, John Adams, L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Mary-Jo Kline (1975). “The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784”, p.116, UPNE

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• The idea that Parliament somehow wasn't going to be able to discuss, debate, question issues around (Brexit) was frankly completely wrong.

  Theresa May

  Ideas, Issues, Able

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

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• So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country bumpkins, they betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to settle, the Irish question, for instance,--the English question why did I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their "good breeding" respects only secondary objects.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Important, Settling

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.224, Graphic Arts Books

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• Add the hippie-rock-drugs atmosphere circa 1970, and you get Clinton's rechristened group Parliament, decked out in weird costumes, singing cosmic lyrics and laying down amazing funk lines - also lines of other kinds. One observer describes Maggot Brain ... one of those guys with super technique that took a lot of acid and just went out from there.

  Eddie Griffin

  Hippie, Rocks, Guy

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• To enlist the support of the people and of parliament, you only have to propose a profitable villainy.

  Franz Grillparzer

  People, Support, Prussia

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• One consistent thing in an otherwise inconsistent career is that I've always been passionate about parliament.

  John Bercow

  Careers, Passionate, Consistent

  Interview with Stuart Jeffries, www.theguardian.com. July 22, 2011.

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• The thief who is in prison is not necessarily more dishonest than his fellows at large, but mostly one who, through ignorance or stupidity [or racism or poverty! - Draffan] steals in a way that is not customary. He snatches a loaf from the baker's counter and is promptly run into gaol. Another man snatches bread from the table of hundreds of widows and orphans and similar credulous souls who do not know the ways of company promoters; and, as likely as not, he is run into Parliament.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Running, Ignorance, Men

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