English Parliament Quotes & Sayings

The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

You're bored? That's because you keep your senses awake and your soul asleep. — Josemaria Escriva

My daughter was calm as a clam. She had no clue what that text meant for the rest of her life. She had no clue that her father had just abandoned her. — Penelope Ward

It is recorded how towards the end of the eighteenth century a Muslim visitor to England was taken to see the House of Commons at work. He later wrote of his astonishment at finding the that the British Parliament actually made laws and fixed punishments for their infraction - because unlike Muslims the English had not accepted a divine law revealed from heaven and therefore had to resort to such unsatisfactory expedients. Muslims still understand the expression 'the rule of law' very differently than do most Westerners. — Margaret Thatcher

What was new to our ears these days, and thrilling to hear, was the steadiness and justice of those who spoke, the abscence of panic and exaggeration the quiet insistence on legal processes as opposed to trial by suspicion. McCarthyism so repelled the English that they take special care not to be infected by it. — Martha Gellhorn

Bitch get stuff done — Tina Fey

I really liked the idea of creating a journal myself. It's like the way I clear my throat. I write a page every day, maybe 500 words. It could be about something I'm specifically worried about in the new novel; it could be a question I want answered; it could be something that's going on in my personal life. I just use it as an exercise. — Elizabeth George

The English are very proud of their Parliament, and week in, week out, century after century, they have pretty good cause to be. — Martha Gellhorn

The executive possesses means of distracting Parliament from its proper function; it seduces members by the offer of places and pensions, by retaining them to follow ministers and ministers' rivals, by persuading them to support measures - whereby the activities of administration grow beyond Parliament's control. These means of subversion are known are known collectively as corruption, and if ever Parliament or those who elect them - for corruption may occur at this point too - should be wholly corrupt, then there will be an end of independence and liberty. — J. G. A. Pocock

The English think they are free. They are free only during the election of members of parliament. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

There is no other Parliament like the English. For the ordinary man, elected to any senate, from Perisa to Peru, they may be a certain satisfaction in being elected ... but the man who steps into the English Parliament takes his place in a pageant that has ever been filing by since the birth of English history ... York or Lancaster, Protestant or Catholic, Court or Country, Roundhead or Cavalier, Whig or Tory, Liberal or Conservative, Labour or Unionist, they all fit into that long pageant that no other country in the world can show. — Josiah Wedgwood

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

In other words, you're justifying the Hundred Years' War.'

'More or less. For it enabled our two peoples to become deeply interdependent, allowing the most fruitful of intellectual exchanges.'

'You mean, the French are "anglicized" without knowing it.'

'And the English have assimilated their Continental experience from that time much more than you think. But this is what I was leading up to: the Englishman is essentially a mystical being. And, because he's scrupulous, he's apprehensive. And therefore susceptible to everything that might be interpreted as a superhuman manifestation, whether it be a legend of esoteric significance - as in this case - or an event of peculiar resonance. Don't forget, all the official bodies in Paris - parliament, clergy, and especially the university - were in favour of the English at the period I'm talking about.'

'Of course! — Jacques Yonnet

Maybe the internet raised us, or maybe people are jerks. — Lorde

I understood that if ever one wanted to live with someone you cooked for them and they came running. But then it is my idea of hell these days, living with someone. The idea of sharing your life with someone is just utterly ghastly. I know why people do it, but it's never a good idea. — Nigel Slater

If Canada had a soul (a doubtful proposition, Moses thought) then it wasn't to be found in Batoche or the Plains of Abraham or Fort Walsh or Charlottetown or Parliament Hill, but in The Caboose and thousands of bars like it that knit the country together from Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, to the far side of Vancouver Island. — Mordecai Richler

Dont teach my boy poetry, an English mother recently wrote the Provost of Harrow. Dont teach my boy poetry; he is going to stand for Parliament. Well, perhaps she was rightbut if more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place to live on this Commencement Day of 1956. — John F. Kennedy

[It was] the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament which has caused in the colonies hatred of the English and ... the Revolutionary War. — Benjamin Franklin

But the nation's business must go forward, and this is how: an act to give Wales members of Parliament, and make English the language of the law courts, and to cut from under them the powers of the lords of the Welsh marches. — Hilary Mantel

It was a skill useful to lawyers, and no man in all English history was more the lawyer than Coke. He personified a profession considered both so influential and so dubious that in 1372 the House of Commons had tried to bar lawyers from Parliament; little had changed when, in Coke's lifetime, Shakespeare wrote, "First, kill all the lawyers. — John M Barry

It is in that English Parliament the chains for Ireland are forged, and any Irish patriot who goes into that forge to free Ireland will soon find himself welded into the agency of his country's subjection to England. — Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa

Being willing to delay pleasure for a greater result is a sign of maturity. — Dave Ramsey

Human rights did not begin with the French Revolution ... [they] really stem from a mixture of Judaism and Christianity ... [we English] had 1688, our quiet revolution, where Parliament exerted its will over the King ... it was not the sort of Revolution that France's was ... 'Liberty, equality, fraternity' - they forgot obligations and duties I think. And then of course the fraternity went missing for a long time. — Margaret Thatcher

I think the first 10 years of my daughter's life were my mother's happiest, because she could finally have carefree time with a kid. — Imelda Staunton

The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely, that Parliament thus defined has, under the English constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament. — A. V. Dicey

Would it be possible to stand still on one spot more majestically - while simulating a triumphant march forward - than it is done by the two English Houses of Parliament? — Alexander Herzen

What silliness that we must consider the proper order of milk and tea when pouring a cup."
Callie swallowed back a laugh. "I suppose you do not place much stock in such ceremony in Venice?"
"No. It is liquid. It is warm. It is not coffee. Why worry?" Juliana's smile flashed, showing a dimple in her cheek.
"Why indeed?" Callie said, wondering, fleetingly, if Juliana's brothers had such an endearing trait.
"Do not be concerned," Juliana held up a hand dramatically. "I shall endeavor to remember tea first, milk second. I should hate to cause another war between Britain and the Continent."
Callie laughed, accepting a cup of perfectly poured tea from the younger woman. "I am certain that Parliament will thank you for your diplomacy. — Sarah MacLean

I like to make colored xeroxes of things. I clip out pictures of Liza Minelli and her husband from magazines and I fax them to people anonymously. — Zooey Deschanel

The English king's power was curbed by Parliament, though that wasn't always a good thing, as politicians often behave no better than monarchs - there are just more of them. — Karen Maitland

Understand this: you no longer represent your homeworlds solely. "Coruscant, Alderaan, Chandrila ... All these and tens of thousands of worlds far removed from the Core are cells of the Empire, and what affects one, affects us all. No disturbances will be tolerated. "Interplanetary squabbles or threats of secession will meet with harsh reprisals. I have not led us through three years of galactic warfare to allow a resurgence of the old ways. The Republic is extinct. — James Luceno

I repeat that in this sense the most splendid court in Christendom is provincial, having authority to consult about Transalpine interests only, and not the affairs of Rome. A praetor or proconsul would suffice to settle the questions which absorb the attention of the English Parliament and the American Congress. — Henry David Thoreau

That we have collectively failed to halt and repudiate the war in Iraq makes us even worse than the Germans. — Scott Ritter