Quotes & Sayings About Parliament

Parliaments are the great lie of our time. — Konstantin Pobedonostsev

What happens when there is a conflict between the Scottish parliament, if it was established, and the Westminster parliament? Who is supreme? — John Major

Just as radical heirs apparent are said to lay aside all inconvenient revolutionary opinions when they come to the throne, it was believed that Mr. Mill in Parliament would be an entirely different person from Mr. Mill in his study. — Millicent Fawcett

I foresee a Liberal vote so massive and the number of Liberal MPs so great that we shall hold the initiative in the new Parliament. — David Steel

The most highly promoted of all was William Laud, who directed Church affairs as Bishop of London from 1628, although he had to wait for Canterbury until Archbishop Abbot had the good taste to die, in 1633. Laud was prominent in a royal regime which after 1629 ceased to trouble itself with meeting Parliament and instead tried to sort out England's problems with royal proclamations, Privy Council orders and the decisions of law courts. Its enemies sarcastically named the period 'Thorough', and looked back on it as the 'Eleven Years' Tyranny — Diarmaid MacCulloch

In the summer of 2007, I was sitting in a studio in Dublin, debating with a lay spokesman of the Roman Catholic Church who turned out to be the only believing Christian on a discussion panel of five people. He was a perfectly nice and rather modest logic-chopping polemicist, happy enough to go for a glass of refreshment after the program, and I suddenly felt a piercing stab of pity for him. A generation ago in Ireland, the Church did not have to lower itself in this way. It raised its voice only slightly, and was instantly obeyed by the Parliament, the schools, and the media. It could and did forbid divorce, contraception, the publication of certain books, and the utterance of certain opinions. Now it is discredited and in decline. Its once-absolute doctrines appear ridiculous: — Christopher Hitchens

P. C. Bhattacharya was the first non-ICS man to be appointed to the job and he had a soft ride. But in what would cause a major uproar today in Parliament and in the media, when the rupee was devalued by a huge 36 per cent in 1966, he was merely informed. The decision had been taken by Indira Gandhi in March that year when she visited the United States and met the representatives of the World Bank and IMF. But she kept it to herself till June. Even the finance minister didn't know, let alone the poor RBI governor. — T.C.A. Srinivasa Raghavan

So although the campaign for women's votes continued and the Bill was repeatedly brought back to Parliament, for nearly a generation most women held back from direct action and unladylike encroachment on the established power of men. — Neil MacGregor

One by one, members of the Commons, speaking in turn at a lectern in the center of the chamber, added their charges and complaints. The King's councillors, they said, had grown rich at the cost of impoverishing the nation; they had deceived the King and wasted his revenues, causing the repeated demands for fresh subsidies. The people were too poor and feeble to endure further taxation. Let Parliament discuss instead how the King might maintain the war out of his own resources. — Barbara W. Tuchman

At times I wonder whether or not your role as a member of Parliament ... may in fact inhibit a relationship developing. — Lara Giddings

The situation in Greece just goes from bad to worse. We've now got a situation where there was the big suicide a few weeks ago, where a 77-year-old man shot himself in the head outside the Greek Parliament. That was the public face of what's gone wrong. — Nigel Farage

Canadians can get Parliament working again. Here's how to do that: elect more New Democrats. — Jack Layton

This specter of the female politician, who abandons her family to neglect for the sake of passing bills in parliament, is just as complete an illusion of the masculine brain, as the other specter whom Sydney Smith laid by a joke,
the woman who would forsake an infant for a quadratic equation. — Frances Power Cobbe

People in Parliament occupy themselves with private animosities and petty quarrels, and think little of the national interest. It is impossible to credit the serene indifference with which they consider events outside their own country. — William III Of England

When I entered federal parliament at the end of 2007, I was appointed parliamentary secretary for disabilities. — Bill Shorten

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

Devilish men should not be allowed to hold kittens, babies, or bouquets of wildflowers. There ought to be an Act of Parliament. — Tessa Dare

Analytic philosophy has spent the last seventy years engaged in two successive revolts. If you didn't know this, don't feel bad -- philosophers engaged in revolt look pretty much exactly like philosophers not engaged in revolt. They go to the office, teach introduction to philosophy, make a few phone calls, have office hours, work on a rough draft, and head home. There's no storming of the parliament building, ripping up of city streets, or lobbing of Molotov cocktails for your revolting philosopher, or, I should say, the philosopher in revolt.
"Themes in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy as Reflected in the Work of Monty Python — Gary L. Hardcastle

Severability is an important concept in the context of the relations between this Court and Parliament; like 'reading down', it is an instrument of judicial restraint which reduces the danger of producing an overbroad judicial reaction to overbroad legislation. — Albie Sachs

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

I would say to the people of Queensland, and to all listeners around the country, is that if you want stable government in the next term of parliament, it's not just enough to reelect the [Malcolm] Turnbull government. It's also important to elect a senate which will be able to deal with the important reforms, with the important legislation, in a way in which the senate in the last parliament was unable to deal with. — George Brandis

The mark of a single currency is not only that all other currencies must be extinguished but that the capacity of other institutions to issue currencies must also be extinguished ... In the case of the United Kingdom, that would involve Parliament binding its successors in a way that it has hitherto regarded as unconstitutional. — Norman Tebbit

And, lastly, to vindicate these rights, when actually violated and attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law; next to the right of petitioning the king and parliament for redress of grievances; and, lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self preservation and defense. — William Blackstone

I reiterate that I am strongly committed to working with those on all sides of politics to improve how Parliament operates. — Peter Slipper

Alcohol is a very necessary article. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning. — George Bernard Shaw

You always draw from your roots. I'm influenced by everything I hear and see, and that includes music today, but obviously I go back to my early influences: Stevie Wonder, Parliament, Earth, Wind & Fire, Ohio Players, Average White Band. Those kind of artists are what I look to. When I hear that stuff on the radio, I turn it up! — Donny Osmond

When the Canadian confederation took place in 1867, a lot of people in Quebec said, 'Could we have a referendum?' They said, 'Oh, no. In the British tradition, the Parliament can do anything, excluding changing a man into a woman, and, therefore, no referendum' - and that was that. — Jacques Parizeau

Several countries have also legally reserved seats in parliament specifically for women to ensure that they are represented. — Stephen Orvis

But they have two other Rights; those of sitting when they please, and as long as they please, in which methinks they have the advantage of your Parliament; for they cannot be dissolved by the Breath of a Minister, or sent packing as you were the other day, when it was your earnest desire to have remained longer together. — Benjamin Franklin

As I became Speaker in 1986, I made a point of setting up a public information office to respond to requests and provide information about Parliament and how it functions. — John Allen Fraser

The great theme of modern British history is the fate of freedom. The 18th century inherits, after the Civil War, this very peculiar political animal. It's not a democracy, but it's not a tyranny. It's not like the rest of the world, the rest of Europe. There is a parliament, laws have to be made, elections are made. — Simon Schama

May the soul of the late President Milton Obote ... a long-time member of this parliament, rest in peace. — Yoweri Museveni

Every isolated passion, is, in isolation, insane; sanity may be defined as synthesis of insanities. Every dominant passion generates a dominant fear, the fear of its non-fulfillment. Every dominant fear generates a nightmare, sometimes in form of explicit and conscious fanaticism, sometimes in paralyzing timidity, sometimes in an unconscious or subconscious terror which finds expression only in dreams. The man who wishes to preserve sanity in a dangerous world should summon in his own mind a parliament of fears, in which each in turn is voted absurd by all the others. — Bertrand Russell

Yes, the Commission wants to increase its powers, Yes, it is a non-elected body and I do not want the Commission to increase its powers at the expense of the House, so of course we differ. The President of the Commission, Mr Delors, said at a press conference the other day that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the Community. He wanted the Commission to be the Executive and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate. No! No! No! — Margaret Thatcher

In 1788, the Chimney Sweepers Act was passed in Parliament, preventing master sweeps from employing children under eight (children over eight were allowed to be apprenticed). — Siddhartha Mukherjee

Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporter's gallery yonder, there sat a fourth estate more important far than they all. — Thomas Carlyle

Never had Parliament or the crown, or both together, operated in actuality as theory indicated sovereign powers should. — Bernard Bailyn

There seemed to be no one in a position of power, from the Vatican to Wall Street, from Parliament to Scotland Yard to Fleet Street, who could think of anything better to do than abuse it ... — Edward St. Aubyn

We should never feel like we're going too far in breaking the law, because whatever laws you break to liberate animals or to protect the environment are very insignificant compared to the laws that are broken by that parliament of whores in Washington. They are the biggest lawbreakers, the biggest destroyers, the biggest mass-murderers on this planet right now. — Paul Watson

For the institutions of the European Union are at present incomplete. A European Senate is badly needed to complete them. By creating an upper chamber in the European parliament, a new bridge could be built between national political classes, which retain democratic legitimacy, and the decision-making process in Brussels. Such a Senate should be recruited by indirect election from exisiting national parliaments. — Larry Siedentop

We believed that growth through Local Government, and perhaps through some special machinery for bringing the wishes and influence of women of all classes to bear on Parliament, other than the Parliamentary vote, was the real line of progress. — Mary Augusta Ward

I don't mind being a symbol but I don't want to become a monument. There are monuments all over the Parliament Buildings and I've seen what the pigeons do to them. — Tommy Douglas

When they are 50 yards from Parliament Hill, they are no longer honourable members, they are just nobodies. — Pierre Trudeau

On 25 May 2011, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, speaking to the parliament of the United Kingdom, singled out Newton, Darwin and Alan Turing as British contributors to science. Celebrity is an imperfect measure of significance, and politicians do not confer scientific status, but Obama's choice signalled that public recognition of Alan Turing had attained a level very much higher than in 1983, when this book first appeared. — Andrew Hodges

The responsibility of a minister is to step aside when there is a criminal investigation of the department. That protects the propriety of Parliament and of responsible government. — Jack Layton

In Parliament a fellow MP whispered to him that his trousers were unfastened. "It makes no difference," Winston replied wryly. "The dead bird doesn't leave the nest. — William Manchester

I stood for parliament with the amazing support and help of my ex-husband, but it's not something that was handed to me like a peerage. I worked hard and was elected. So my achievements, such as they are, are my own. — Louise Mensch

The House of Commons is called the Lower House, in twenty Acts of Parliament; but what are twenty Acts of Parliament amongst Friends? — John Selden

Those of us who were part of creating the Scottish parliament believe we must always test constitutional arrangements. The real test is where do the powers lie? Is it in the best interests of Scotland? — Johann Lamont

Russian Parliament today is a bunch of puppets that just fall in with the instructions from Kremlin. — Garry Kasparov

A patriot is he whose public conduct is regulated by one single motive, the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has, for himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but refers every thing to the common interest — Samuel Johnson

A vote transfers power from the electorate to a politician leaving a voter powerless. A vote deprives a voter to represent himself/herself in parliament and a voter is banned from participating in the proceedings of parliament. — David Ssembajjo

The use of force stands in need of control by a public neutral authority, in the interests of liberty no less than of justice. Within a nation, this public authority will naturally be the state; in relations between nations, if the present anarchy is to cease, it will have to be some international parliament. — Bertrand Russell

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

The reason why Jane's spirit was not broken was that she had a secret. It was her own special secret and she had told no one else except Peggy. She locked it in her heart and hugged it to herself. It was this glorious secret that filled her with such irrepressible joy and exhilaration. But it was also to be the cause of her greatest disaster, and her life-long grief.
The rumour that her father was a high-born gentleman in Parliament must have reached Jane's ears when she was a little girl. Perhaps she had heard the officers talking about it, or perhaps another child had heard the adults talking and told her. Perhaps Jane's mother had told another workhouse inmate, who had passed it on. One can never tell how rumours start.
To Jane, it was not a rumour. It was an absolute fact. Her daddy was a high-born gentleman, who one day would come and take her away. She fantasised endlessly about her daddy. She talked to him, and he talked to her. — Jennifer Worth

I'm a person who promotes the concept of accountability to a great extent, and I've spoken in the Parliament and reinforced the need for accountability. — Vijay Mallya

We can either have a free Parliament or a free people. Personal freedom requires that all authority is restrained by long-run principles which the opinion of the people approves. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

We study the glory of God, and the honour and liberty of parliament, for which we unanimously fight, without seeking our own interests ... I profess I could never satisfy myself on the justness of this war, but from the authority of the parliament to maintain itself in its rights; and in this cause I hope to prove myself an honest man and single-hearted. — Oliver Cromwell

No expense has been incurred but what has been approved of and provided for by Parliament. — Robert Walpole

There is a continuous stream of opinions on governance issues expressed daily, not only in our Parliament and in the print media, but also on talk-radio and social media. — Anthony Carmona

Nobody is sure of his life, property and health when the parliament deliberates. — Janusz Korwin-Mikke

When I was first elected to parliament 18 years ago, one of the many things that struck me and that I still feel now is how the Labour Party, the party of collective action, can, at MP level and above, behave in such an individualistic way. — Bob Ainsworth

I am glad to learn that the Parliament Bill has been passed for the Darlington Railway. — George Stephenson

They're all Tajiks, they have the same Koran, the same faith, but the Kulyabs kill the Pamirs, and the Pamirs kill the Kulyabs. First they'd go out into the city square, yelling, praying. I wanted to understand what was happening, so I went too. I asked one of the old men: "What are you protesting against?" They said: "Against the Parliament. They told us this was a very bad person, this Parliament. — Svetlana Alexievich

The day must come when the nation's whole scale of living must be reduced. If that day comes,Parliament must lay the burden equally on all classes. — Lord Randolph Churchill

You cannot imagine, to give you another example, that you may have, one day, a prime minister (it would go against my modesty to breathe his name) who, one day, after announcing in Parliament, in a cool, impassive voice, that, as the result of a number of carefully thought out diplomatic manoeuvres he has refrained from discussing before (for he is not a man of many words), he has succeeded in annexing Britain as an ordinary colony of Hungary, and that he is taking this opportunity to apprise the House of the fact; - Well, as I say, after explaining this in a cool and impassive tone, ignoring the shouting, jubilant Members who want to carry him round on their shoulders, suddenly he takes up a fencing posture and, right there, on the premier's rostrum, employing a formidable, hitherto unknown jujitsu hold, floors the Australian world wrestling champion whom the British opposition treacherously hid under the rostrum in order to assassinate the greatest European. — Frigyes Karinthy

I would sooner receive injustice in the Queen's courts than justice in a foreign court. I hold that man or woman to be a scoundrel who goes abroad to a foreign court to have the judgments of the Queen's courts overturned, the actions of her Government countermanded or the legislation of Parliament struck down. — Enoch Powell

Daughter to that good Earl, once President Of England's Council, and her Treasury, Who lived in both, unstained with gold or fee, And left them both, more in himself content, Till sad the breaking of that Parliament Broke him, as that dishonest victory At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty, Killed with report that old man eloquent. Though later born than to have known the days Wherein your father flourished, yet by you, Madam, methinks I see him living yet; So well your words his noble virtues praise, That all both judge you to relate them true, And to possess them, honoured Margaret. — John Milton

I was proud to be a Tory Member of Parliament for twelve years, proud to represent Buckingham as a Tory, proud to have voted with my party 99% of the time as the record shows. — John Bercow

One of the peculiarities of Delhi is that the term 'reform' is associated only with passing of laws in Parliament. In fact, the most important reforms are those needed, without new laws, at various level of the government, in work practices and procedures. — Narendra Modi

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

I am resigning my post in the parliament. I have done this because I think it is the right thing to do. — Sonia Gandhi

In Britain the government has to come down in front of Parliament every day to explain its actions, but here the President never answers directly to Congress. — Bella Abzug

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

The most powerful presentations were based on legal precedents, especially Calvin's Case (1608), which, it was claimed, proved on the authority of Coke and Bacon that subjects of the King are by no means necessarily subjects of Parliament. — Bernard Bailyn

My view is the questions in Parliament should be the questions that people out there want asked. — Jeremy Corbyn

I have advocated postal reform for many years. The parliament said it was an absurd argument. The people have said it was the right thing, — Junichiro Koizumi

And obviously, with hindsight now, now knowing what went on in the company, it would have been absolutely appropriate back then for us to have the chief executive of the company, most senior person in the United Kingdom, come and answer for the policy they were pursuing. And we ducked that, and frankly that's a failure of Parliament. — Tom A. Watson

Almost 85 percent of the Latin American market is subject to net neutrality rules, and the European Parliament already favors strong ones. — Marvin Ammori

But in all that suffering, the most painful suffering of all was the consciousness that it was all banal, had all been discovered a long time ago, and was known to all the generations past, all just a repeated series, stamped out by our genes. That the universe was filled to its edges with groans as alike as two notes, that those particular groans formed one great groan similar to the shrill parliament of the sparrows and that groan became an interstellar roar, the inaudible groan of the aging cosmos. — Tadeusz Konwicki

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

Unfortunately, some judges evidently do not regard a debate in Parliament on new immigration rules, followed by the unanimous adoption of those rules, as evidence that Parliament actually wants to see those new rules implemented. — Theresa May

We used to actually kill each other before we discovered rhetoric in words. If you look at other countries, there are people attacking each other in parliament and stuff. — Greg Gutfeld

This report is maybe 12-years-old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried till River dug it up. This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear because there's a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it, too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people. You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people ... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave. — Joss Whedon

****your Parliament and your Constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If those two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the elephant's trunk, whacked good. President Lyndon Johnson to the Greek ambassador in Washington (1964) — Richard Clogg

When scores of indicted criminals sit in parliament who could believe in the rule of law ... — Donna Leon

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

There's much more we can be doing in Parliament, we could be giving more power back to people at local government level, through local referendums. — Theresa May

That raised an issue still familiar in modern electoral systems. Are Members of Parliament, for example, to be seen as delegates of the voters, bound to follow the will of their electorate? Or are they representatives, elected to exercise their own judgement in the changing circumstances of government? This was the first time, so far as we know, that this question had been explicitly raised in Rome, and it was no more easily answered then than it is now. — Mary Beard

I was very strenuous for retaining and insisting on it [law of nature], as a resource to which we might be driven by Parliament much sooner than we were aware. — John Adams

The country voted to leave the European Union, and it is the duty of the Government and of Parliament to make sure we do just that. — Theresa May

It is necessary that I should qualify the doctrine of its being not men, but measures, that I am determined to support. In a monarchy it is the duty of parliament to look at the men as well as at the measures. — Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham And Vaux

I'm adventurous and I'll eat anything. I eat a fair amount of junk food, but not junky junk food. Nothin' colorful. I mean, there's junk food, then there's colorful junk food. Stuff in cheap little packages. I never eat nothin' pink. I'll do the occasional jelly sandwich, but when I eat junk food I'll balance it out with prune juice so it don't stay around long. I drink a quart of prune juice every other day. Some chicks can't stand the sight of it, but I'd rather lose a little pussy than be stuffed with shit. — George Clinton

I think the state opening of Parliament is an incredibly important occasion, and broadly speaking, the way in which it's done is an invaluable tradition. — John Bercow

I tend to discourage people from calling me 'Sir Ian,' because I don't like being separated out from the rest of the population. Of course, it can be useful if you're writing an official letter, like trying to get a visa or something passed through Parliament. They're impressed by these things. — Ian McKellen

I won't have you electioneering on my doorstep. Every time you get in trouble in Parliament you run over here with your shirttail hanging out. — Lyndon B. Johnson

I happened to be one of those who thought all these expenses necessary, and I had the good fortune to have the majority of both houses of Parliament on my side. — Robert Walpole

I've been in Parliament since 1983, and I've been involved in many issues over the time. — Jeremy Corbyn

What we have," Robert tells us, "is not democracy. It is imitative democracy. We have all the external signs. We have elections. We have a parliament. We have legislation. All the accessories of democracy. But anyone with common sense here knows we live in an authoritarian state. Putin has learned that if he offers the accessories of democracy, his regime can be very hard to accuse. The regime does one thing very well: It doesn't listen. So there can be free speech, channels of communication. But normally in a democracy, those voices affect decision making. In this country that doesn't happen. — David Greene

I don't want to be a lobbyist. I want to provide strategic advice to companies. I said both of those things in the course of the interview, and I made clear this is a matter only for after I had become a private citizen and I was no longer a member of parliament. — Geoff Hoon