Parliament Quotes - Page 13

• A year ago I was in the city of Genoa, and I found that it returned seven representatives to the Sardinian Parliament at Turin, seven being its fair share, calculated according to the population of the various cities and districts of the Sardinian kingdom.

  John Bright

  Years, Cities, Population

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

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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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• There are many members of parliament present here who know as well as I do that, if a man has not already been converted, it will require a great deal more than a letter of appeal to achieve conversion.

  Fredrik Bajer

  Men, Letters, Achieve

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• 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

  Suicide, Men, Years

  "On the edge of social breakdown". UK Independence Party Website, May 31, 2012.

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• A single assembly is apt to grow ambitious, and after a time will not hesitate to vote itself perpetual. This was one fault of the Long Parliament; but more remarkably of Holland, whose assembly first voted themselves from annual to septennial, then for life, and after a course of years, that all vacancies happening by death or otherwise, should be filled by themselves, without any application to constituents at all.

  John Adams

  Years, Long, Ambitious

  John Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.195

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• 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

  Law, Might, Revolution

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1850). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.374

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• We may be proud that England is the ancient country of Parliaments. With scarcely any intervening period, Parliaments have met constantly for 600 years, and there was something of a Parliament before the Conquest. England is the mother of Parliaments.

  John Bright

  Country, Mother, Years

  Speech, Birmingham, England, 18 Jan. 1865

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• Democracy, finally, rests on a higher power than Parliament. It rests on an informed and cultivated and alert public opinion. The Members of Parliament are only representatives of the citizens. They cannot represent apathy and indifference. They can play the part allotted to them only if they represent intelligence and public spiritness.

  Eric Williams

  Play, Democracy, Public Opinion

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• In fact, in Parliament, I pointed out that Australians on average incomes would move into the second highest tax bracket in the next couple of years. That is going to slow down the Australian economy. It's bad for households.

  Joe Hockey

  Couple, Moving, Average

  Source: www.abc.net.au

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• Let the pulpit resound with the doctrines and sentiments of religious liberty... Let us hear the dignity of his [man's] nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God... Let it be known, that British liberties are not the grants of princes or parliaments.

  John Adams

  Religious, Men, Liberty

  "The Works of John Adams, Volume 3: Autobiography, Diary, Notes of a Debate in the Senate, Essays". Book edited by Charles Francis Adams, 1851.

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• Dew depends not on Parliament.

  James Otis

  Dew, Depends

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• The 'Little' or 'Barebones' Parliament, summoned by Oliver Cromwell to meet at Westminster on 4th July, 1653, after the dissolution of the remains of the Long Parliament, may have been an unpractical body, so far as the task of administration in troublous times was concerned. But it seems quite possible that the wealth of contumely and scorn which has been poured upon it was, originally, due quite as much to the fierce anger of vested interests against outspoken criticism, as to any real vagueness or want of practical wisdom in the plans of the House itself.

  Edward Jenks

  Real, 4th Of July, Long

  "A Short History Of The English Law" by Edward Jenks.Fiirst edition, ch. XII, Civil Procedure In The Middle Ages, p. 178, 1912.

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• Representative democracy frequently manifests a disconnect between parliamentarians and the people, so that parliamentarians have agendas that do not correspond with the wishes of the electorate. This has led in many countries to apathy, cynicism and large-scale absenteeism in elections. What is needed is not only parliaments, but parliamentarians who genuinely represent the wishes of the electorate.

  Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

  Country, People, Democracy

  "Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Alfred-Maurice de Zayas". July 01, 2013.

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• [To the South African parliament:] I do not know why we equate - and with the examples before us - a white skin with civilization.

  Helen Suzman

  Civilization, White, Skins

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• On a craggy bluff above the majestic Ottawa River stands the remarkable embodiment of our system of governance: Parliament.

  John Allen Fraser

  Rivers, Ottawa, Embodiment

  John Allen Fraser (1993). “The House of Commons at Work”, Montréal : Éditions de la Chenelière

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• 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

  Office, Information, Made

  John Allen Fraser (1993). “The House of Commons at Work”, Montréal : Éditions de la Chenelière

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• The office of Speaker is almost as ancient as Parliament itself. It emerged in the Middle Ages when the Commons - the ordinary people - of England needed a spokesman in their dealings with the King, someone who would voice their grievances and present their petitions. This was by no means a safe or easy thing to do at that time, and potential spokesman generally had to be pressured into accepting the responsibility.

  John Allen Fraser

  Kings, Mean, Responsibility

  John Allen Fraser (1993). “The House of Commons at Work”, Montréal : Éditions de la Chenelière

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• I've got four lovely children, ten lovely grandchildren, and I left parliament to devote more time to politics, and I think that what is really going on in Britain is a growing sense of alienation. People don't feel anyone listens to them.

  Tony Benn

  Children, Thinking, People

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• If governments let themselves be fully bound by the decisions of their parliaments without protecting their own freedom to act, a breakup of Europe would be a more probable outcome than deeper integration.

  Mario Monti

  Breakup, Government, Europe

  "'A Front Line Between North and South'". Interview with Fiona Ehlers and Hans Hoyng, www.spiegel.de. August 06, 2012.

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• My plays are for the kind of black people who relate to funk music, to Parliament-Funkadelic. When those guys get out of a spaceship - the idea that black people are from outer space, theres a poetic truth to that. We are this vast people.

  Suzan-Lori Parks

  Play, Ideas, Space

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• The laws that stopped blacks from voting were the worst, because they prevented blacks from voting someone into parliament who could change the other laws. Even though the blacks were the majority of the population, they were still not getting a say.

  Nelson Mandela

  Law, Voting, Majority

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• Not until he acquires European manners does the American anarchist become the gentleman who assures you that people cannot be mademoral by Act of Parliament (the truth being that it is only by Acts of Parliament that men in large communities can be made moral, even when they want to).

  George Bernard Shaw

  Men, Law, People

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• [T]he dignity of parliament it seems can brook no opposition to it's power. Strange that a set of men who have made sale of theirvirtue to the minister should yet talk of retaining dignity!

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Strange, Dignity

  Thomas Jefferson, Lyman Henry Butterfield, Charles T. Cullen (1950). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: 1760-1776”

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

  Pierre Trudeau

  Yards, Hills, Members

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• When you come to Parliament on your first day, you wonder how you ever got here. After that, you wonder how the other 263 members got here.

  John Diefenbaker

  Firsts, Wonder, Members

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