Parliament Quotes - Page 14

• In England Parliament is above the law. In America the law is above Congress.

  Lord Acton

  Law, America, England

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• I'd say about Malcolm Fraser, as he said about himself, is that he was always, from the day he entered Parliament in 1955 until the day he died today, was a Liberal.

  George Brandis

  Today, Said, Died

  Source: www.abc.net.au

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• We have decreased the salaries of everybody who partakes in politics, from the president to the prime minister to the MPs [members of Parliament]. We have cut expenditures that have to do with parliament. Everybody knows we are serious.

  Antonis Samaras

  Cutting, Mps, President

  Source: www.slate.com

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• [To Parliament, when it urged her to marry and settle the succession:] You attend to your own duties and I'll perform mine.

  Elizabeth I

  Settling, Duty, Assertiveness

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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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• The Prime Minister, a specialist in calling in the locksmith after the horses had fled - the whole herd in fact - and the barn in ruins, ended the week with a great raft of ethics proposals for cabinet, leadership candidates, backbenchers and lobbyists. I think it is more than fair to ask: Why wait for the middle of his third term to institute what the public would have welcomed at the beginning of his first?

  Rex Murphy

  Horse, Thinking, Waiting

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• [The British constitution] presumes more boldly than any other the good sense and the good faith of those who work it.

  William E. Gladstone

  Constitution, British, Working It

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• An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay and discuss them.

  Duke of Wellington

  Order, Affair, Wanted

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• But please remember, that in 1991 in the Sejm [lower chamber of polish parliament] I didn't demand the abolishment of Special Economic Zones. I demanded the creation of a single Special Economic Zone - which would encompass the whole country!

  Janusz Korwin-Mikke

  Country, Special, Demand

  Janusz Korwin-Mikke's blog, April 7, 2010.

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• You may twist the word freedom as long as you please, but at last it comes to quiet enjoyment of your own property, or it comes to nothing. Why do men want any of those things that are called political rights and privileges? Why do they, for instance, want to vote at elections for members of parliament? Oh! Because they shall then have an influence over the conduct of those members. And of what use is that? Oh! Then they will prevent the members from doing wrong.

  William Cobbett

  Men, Rights, Long

  William Cobbett (2012). “A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland”, p.231, TAN Books

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• Men have their intellectual ancestry, and the likeness of some one of them is forever unexpectedly flashing out in the features of a descendant, it may be after a gap of several centuries. In the parliament of the present every man represents a constituency of the past.

  James Russell Lowell

  Past, Men, Forever

  "The poetical works of John Keats. With a memoir, by James Russell Lowell" by John Keats, James Russell Lowell, New York: J. Miller, 1871.

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