Parliament Quotes

Instead, she found her argument in the "doctrine of necessity," an idea established in common law that in certain limited circumstances, which no parliament would ever care to define, it was permissible to break the criminal law to prevent a greater evil. ~ Ian McEwan

Anna Arkadyevna read and understood, but it was distasteful to her to read, that is, to follow the reflection of other people's lives. She had too great a desire to live herself. If she read that the heroine of the novel was nursing a sick man, she longed to move with noiseless steps about the room of a sick man; if she read of a member of Parliament making a speech, she longed to be delivering the speech; if she read of how Lady Mary had ridden after the hounds, and had provoked her sister-in-law, and had surprised everyone by her boldness, she too wished to be doing the same. But there was no chance of doing anything; and twisting the smooth paper knife in her little hands, she forced herself to read. ~ Leo Tolstoy

My task, as a member of this parliament and a 30-year member of the Australian Labor Party, as its former leader, as its former foreign minister and its former prime minister, is to now throw my every effort in securing Julia Gillard's re-election as Labor prime minister at the next election. ~ Kevin Rudd

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

Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Arabs can be elected to the parliament in a democratic election. ~ Adam Michnik

We need female advocates. I'd love to live in a world where there are as many women in parliament as men. ~ Emma Watson

It is true that I entered parliament at the age of 23, and have now been representing the people of my constituency for over twenty years. ~ Charles Kennedy

The characteristic merit of the English constitutions is, that its dignified parts are very complicated and somewhat imposing, very old and rather venerable, while its efficient part, at least when in great and critical action, is decidedly simple and modern. ~ Walter Bagehot

Democracy has at least one merit, namely that a Member of Parliament cannot be stupider than his constituents, for the more stupid he is, the more stupid they were to elect him. ~ Bertrand Russell

Political union means transferring the prerogatives of national legislatures to the European parliament, which would then decide how to structure Europe's fiscal, banking, and monetary union. ~ Barry Eichengreen

She studied his clothes, his top hat. "And you've just come from Parliament? How are you finding that?"
"It's much like piracy. You tell your enemies that if they don't fall in line, you'll leave them to die. ~ Meljean Brook

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

In 1840, the year that Victoria and Albert were married, no woman in the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland could vote, be elected to parliament or any other public office, attend the university, or enter a profession. If a woman married, her property, her earnings, her children, and her body legally belonged to her husband, to do with as he willed. The world of business was more hostile to women in 1840 than it had been in 1740 or 1640, and though many women were forced to work, a bare handful could make a living wage. ~ Gillian Gill

Our system of government is one of checks and balances. It requires compromise.. compromise between the Executive and the Parliament, compromise between one House and another, compromise between the States and the Commonwealth and compromise between groups of persons with legitimate interests and other groups with other legitimate interests. There is room for compromise.. indeed demand for it.. in a system of checks and balances. ~ Peter Costello

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

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

When I am in the Scottish Parliament chamber, I often feel the need to sit for the entire debate. It's only courteous to listen to what everyone has to say, although I often find myself desperate to say something but too scared to stand up in case I regret it. ~ Margo MacDonald

Quite apart from the problem of the vote, it's bad for the image of Parliament that people take the trouble to come up and are not allowed to see their MP ~ Vince Cable

You must build your House of Parliament on the river: so ... that the populace cannot exact their demands by sitting down round you. ~ Duke Of Wellington

But please remember, that in 1991 in the Seym [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

American missionaries have free rein in Uganda. They can go anywhere they please - schools, hospitals, parliament. ~ Roger Ross Williams

I am a man of parliament, a man of the people. I am not a representative of the executives. ~ Martin Schulz

For many years I have advocated 'redesigning Parliament' in a variety of ways - elect the Senate, do away with the 'confidence convention,' permit freer voting, strengthen the role of back benchers and committees, do away with ineffectual 'take note' debates, restructure question period, and so on. ~ Preston Manning

Fate determines your caste. You must accept it and live according to the rules."
You can't really believe that!"
I do believe it. That man's misfortune is that he cannot accept his caste, his fate."
I know that the Indians wear their caste as a mark upon their foreheads for all to see. I know that in England, we have our own unacknowledged caste system. A laborer will never hold a seat in Parliament. Neither will a woman. I don't think I've ever questioned such things until this moment.
But what about will and desire? What if someone wants to change things."
Kartik keeps his eyes on the room "You cannot change your caste. You cannot go against fate."
That means there is no hope of a better life. It is a trap."
That is how you see it," he says softly.
What do you mean?"
It can be a relief to follow the path that has been laid oud for you, to know your course and play your part in it."
But how can you be sure that you are following the right course? What if there is no such thing as destiny, only choice?"
Then I do not choose to live without destiny," he says with a slight smile. ~ Libba Bray

Naturally, the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country. ~ Hermann Goring

I was the deputy Chairman of the Democratic Union of the Pacific, and we started at 8 I think and I was called to the telephone and to be told there's a coup, the government has been overthrown - it was round about 9, 10 when the Parliament sat they had done then. ~ Kamisese Mara

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

There are three estates in Parliament but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech or witty saying, it is a literal fact, very momentous to us in these times. ~ Edmund Burke

Parliament is more than procedure - it is the custodian of the nation's freedom. ~ John Diefenbaker

An attitude of permanent indignation signifies great mental poverty. Politics compels it votaries to take that line and you can see their minds growing more impoverished every day, from one burst of righteous indignation to the next. ~ Paul Valery

No-one is forced to stand for Parliament; no-one is compelled to become a minister. If you take on those roles, which are great privileges, you also take on big responsibilities. ~ Michael Gove

May it please your Majesty I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me whose servant I am here. ~ William Lenthall

Nicholas: I know you, brother. You've been threatened with matrimonial pursuits before. Why are you really here?
William: I received an invitation.
Nicholas: Not from me you didn't.
William: Of course not from you, brother. Parliament would go up in flames before I receive a social invitation from you. ~ Donna MacMeans

Politics is about power. It is about the power of the state. It is about the power of the state as applied to individuals, the society in which they live and the economy in which they work. Most critically, our responsibility in this parliament is how that power is used: whether it is used for the benefit of the few or the many. ~ Kevin Rudd

Laura picked up the menu again. "In graduate school I knew a woman from Africa who was just like this doctor, I think she was from Uganda. She was wonderful, and she didn't get along with the African-American woman in our class at all. She didn't have all those issues." "Maybe when the African American's father was not allowed to vote because he was black, the Ugandan's father was running for parliament or studying at Oxford," Ifemelu said. Laura stared at her, made a mocking confused face. "Wait, did I miss something?" "I just think it's a simplistic comparison to make. You need to understand a bit more history," Ifemelu said. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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

The boycott of parliamentary institutions on the part of anarchists and semianarchists is dictated by a desire not to submit their weakness to a test on the part of the masses, thus preserving their right to an inactive hauteur which makes no difference to anybody. A revolutionary party can turn its back to a parliament only if it has set itself the immediate task of overthrowing the existing regime. ~ Leon Trotsky

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, there's a poetic truth to that. We are this vast people. ~ Suzan-Lori Parks

If Parliament may take from me one shilling in the pound, what security have I for the other nineteen? ~ Richard Henry Lee

Basically, I have no place in organized politics. By coming to the British Parliament, I've allowed the people to sacrifice me at the top and let go the more effective job I should be doing at the bottom. ~ Bernadette Devlin

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: 'Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.'
That depends, Sir,' said Disraeli, 'whether I embrace your policies or your mistress. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

It is always a fashion to advise disputants to sit round a table and solve disputes by dialogue and discussion, and not to resort to violent confrontation and wars. Whether in national disputes or in international conflicts parties are being constantly advised to avoid wars and to negotiate, while governments continue to oppress, persecute, and even commit genocide.

No doubt, it is a very salutary advice and a noble ideal, quite often well-meaning, too. Nobody fights a war for the pleasure of it. But the trouble is, it has never been pragmatic ideal, and never will be so long as governments being what they are and the tyranny of the majority and armed might being the ruling principle of democracy…The weaker is left to its own devices to shake off tyranny and oppression.

If the weaker side listened to this idealistic advice and waited till the end of time for a solution to its problems there would have been no wars of independence. If the American colonies of George III's England listened to such advice and continued to be governed by England and to pay taxes to England without representation in the Parliament at Westminster, there would have been no American War of Independence, no American Declaration of Independence, and there would be no United States of America today…" (pp.279-280) ~ V. Navaratnam

I am rather of the opinion that in England a gentleman's dreams are his own private concern. I fancy there is a law in that effect and, if there is not, why, Parliament should certainly be made to pass one immediately! It ill becomes another man to invite himself into them. ~ Susanna Clarke

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

[The] prevailing reason at this time is, that the Act of Parliament is against the Magna Charta, and the natural rights of Englishmen, and therefore, according to Lord Coke, null and void. ~ Thomas Hutchinson

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 believe in peace-building in any kind of platform, be it a political platform like Parliament or negotiations like peace-building negotiations. ~ Safak Pavey

We all know what Parliament is, and we are all ashamed of it. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

When you first come into Parliament, it's a daunting place because you feel you've so much to learn. Once you've been re-elected, you feel much more confident. It just gives you a bit of a boost. ~ Theresa May

Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness ... We claim them from a higher source - from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives. ~ John Dickinson

But before we cue the brass section to blare "The Stars and Stripes Forever," it might be worth taking another moment of melancholy silence to mourn the thwarted reconciliation with the mother country and what might have been. Anyone who accepts the patriots' premise that all men are created equal must come to terms with the fact that the most obvious threat to equality in eighteenth-century North America was not taxation without representation but slavery. Parliament would abolish slavery in the British Empire in 1833, thirty years before President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. A return to the British fold in 1776 might have freed American slaves three decades sooner, which is what, a generation and a half? Was independence for some of us more valuable than freedom for all of us? As the former slave Frederick Douglass put it in an Independence Day speech in 1852, "This is your Fourth of July, not mine. ~ Sarah Vowell

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

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

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

That is why if Lebanon concludes a peace agreement with Israel and brings that accord to the Parliament our deputies will reject it; Hezbollah refuses any conciliation with Israel in principle. ~ Hassan Nasrallah

On a craggy bluff above the majestic Ottawa River stands the remarkable embodiment of our system of governance: Parliament. ~ John Allen Fraser

After the plates are removed by the silent and swift waiting staff, General Çiller leans forward and says across the table to Güney, 'What's this I'm reading in Hürriyet about Strasbourg breaking up the nation?'
'It's not breaking up the nation. It's a French motion to implement European Regional Directive 8182 which calls for a Kurdish Regional Parliament.'
'And that's not breaking up the nation?' General Çiller throws up his hands in exasperation. He's a big, square man, the model of the military, but he moves freely and lightly 'The French prancing all over the legacy of Atatürk? What do you think, Mr Sarioğlu?'
The trap could not be any more obvious but Ayşe sees Adnan straighten his tie, the code for, Trust me, I know what I'm doing,
'What I think about the legacy of Atatürk, General? Let it go. I don't care. The age of Atatürk is over.'
Guests stiffen around the table, breath subtly indrawn; social gasps. This is heresy. People have been shot down in the streets of Istanbul for less. Adnan commands every eye.
'Atatürk was father of the nation, unquestionably. No Atatürk, no Turkey. But, at some point every child has to leave his father. You have to stand on your own two feet and find out if you're a man. We're like kids that go on about how great their dads are; my dad's the strongest, the best wrestler, the fastest driver, the biggest moustache. And when someone squares up to us, or calls us a name or even looks at us squinty, we run back ~ Ian McDonald

The government can access these funds but only following approval by the parliament to support our budget requirements and investments in infrastructure development, education, public health, and so on. ~ Jose Ramos-Horta

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

As states subsist in part by keeping their weaknesses from being known, so is it the quiet of families to have their chancery and their parliament within doors, and to compose and determine all emergent differences there. ~ John Donne

From husks and rags and waste and excrement
He forms the pavement-feet and the lift-faces;
He steers the sick words into parliament
To rule a dust-bin world with deep-sleep phrases.

When healthy words or people chance to dine
Together in this rarely actual scene,
There is a love-taste in the bread and wine,
Nor is it asked: "Do you mean what you mean?"

But to their table-converse boldly comes
The same great-devil with his brush and tray,
To conjure plump loaves from the scattered crumbs,
And feed his false five thousands day by day.

- Hell ~ Robert Graves

Time, like a skilful tailor, had seamlessly stitched together the two fabrics that sheathed Peri's life: what people thought of her and what she thought of herself. The impression she left on others and her self-perception had been sewn into a whole so consummate that she could no longer tell how much of each day was defined by what was wished upon her and how much of it was what she really wanted. She often felt the urge to grab a bucketful of soapy water and scrub the streets, the public squares, the government, the parliament, the bureaucracy, and, while she was at it, wash out a few mouths too. There was so much filth to clean up; so many broken pieces to fix; so many errors to correct. Every morning when she left her house she let out a quiet sigh, as if in one breath she could will away the detritus of the previous day. While Peri questioned the world without fail, and was not one to keep silent in the face of injustice, she had resolved some years ago to be content with what she had. It would therefore come as a surprise when, on a middling kind of day, at the age of thirty-five, established and respected, she found herself staring at the void in her soul. ~ Elif Shafak

...did not choose to print the Wesson's Guide. Because a printing press was a manchine, and machines were technology, and because technology clouded minds, weakened the will, and took away the self-reliance of the Ancients--or so their Parliament said--such dangerous items could be used only by a special license. ~ Sharon Cameron

We petitioned to get access to film [Suffragette] at the Houses of Parliament and we whooped with joy when we were allowed in, as this is the first ever commercial film to shoot there. ~ Sarah Gavron

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

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

The mob is primarily a group in which the residue of all classes are represented. This makes it so easy to mistake the mob for the people, which also comprises all strata of society. While the people in all great revolutions fight for true representation, the mob always will shout for the "strong man," the "great leader." For the mob hates society from which it is excluded, as well as Parliament where it is not represented. ~ Hannah Arendt

I trust Canadians' capacity to determine who will sit in their Parliament. ~ Justin Trudeau

It wasn't necessarily the booze and brothels. It was the growing gap in the country between the haves and have-nots, the corruption, the warlords now in parliament, the drug lords doubling as government officials, the general attitude of the foreigners from aid workers to the international troops, and the fact that no one ever seemed to be held accountable for anything. ~ Kim Barker

blowing up three hundred Parliament members and the king of England wasn't restoration. It was death with no phoenix to rise out of it. ~ Nadine Brandes

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

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

I may not have succeeded in halting the war, but I did secure the right of parliament to decide on war. ~ Robin Cook

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

All of us, the government, parliament, local authorities and the society must demonstrate determination and readiness to use knowledge and capabilities ... toward full European integration. ~ Igor Luksic

The power of discretionary disqualification by one law of Parliament, and the necessity of paying every debt of the Civil List by another law of Parliament, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a fund of rewards and terrors as will make Parliament the best appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was invented by the wit of man. ~ Edmund Burke

There is no demonstration against Zionism, because even the European Parliament regards such a demonstration as anti-Semitic. ~ Noam Chomsky

I am very proud of our Supreme Court - it is one of the best worldwide. Nevertheless, since the 1990s, we have seen a certain imbalance in the relationship between the judiciary, the parliament and the government. The Supreme Court behaved in an activist way. We have to debate the degree to which such Supreme Court activism is appropriate. ~ Ayelet Shaked

I was encouraged to stand for Parliament by David Cameron, and he has given me the opportunity to serve in what I believe is a great, reforming government. I think he is an outstanding Prime Minister. ~ Michael Gove

Monet Refuses the Operation"

Doctor, you say that there are no halos
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don't know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weig ~ Lisel Mueller

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

At the time, Jean-Claude [Juncker] was already an important man in Brussels. I was a young representative in the European Parliament. We talked for a long time and from that point on, our connection became increasingly deep. But our working-class origins are at least as important to our bond. ~ Martin Schulz

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

After 30 years in Brussels, I can tell you: The relationship between the Commission and the Parliament has probably never been as good as it is now. ~ Jean-Claude Juncker

The basis of my own addiction, I know, is my simple human need for Darcy to get off with Elizabeth. Tom says football guru Nick Hornby says in his book that men's obsession with football is not vicarious. The testosterone-crazed fans do not wish themselves on the pitch, claims Hornby, instead seeing their team as their chosen representatives, rather like parliament. That is precisely my feeling about Darcy and Elizabeth. They are my chosen representatives in the field of shagging, or, rather, courtship. I do not, however, wish to see any actual goals. I would hate to see Darcy and Elizabeth in bed, smoking a cigarette afterwards. That would be unnatural and wrong and I would quickly lose interest. ~ Helen Fielding

But let's be clear. We're talking about a country where there's no opposition. As leader he can ignore Parliament and - sorry that's Tony Blair isn't it? Um, so he doesn't even have to ask the country before he goes to war - sorry that's still Tony Blair. ~ Rory Bremner

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

I was a Member of the European Parliament for a period of time and I saw a lot of European laws and treaties. ~ Jean-Pierre Raffarin

The same ingenious application of slogans, coined by others and tried out before, was apparent in the Nazis' treatment of other relevant issues. When public attention was equally focused on nationalism on the one hand and socialism on the other, when the two were thought to be incompatible and actually constituted the ideological watershed between the Right and the Left, the "National Socialist German Workers' Party" (Nazi) offered a synthesis supposed to lead to national unity, a semantic solution whose double trademark of "German" and "Worker" connected the nationalism of the Right with the internationalism of the Left. The very name of the Nazi movement stole the political contents of all other parties and pretended implicitly to incorporate them all. Combinations of supposedly antagonistic political doctrines (national-socialist, christian-social, etc.) had been tried, and successfully, before; but the Nazis realized their own combination in such a way that the whole struggle in Parliament between the socialists and the nationalists, between those who pretended to be workers first of all and those who were Germans first, appeared as a sham designed to hide ulterior sinister motives - for was not a member of the Nazi movement all these things at once? ~ Hannah Arendt

England can never be ruined except by a Parliament. ~ William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley

The CDU, the great party of the center, is back. It is the biggest party in parliament. We will make what we can of this great result. ~ Edmund Stoiber

A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people. ~ Walter Bagehot

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

The British version of 'Shit My Dad Says' is really entertaining. ~ Jeremy Scahill

After the war, prompted by the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, I entered Parliament so that a priest could speak out for the poor, as canon law at that time still permitted. ~ Abbe Pierre

Thus was parliamentary democracy finally interred in Germany. Except for the arrests of the Communists and some of the Social Democratic deputies, it was all done quite legally, though accompanied by terror. Parliament ~ William L. Shirer

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

The success of totalitarian movements among the masses meant the end of two illusions of democratically ruled countries in general and of European nation-states and their party system in particular. The first was that the people in its majority had taken an active part in government and that each individual was in sympathy with one's own or somebody else's party. On the contrary, the movements showed that the politically neutral and indifferent masses could easily be the majority in a democratically ruled country, that therefore a democracy could function according to rules which are actively recognized by only a minority. The second democratic illusion exploded by the totalitarian movements was that these politically indifferent masses did not matter, that they were truly neutral and constituted no more than the inarticulate backward setting for the political life of the nation. Now they made apparent what no other organ of public opinion had ever been able to show, namely, that democratic government had rested as much on the silent approbation and tolerance of the indifferent and inarticulate sections of the people as on the articulate and visible institutions and organizations of the country. Thus when the totalitarian movements invaded Parliament with their contempt for parliamentary government, they merely appeared inconsistent: actually, they succeeded in convincing the people at large that parliamentary majorities were spurious and did not necessarily correspond to the ~ Hannah Arendt

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

At the order of the Lord Trustees a parliament is again to be held in Savannah on the 2nd of March, for which deputies from every district in the colony are to be elected per plurima voca. . . . Unfortunately, there are in this country, as in England, two parties; and I am learning in a small way what a great effort it must cost in England to have a favorable parliament. ~ Johann Martin Boltzius