89 Parliamentary Quotes
Following is our list of parliamentary quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about parliamentary government.
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Famous Parliamentary Quotes
A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people. — Walter Bagehot
That a Parliament, especially a Parliament with Newspaper Reporters firmly established in it, is an entity which by its very nature cannot do work, but can do talk only. — Thomas Carlyle
Our Parliamentary system has simply failed to meet the challenge of judicial activism. — Stockwell Day
I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a council chamber in Europe — Kenneth Clarke
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament. — Vladimir Lenin
Question Period is not part of the legislative process,and has nothing to do with it. It is a means of monitoring the Executive that the Government cannot evade. — John Allen Fraser
If the institutions of parliamentary democracy are worth preserving, the duty to explain them to the people they are meant to serve becomes vitally important. — John Allen Fraser
Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, it is possible for other parties to change the direction of a government without bringing a government down. — Nicola Sturgeon
Parliament will train you to talk; and above all things to hear, with patience, unlimited quantities of foolish talk. — Thomas Carlyle
However, democracy cannot be defined as the existence of parliaments and elections alone. — Recep Tayyip Erdogan
It is impossible to practice parliamentary politics without having patience, decency, politeness and courtesy. — Khaleda Zia
We've chosen to stay part of the Westminster system, but we don't want to be a forgotten, sidelined part of it. — Nicola Sturgeon
Being an MP is a good job, the sort of job all working-class parents want for their children -- clean, indoors and no heavy lifting. What could be nicer? — Diane Abbott
You must not deprive the colonies of their right to make laws for themselves. Parliament should only make laws necessary for the empire as a whole. — Thomas Hutchinson
Democrats legislate; Republicans investigate. — Lyndon B. Johnson
Short Parliamentary Quotes
- We could not have parliamentary sovereignty with a European Parliament. — Hugh Gaitskell
- All is fair in love and war and Parliamentary procedure. — Michael Foot
- That one never asks a question unless he knows the answer is basic to parliamentary questioning. — John Diefenbaker
- I was elected to the Diet in the same way as at every parliamentary election. — Fritz Sauckel
- The August Decrees were an improvised parliamentary reaction to an emergency situation. — Francois Furet
- As soon as I set foot in the parliamentary Sinai, I ceased to be in touch with the masses. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
- Good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language. — Betty Boothroyd
- Little other than a red tape Talking-machine, and unhappy Bag of Parliamentary Eloquence. — Thomas Carlyle
- I believe that, without party, Parliamentary government is impossible. — Benjamin Disraeli
- We can't afford to go down the dead end roads of Parliamentary Socialism or Fascistic Bolshevism. — John Blair
Parliamentary Democracy Quotes
It is not surprising that more and more people are coming to the conclusion that the ballot box is no longer an instrument that will secure political solutions... They can see that the parliamentary democracy we boast of is becoming a sham. — Tony Benn
We know that communism is the right hypothesis. All those who abandon this hypothesis immediately resign themselves to the market economy, to parliamentary democracy-the form of state suited to capitalism-and to the inevitable and 'natural' character of the most monstrous inequalities. — Alain Badiou
The much-lauded parliamentary democracy in India has been unable to protect a genuine democratic set-up in Kashmir. — Nyla Ali Khan
To decide once every few years which members of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament-this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary- constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics. — Vladimir Lenin
Referendums are a democratic instrument, but so are decisions reached in a parliamentary democracy. I advise extreme caution when it comes to referendums. In Germany too. — Martin Schulz
One of the most enjoyable things I do at Government House and when I travel around Australia is to talk with children. I tell them about our parliamentary democracy - and I often do that as I'm walking into an Executive Council meeting next door! — Quentin Bryce
I'm much more attracted personally to governments going their full term. It's very hard to have a fixed term election I know with ah... a parliamentary democracy, but I've always had an instinct to say there should be a fixed term. — Jim Bolger
No matter how many troops we have in place or how long they stay, we cannot impose a parliamentary democracy there any more than the insurgents can impose a theocracy. — Nick Clooney
Look, there is parliamentary democracy in most European countries, there is parliamentary democracy in Japan, there is parliamentary democracy in many countries, but in the United States, for some reason, the State is organized differently, there is quite a stringent presidential republic. — Vladimir Putin
Parliamentary Government Quotes
Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history. — Susan Sontag
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
Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success. — Walter Bagehot
The stations of uncensored expression are closing down; the lights are going out; but there is still time for those to whom freedom and parliamentary government mean something, to consult together. Let me, then, speak in truth and earnestness while time remains. — Winston Churchill
Whatever failures may have come to parliamentary government in countries which have not those traditions, and where it is not a natural growth, that is no proof that parliamentary government has failed. — Stanley Baldwin
Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith. — Lord Acton
Anarchism is that political philosophy which advocates the maximization of individual responsibility and the reduction of concentrated power regal, dictatorial, parliamentary: the institutions which go loosely by the name of "government" to a vanishing minimum. — Alex Comfort
I am a woman, I am a housewife, I am a government official, I've been twice a government secretary, I've been leader of a parliamentary group, I am an economist. — Josefina Vazquez Mota
We can have national dialogue where different Syrian parties sit and discuss the future of Syria. You can have interim government or transitional government. Then you have final elections, parliamentary elections, and you're going to have presidential elections. — Bashar al-Assad
Say, oh well, the Republicans don't like this therefor I shouldn't do it. What kind of a government would that be. We're not a parliamentary system. — John Kasich
People Writing About Parliamentary
More Parliamentary Quotes
It is the soldier and the army, not parliamentary majorities and decisions, that have welded the German Empire together. I put my trust in the army. — Wilhelm II
The war of ideas is a Greek invention. It is one of the most important inventions ever made. Indeed, the possibility of fighting with with words and ideas instead of fighting with swords is the very basis of our civilization, and especially of all its legal and parliamentary institutions. — Karl Popper
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
The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the decision to be suspended forever in an everlasting discussion. — Carl Schmitt
The first organised opposition by women to women's suffrage in England dates from 1889, when a number of ladies led by Mrs Ward appealed against the proposed extension of the Parliamentary suffrage to women. — Millicent Fawcett
Canadians should realise when they are well off under the Monarchy. For the vast majority of Canadians, being a Monarchy is probably the only form of government acceptable to them. I have always been for parliamentary democracy and I think the institution of Monarchy with the Queen heading it all has served Canada well. — Pierre Trudeau
A state does not simply fall apart as a result of depression... [Weimar Germany] was not destroyed by economic depression or widespread unemployment, though these naturally contributed to the atmosphere of doom, but because the Weimar Right was resolved to abolish the parliamentary state in favour of a vaguely conceived authoritarian state. — Sebastian Haffner
Parliamentary government is simply a mild and disguised form of compulsion. We agree to try strength by counting heads instead of breaking heads, but the principle is exactly the same... The minority gives way not because it is convinced that it is wrong, but because it is convinced that it is a minority. — James Fitzjames Stephen
If [Respulicans] can't get rid of [Obamacare], they're going to have to tell their base, we've been lying to you for the last five years. So they're willing to go to almost any extent to do that. That's unusual, in fact I think it's unique in the history of modern parliamentary systems. And it's very dangerous for the country and for the world. — Noam Chomsky
I've come up through the ranks of this parliamentary party and let me tell you the principles that have guided me on that journey since my first election 25 years ago: Loyalty to the party, service to our country, and a determination to always do my best for the people. They are principles that still guide me. — Brian Cowen
I think it's perfectly possible for us to stay outside of power politics, or parliamentary politics, and speak about things like the American hegemony in the region or speak about the unjust war on terror that's been brought to our borders. — Fatima Bhutto
Parliamentary cretinism: that peculiar malady which since 1848 has raged all over the Continent, which holds those infected by it fast in an imaginary world and robs them of all sense, all memory, all understanding of the rude external world. — Karl Marx
...more than six people cannot agree on anything, three is better and one is perfect for a job that one can do. This is why parliamentary bodies all through history, when they accomplished anything, owed it to a few strong men who dominated the rest. — Robert A. Heinlein
It is simply the view, and a view I think shared by most members of the party, that it is very difficult to have a leader that does not command the support of the parliamentary party. — Francis Maude
My own view is that if you filled every member of the parliamentary Labour party with a truth drug and lashed them to a polygraph lie detector, very, very few of them would support foundation hospitals. — Frank Dobson
Canada evolved within the British Empire: it inherited the Parliamentary system, the Cabinet system and all the other features of the British constitutional system which had been in place, for the most part, for several centuries before Canada was even thought of. — Stockwell Day
I don't think Jeremy Corbyn's going to stay, he's going to go. He knows parliamentary party have no faith in him. — Gordon Brown
Fundamental questions are being asked about the future of the Eurozone and therefore the shape of the EU itself. Opportunities to advance our national interest are clearly becoming apparent. We should focus on how to make the most of this, not pursue a parliamentary process for a multiple choice referendum. — David Cameron
It is difficult to find another branch of knowledge where a small amount of study produces such great results in increased efficiency in a country where the people rule, as in parliamentary law. — Henry Martyn Robert
There is an urgent need to-day for the citizens of a democracy to think well. It is not enough to have freedom of the Press and parliamentary institutions. Our difficulties are due partly to our own stupidity, partly to the exploitation of that stupidity, and partly to our own prejudices and personal desires. — Susan Stebbing
The noble Lord (Stanley) was the Prince Rupert to the Parliamentary army--his valour did not always serve his own cause. — Benjamin Disraeli
By the reduction of the Arabs on the one hand and Jewish immigration in the transition period on the other, we will ensure an absolute Hebrew majority in a parliamentary regime. — Moshe Sharett
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