opposition quotes

It issaid that England invented the phrase,'Her Majesty's Opposition'; that it was the first government which made a criticism of administration as much a part of the polityas administration itself. 51

-Walter Bagehot
  The English Constitution, ch.2,'The Cabinet'.

The duty of an Opposition is to oppose.

- Lord Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill
Remark attributed by his son, Winston Churchill. The phrase English statesman, Prime Minister (1940^5,1951^2) and writer. Hebecame a Conservative MPin1900 but turnedLiberalin1904 and was made First Lord of theAdmiralty (1911) and Chancellor of  the  Exchequer  (1924^9).  He  returned  to  the  Conservative Party  in 1929  and  on  Chamberlain's  defeat  formed  a  coalition government to pursue the war  with Germany.

No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.

- Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield Disraeli
  Coningsby, bk.2, ch.1.

Posterity will do justice to that unprincipled maniac Gladstonean extraordinary mixture of envy, vindictiveness, hypocrisyand superstition and with one commanding characteristic.Whether Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition, whether preaching, praying, speechifying, or scribblingneveragentleman.Heisso vain that he wants to figure in history as the settler of all the great questions; but a parliamentary Constitution is not favourable to such ambitions. Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.

- Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield Disraeli
c.1874  Letter.

It is said to be hard on His Majesty's Ministers to raise objections to this proposition. For my part, I think it no more hard on His Majesty's Opposition to compel them to take this course.

-John Cam, 1st Baron Broughton Hobhouse
  House of Commons, 27  Apr. This is thefirst recordeduse of the term'His Majesty's Opposition'.

Ihavea lotof sympathy with him.Itoowas onceayoung, bald Leader of the Opposition.

- Neil Gordon Kinnock
  On William Hague. In The Independent, 3 Oct.

The cardinal tenets of feminism divided my generation, effectively disempowering and disenfranchising its members. It does make me bitterlyangry that my generation, which prided itself so complacently on its soul, on its powers of intelligence and analysis, should have fallen so cloddishly for totalitarian simplicities which declared a war of eternal opposition between men and women.

- Robert Lynd
  No More Sex War: The Failures of Feminism.

Capitalism only works well when it has a strong opposition, because that forces it to be more egalitarian than it wants to be.

- Paul Malor Sweezy
  Interview in The Progressive, May.