Lords Quotes
More Lords Quotes
The true simple question of the present dispute is, whether the House of Lords and Court Influence shall predominate over the House of Commons, and annihilate its existence, or whether the House of Commons...shall have power to....regulate the prerogative of the Crown, which was ever ready to seize upon the freedom of the Electors of this country.
charles james fox— Speech to his constituents in Westminster (1784), quoted in W. T. Laprade, 'William Pitt and the Westminster Election', American Historical Review, 23 (1912), p. 263.
They do not ill, being Lords of ours, to slay Me; nay, they could not spare: but thee to slay, To spill thy strong young life for truth to me, In all men's eyes would mark them monstrous:;: thou Must live, and serve my slayers, and serving them Sustain my memory by the proof if God Shall give thee grace to prove it that thy name, Thy father's name and mine, in true men's ears Rings truth, and means not treason.
algernon charles swinburne— Faliero, Act V. Sc. 3.
My Lords, I have heard of those who have expressed more wishes for popularity than ever I felt. I have heard it said, and I think it was in this Court, that they 'would have popularity: but it should be that popularity which follows, not that which is sought after.' My Lords, I am proud enough to despise them both. If popularity should offer itself to me, I would speedily take care to kick it away.
— In reference to Lord Mansfield's judgment quoted above. See Horne's Address in the Court of King's Bench, 20 How. St. Tr. 785.
Lords and Commons of England, consider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors: a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to.
john milton— 1644 Areopagitica: a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing.
Lords are lordliest in their wine.
john milton— 1671Samson Agonistes, l.1418.
Lord Hailsham said the other day that the machinery of Government was creaking. My Lords, it is not even moving sufficiently to emit a noise of any kind.
— 1963 House of Lords, 20 Apr, shortly before disclaiming his peerage.
This well may be The Day of Judgment which the world awaits; But be it so or not, I only know my present duty, and my Lord’s command to occupy till He come. So at the post where He hath set me in His providence, I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face, no faithless servant frightened from my task, but ready when the Lord of the harvest calls; and therefore, with all reverence, I would say, let God do His work, we will see to ours. Bring in the candles.
abraham davenport— As quoted by John Greenleaf Whittier in his poem "Abraham Davenport" first published in The Atlantic Monthly (May 1866); later published in The Tent on the Beach, and Other Poems (1867).
— all these Dark Lords intent on creating wastelands packed with enslaved victims ... for what?
steven erikson— SF Site Interview
The decisions of the House of Lords are binding on me and upon all the Courts except itself.
romilly, john, 1st baron romilly— Att.-Gen. v. The Dean and Canons of Windsor (1858), 24 Beav. 715.
Wisdom made him old and wary Banishing the Lords of Faery. Wisdom made a breach and battered Babylon to bits: she scattered To the hedges and ditches All our nursery gnomes and witches.
robert graves— "Babylon"
[Of Lord Chesterfield] This man, I thought, had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!
samuel johnson— 1754.
The House of Lords must go - not be reformed, not be replaced, not be reborn in some nominated life-after-death patronage paradise, just closed down, abolished, finished.
neil kinnock— Tribune (November 19, 1976)
One should not be amazed ... that this Ganges is really Power , for is she not the Supreme Shakti of the Eternal Shiva, taken in the form of water? This Ganges, filled with the sweet wine of compassion , was sent out for the salvation of the world by Shiva, the Lord of the Lords. Good people should not think this Triple-Pathed River to be like the thousand other earthly rivers, filled with water.
— Ganga Mahatmay, Kashi Khanda, p.48 (Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India (3 February 2008)])
The Law is the true embodiment of everything that's excellent. It has no kind of fault or flaw, and I, my Lords, embody the Law.
— W.S. Gilbert, in Iolanthe (1882)
A decision of the House of Lords requires no sanction.
— Kekewich, J., In re Weall Andrews v. Weall (1889), L. R. 42 Ch. D. 679.
Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women Rail on the Lord’s anointed.
— King Richard, scene iv (Act IV)
But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited? ... Are we or they Lords of the World? ... And how are all things made for man?
— Johannes Kepler, quoted in "The Anatomy of Melancholy"
When women are the advisers, the Lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole.
Louisa May Alcott— Ch. 41 : Learning To Forget
An' there began a lang digressionAbout the Lords o' the creation.
Robert Burns— The Twa Dogs, st. 6 (1786)
From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs,That makes her loved at home, revered abroad:Princes and Lords are but the breath of kings,"An honest man's the noblest work of God."
Robert Burns— Stanza 19
My Lords, we are vertebrate animals, we are mammalia! My learned friend's manner would be intolerable in Almighty God to a black beetle.
william henry maule— On the Authority of Lord Coleridge; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 493.
The monk, the inquisitor, and the Jesuit were Lords of Spain,— sovereigns of her sovereign, for they had formed the dark and narrow mind of that tyrannical recluse. They had formed the minds of her people, quenched in blood every spark of rising heresy, and given over a noble nation to a bigotry blind and inexorable as the doom of fate. Linked with pride, ambition, avarice, every passion of a rich, strong nature, potent for good and ill, it made the Spaniard of that day a scourge as dire as ever fell on man.
francis parkman— Pt. I, Ch. 7 Menendez
The Lords and ladies pass a rulingThat sons and girls go hand in landFrom good stock and the best breedingPaid for by the servile class.
paul weller— The Whole Point Of No Return, from Café Bleu (1984)
My Lords, we are vertebrate animals, we are mammalia! My learned friend's manner would be intolerable in Almighty God to a black beetle.
— William Henry Maule, to the Court, on the Authority of Lord Coleridge.
In all climes we pitch out tents, Cronies of the elements, With the secret Lords of birth Intimate and free.
— The Wander-lovers.
There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation's braggart Lords.
john muir— John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf (1916).
There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation's braggart Lords.
john muir— John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf (1916).
