“I think that public opinion today likes a certain amount of pageantry. It is a great mistake to make government too dull. That, I think, was the fault of the German Republic after the First World War. They were very drab and dull; the trouble was that they let the devil get all the best tunes. Therefore, we on this side of the Committee believe that it is right to have a certain amount of pageantry, because it pleases people, and it also counteracts a tendency to other forms of excitement.”
Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1952/jul/09/civil-list#column_1328 in the House of Commons (9 July 1952) on the civil list
1950s
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Clement Attlee 95
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1883–1967Related quotes

On her ideal music in “Kim Gordon unmasked: a natural instinct of going against the grain” https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/kim-gordon-unmasked-a-natural-instinct-of-going-against-the-grain-20190805-p52dxg.html in The Sydney Morning Herald (2019 Aug 9)

From interview with Rajeev Masand
Susie Harries, "Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life" (2011), page 663
About

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
Context: There are men who live contented though they live without decorum. Others suffer as if in agony when they see around them people living without decorum. There must be a certain amount of decorum in the world, just as there must be a certain amount of light. When there are many men without decorum, there are always others who themselves possess the decorum of many men. These are the ones who rebel with terrible strength against those who rob nations of their liberty, which is to rob men of their decorum. Embodied in those men are thousands of men, a whole people, human dignity.
Interview by Elein Fleiss and Olivier Zahm, ca. 1992 ( link http://adaweb.com/~purple/kingm.html)
Quotes from interviews

1960s, Special message to Congress on the right to vote (1965)

“There is a certain amount of sham in . There is a certain amount of theatre.”
De Abaitua interview (1998)
Context: There is a certain amount of sham in. There is a certain amount of theatre. It’s as loosely knit as that. We’re sort of coming out of the closet a bit more over the next couple of years. We’re going to be bringing out – manifesto’s too pushy a word – if it’s a theatre of marvels, we’re bringing out a theatre programme in the next couple of years. We’re working on it at the moment – our unified field theory of spookiness where we try to explain everything from language, consciousness, grey aliens to Rosicrucianism or whatever. It is a grand, mad theory which I’m working my best on at the moment to make it rational. It is an anti-rationalistic theory but I’m trying to couch it in rational terms so that it is not as insular as a lot of magic stuff.