“I have for years attempted to maintain the exclusion of Roman Catholics from Parliament, and the high offices of the State. I do not think it was an unnatural or unreasonable struggle. I resign it in consequence of the conviction that it can no longer be advantageously maintained. I yield therefore to a moral necessity which I cannot control; unwilling to push resistance to a point which might endanger the establishments that I wish to defend.”

— Robert Peel

Speech in the House of Commons (5 March 1829) introducing the Bill for Catholic Emancipation, quoted in The Parliamentary Debates, New Series: Vol. XX (1829), column 730
Home Secretary

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I have for years attempted to maintain the exclusion of Roman Catholics from Parliament, and the high offices of the St…" by Robert Peel?

Robert Peel14

British Conservative statesman 1788–1850

Related quotes

“I do not believe that this nation, which has maintained and defended its independence for a thousand years, will now submit to see it merged or lost; nor did I become a member of our sovereign Parliament in order to consent to that sovereignty being abated or transferred. Come what may, I cannot and will not.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton (13 October 1971), quoted in The Times (14 October 1971), p. 4
1970s

“I am determined to defend my rights and maintain my freedom or sell my life in the attempt.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

As quoted in Conflict of conviction: a reappraisal of Quaker involvement in the American Revolution (1990), by William C. Kashatus, p. 45

“God, I have said, is the fulfiller, or the reality, of the human desires for happiness, perfection, and immortality. From this it may be inferred that to deprive man of God is to tear the heart out of his breast. But I contest the premises from which religion and theology deduce the necessity and existence of God, or of immortality, which is the same thing. I maintain that desires which are fulfilled only in the imagination, or from which the existence of an imaginary being is deduced, are imaginary desires, and not the real desires of the human heart; I maintain that the limitations which the religious imagination annuls in the idea of God or immortality, are necessary determinations of the human essence, which cannot be dissociated from it, and therefore no limitations at all, except precisely in man’s imagination.”

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) German philosopher and anthropologist

Lecture XXX, Atheism alone a Positive View <br class="br"> Lectures on the Essence of Religion http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/lectures/index.htm (1851)

“Since I expressed my views…in July last year, I have sought to negotiate a position which would allow me to defend my stance in public, especially when it is questioned. The BBC has required that I do not speak on matters on which my stance is already known. That is not acceptable to me. I have therefore asked the corporation to accept my resignation as South Asia correspondent.”

Mark Tully (1935) British journalist

When he quit BBC due to differences with John Birt, the Director General of BBC. <br class="br">Source: Peter Victor, " Tully quits BBC http://www.independent.co.uk/news/tully-quits-bbc-1412865.html," The Independent, 10 July 1994

“I venture to think that in future the Czechoslovak State cannot be maintained as an independent entity. You will find that in a period of time which may be measured by years, but may be measured only by months, Czechoslovakia will be engulfed in the Nazi régime. … It is the most grievous consequence which we have yet experienced of what we have done and of what we have left undone in the last five years—five years of futile good intention, five years of eager search for the line of least resistance, five years of uninterrupted retreat of British power, five years of neglect of our air defences.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/oct/05/policy-of-his-majestys-government#column_366 in the House of Commons (5 October 1938) against the Munich Agreement <br class="br">The 1930s

“We should not argue with the blind man who maintained that sight was an illusion to which some abnormal people were subject. Therefore in speaking of religious experience I do not attempt to prove the existence of religious experience…”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Source: Science and the Unseen World (1929), Ch. IV, p.48-49

“I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Response when a dignitary asked if he could better control his daughter, as quoted in Hail to the Chiefs : My Life and Times with Six Presidents (1970) by Ruth Shick Montgomery, and TIME magazine (3 March 1980) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,950286,00.html?promoid=googlep <br class="br">1900s

“[The Spanish news] really keeps me awake at night and in the day I can think of nothing else. I did not think it possible that anything could have made me regret being out of office, but I now wish I was in a situation, in which it might be possible to assist this glorious cause.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Letter to Lady Holland (2 July 1808), quoted in E. A. Smith, Lord Grey. 1764-1845 (Alan Sutton, 1996), p. 169.
1800s

“As far as I am concerned, I resign from humanity. I no longer want to be, nor can still be, a man. What should I do? Work for a social and political system, make a girl miserable? Hunt for weaknesses in philosophical systems, fight for moral and aesthetic ideals? It's all too little. I renounce my humanity even though I may find myself alone. But am I not already alone in this world from which I no longer expect anything?”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

“This is the point from which I can never return, and if I back down now then forever I burn. This is the point from which I can never retreat cause if I turn back now there can never be peace. This is the point from which I will die or succeed, living the struggle, I know I'm alive when I bleed. From now on it can never be the same as before, cause the place that I'm from doesn't exist any more”

Immortal Technique (1978) American rapper and activist

The Point of No Return
Albums, Revolutionary Vol. 2 (2003)

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Robert Peel14

Related quotes

Related topics