“The majority of the members of the Irish parliament are professional politicians, in the sense that otherwise they would not be given jobs minding mice at a crossroads.”

—  Flann O'Brien

Page 171
The Hair of the Dogma (1977)

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 "The majority of the members of the Irish parliament are professional politicians, in the sense that otherwise they woul…" by Flann O'Brien?
Flann O'Brien photo
Flann O'Brien30
Irish writer 1911–1966

Related quotes

James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon photo

“I am an Orangeman first and a politician and member of this parliament [Stormont] afterwards.”

James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon (1871–1940) British politician

James Craighttp://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/people/accounts/mckay00.htm

Preston Manning photo

“There are hundreds of Canadian communities that have given more thought to hiring their rink manager than they have to electing their member of Parliament.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Eighteen, The Road to a More Democratic Canada, p. 329

John Lancaster Spalding photo

“In our thrifty populations of merchants, manufacturers, politicians, and professional men, there is little sense for beauty, little pure thought, little genuine culture; but they are prosperous and self-satisfied.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 24

John Banville photo

“[W]e would probably claim Kafka as an Irish writer. His tone of voice is certainly quite Irish: that sense of melancholy, that sense of strangeness and of being a stranger in the world. I think that we empathise with that very much indeed.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville: claiming Kafka as an Irish writer (2011)

John Bright photo

“In the Cabinet there were large Irish proprietors, and, without imputing to any proprietor a desire of doing injustice to his tenants, it was easy to understand that after the long continuance of the present state of the law in Ireland, proprietors were alarmed at any proposition coming to them like the Bill of the hon. Member for Rochdale. The Irish proprietors in the Cabinet, in that House, and out of it, were afraid of a Bill that would interfere with the powers and privileges that a Parliament of landowners for generations past had been conferring upon the proprietors of the soil. That was the point. The question was, could the cats wisely and judiciously legislate for the mice? He did not believe it. He was as much opposed as any man could be to transferring the land from the landlord to the tenant; but a measure of justice was due from the former to the latter, both in Ireland and in this country as well.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1852/feb/10/tenant-right-ireland in the House of Commons (10 February 1852). <br class="br">1850s

Stephen Baxter photo

“For the genes it made sense, of course. Otherwise it would not have happened.”

Stephen Baxter book Evolution

Source: Evolution (2002), Chapter 18 “The Kingdom of the Rats” section III (p. 597)

“The organizer who creates roles, who creates the holes that will force the pegs to their shape, is a prime creator of personality itself. When we ask of a man, "What is he?" the answer is usually given in terms of his major role, job, or position in society; he is the place that he fills, a painter, a priest, a politician, a criminal.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1950s, The Organizational Revolution: A study in the ethics of economic organization, 1953, p. 80, quoted in: Paul S. Adler eds. (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies: Classical Foundations. p. 552

Katharine Hepburn photo

“You politicians remain professional because the voters remain amateur.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Edward Heath photo

“It would not be in the interests of the Community that its enlargement should take place except with the full-hearted consent of the parliaments and its peoples of the new member countries.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Speech in Paris (5 May 1970), quoted in The Times (24 December 1970), p. 3
Leader of the Opposition

Related topics