“Parties come and go, governments come and go. But if we lose the power to make and unmake governments, to make and unmake parliaments, then everything else is changed. Even if I were convinced that the result of doing what Michael Foot has described—regaining what we ought never to have given away—even if I were convinced that the result of that would be that we would have Labour administrations for the rest of my lifetime, I would say: well, so be it. But at least we have retained the power to decide under what general principles this nation is going to be governed.”

— Enoch Powell

Discussing Britain's membership of the EEC on the BBC Radio 4 series Politics in the Seventies (10 June 1973), quoted in The Times (11 June 1973), p. 3
1970s

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 "Parties come and go, governments come and go. But if we lose the power to make and unmake governments, to make and unma…" by Enoch Powell?

Enoch Powell 155

British politician 1912–1998

Related quotes

“The right finds it easy to explain what is and to justify what is, but not to account for change. The left finds it easy to justify change, but not to account for what is, and what is accepted… Parties come and go, governments come and go. But if we lose the power to make and unmake governments, to make and unmake parliaments, then everything else is changed. Even if I were convinced that the result of doing what Michael Foot has described— regaining what we ought never to have given away— even if I were convinced that the result of that would be that we would have Labour administrations for the rest of my lifetime, I would say: well, so be it. But at least we have retained the power to decide under what general principles this nation is going to be governed.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

On the BBC Radio 4 series Politics in the Seventies (10 June 1973), quoted in The Times (11 June 1973), p. 3.
1970s

“If we were to fail, I do not think another Government could succeed. The result would be a National Government situation and I fear it would lead to totalitarianism of the Right or Left.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Financial Times, 1 October, 1976.

“I think that if we would, every evening, come to our Master's feet, and tell Him where we have been, what we have done, what we have said, and what were the motives by which we have been actuated, it would have a salutary effect upon our whole conduct.”

Edward Payson (1783–1827) American religious leader

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 466.

“I am sorry to say that at the moment I am so busy as to be convinced that life has no meaning whatever… I do not see that we can judge what would be the result of the discovery of truth, since none has hitherto been discovered.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to Will Durant, 20 June, 1931
1930s

“If I had to lay bets, my bet would be that everything is going to go to hell, but, you know, what else have we got except hope?”

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) American philosopher

"Richard Rorty Interviewed by Gideon Lewis-Kraus." The Believer, June 2003.

“I am going to keep my mind (well, what's left of it) occupied by doing (and I never thought the day would come when I would say this) my homework.”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

“I picked up a newspaper today and I couldn't believe it. I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest. And it just was Henny Penny -- "The sky is falling." I've never seen anything like it! And here is a country that's being liberated, here are people who are going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a vicious dictator, and they're free. And all this newspaper could do, with eight or 10 headlines, they showed a man bleeding, a civilian, who they claimed we had shot —one thing after another.
From the very beginning, we were convinced that we would succeed, and that means that that regime would end. And we were convinced that as we went from the end of that regime to something other than that regime, there would be a period of transition. And, you cannot do everything instantaneously; it's never been done, everything instantaneously. We did, however, recognize that there was at least a chance of catastrophic success, if you will, to reverse the phrase, that you could in a given place or places have a victory that occurred well before reasonable people might have expected it, and that we needed to be ready for that; we needed to be ready with medicine, with food, with water. And, we have been.
Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here.”

Donald Rumsfeld (1932) U.S. Secretary of Defense

DOD news briefing following the fall of Baghdad (11 April 2003) http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030411-secdef0090.html

“Alone, i am nothing. i have nothing. we have power. but we will never know it, we will never see it work. unless we come together to make it work.”

Ayi Kwei Armah book The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

Source: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

“There are about 8,000,000 negroes in the United States, and, my friends, I not only have not the power to put the negro out of the labor movement, but I would not, even if I did have the power. Why should I do such a thing? I would have nothing to gain, but the movement would have much to lose. Under our policies and principles we seek to build up the labor movement, instead of injuring it, and we want all the negroes we can possibly get who will join hands with organized labor.”

Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) American Labor Leader[AFL]

Gompers, Samuel. The Samuel Gompers Papers. Stuart Bruce Kaufman, Peter J. Albert, Grace Palladino, and Marla J Hughes, eds. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2000, p. 137.

“The intention of the Chinese government taking away our freedom is so obvious that we know, if we don't fight, we will lose everything...When you lose the freedom, you lose everything. What do you have?”

Jimmy Lai (1948) Hong Kong businessman

October 13, 2019 What keeps the months-long, massive Hong Kong protests going? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hong-kong-protests-60-minutes-on-the-streets-of-hong-kong-with-pro-democracy-demonstrators-2019-10-13/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7d&linkId=75253573

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Enoch Powell 155

Related quotes

Related topics