Quotations
- " the rotten part of the constitution." — William Pitt the Elder
- "The county of Yorkshire, which contains near a million souls, sends two county members; and so does the county of Rutland which contains not a hundredth part of that number. The town of Old Sarum, which contains not three houses, sends two members; and the town of Manchester, which contains upwards of sixty thousand souls, is not admitted to send any. Is there any principle in these things?" Tom Paine, from Rights of Man, 1791
- From H.M.S. Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan:
- Sir Joseph Porter: I grew so rich that I was sent
- By a pocket borough into Parliament.
- I always voted at my party's call,
- And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
- Chorus: And he never thought of thinking for himself at all.
- Sir Joseph: I thought so little, they rewarded me
- By making me the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!
- From Iolanthe by Gilbert and Sullivan:
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- Fairy Queen: Let me see. I've a borough or two at my disposal. Would you like to go into Parliament?
- From The Letter of Marque by Patrick O'Brian
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- 'Could you not spend an afternoon at Milport, to meet the electors? There are not many of them, and those few are all my tenants, so it is no more than a formality; but there is a certain decency to be kept up. The writ will be issued very soon.'
- The Borough of Queen's Crawley in Thackeray's Vanity Fair is a rotten borough eliminated by the Reform Act of 1832:
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- When Colonel Dobbin quitted the service, which he did immediately after his marriage, he rented a pretty country place in Hampshire, not far from Queen's Crawley, where, after the passing of the Reform Bill, Sir Pitt and his family constantly resided now. All idea of a peerage was out of the question, the baronet's two seats in Parliament being lost. He was both out of pocket and out of spirits by that catastrophe, failed in his health, and prophesied the speedy ruin of the Empire.
Read more about this topic: Rotten And Pocket Boroughs
Famous quotes containing the word quotations:
“A book that furnishes no quotations is, me judice, no book—it is a plaything.”
—Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866)
“Reading any collection of a man’s quotations is like eating the ingredients that go into a stew instead of cooking them together in the pot. You eat all the carrots, then all the potatoes, then the meat. You won’t go away hungry, but it’s not quite satisfying. Only a biography, or autobiography, gives you the hot meal.”
—Christopher Buckley, U.S. author. A review of three books of quotations from Newt Gingrich. “Newtie’s Greatest Hits,” The New York Times Book Review (March 12, 1995)