British Peers

"We just didn't understand that they [the Islamists] were not just anti-Western but on a different plane altogether and this is still not widely understood in the UK... We can be as nice as pie to them but that's not the issue. They are on a mission that has taken them outside anything we can say, a mission to destroy completely our way of life... Because they think it's 'just a few extremists,' they are continuing to track the threat of big spectacular attacks, looking for example at transfers of materials for bombs, whereas what they should be looking at is what's going on inside people's heads."

"After all, they are only going into their own back garden."

"The Czar, who had been absolute enough to civilize savages, had no idea, could conceive none, of the privileges of a nation civilized in the only rational manner, by laws and liberties."

"He...was highly favoured by nature, and his address exceeded even his figure. At every period of his life queens, duchesses, and countesses have showered on him their regard. The Duke of Dorset, recently sent ambassador to France, being an intimate friend of Mr. Whitworth, made him known to the queen, who not only distinguished him by flattering marks of her attention, but interested herself in promoting his fortune, which then stood greatly in need of such patronage."

"It is a sad woman who buys her own perfume."

"Only tell her that I love: Leave the rest to her and Fate: Some kind planet from above May perhaps her pity move: Lovers on their stars must wait.— Only tell her that I love!Why, O why should I despair! Mercy’s pictured in her eye: If she once vouchsafe to hear, Welcome Hope and farewell Fear! She’s too good to let me die.— Why, O why should I despair?"

"Wharton’s refusal to Narendra Modi weakens free speech and the quest for justice in 2002 riot cases... In order to listen to someone, one does not need to be an ardent follower or a bitter critic... Freedom of expression knows no boundary. The more we listen to people and ideas, the more enriched we get. When an educational institution gets prescriptive on the kind of speech one can and cannot listen to on the campus, it kills intellectual freedom, a democratic idea that the U.S.A., India, and the U.K. have cherished from times immemorial...Cancelling lectures will not help, in fact it will present Modi- baiters in [a] poor light that they have extinguished all points of reason and debate to have had to resort to such an action...As a Gujarati myself, I consider it to be a gross insult that the chief minister of my state, however wrong one may feel he is, cannot express his views at a global forum, such as the one in Wharton, because a few in the audience don’t like him...."

"Poverty in the UK is too high and the experiences of many people in poverty are now getting worse. Governments of all colours have worked hard to change that picture, but as a society, we have failed to make significant progress."

"I have been horrified as, bit by bit, we have abandoned these commitments - domestically and on the world stage. ... More worrying, the UK has visibly stepped off the world stage and withdrawn our leadership on climate and nature. Too often we are simply absent from key international fora. Only last week you seemingly chose to attend the party of a media baron rather than attend a critically important environment summit in Paris that ordinarily the UK would have co-led."

"I think whatever I was doing I would be pretty fanatical, but I find it hard to imagine how you can't be fanatical about these issues. We're facing extinction . . . and I can be driven to an unbelievable, uncontrollable anger by what's happening today."

"[On William Hague, then Conservative party leader] I'd have to drug myself before I voted for him. Get drunk beforehand. And then wash myself afterwards."

"I am very, very cynical, and have never had much affection for politicians [...] But I am a punter, and a punter does not punt unless he has a chance of winning. I am not politically ambitious, and I do not need a career in this world [...] But I am genuinely excited by the opportunity that David Cameron has opened up. It's a punt. But I am not going to put myself in a position where I betray the things I believe in."

"There are all kinds of problems with the European Union but nevertheless these things are possible. How can putting a tax on aviation fuel and going through that negotiation process be any harder? It's clearly not harder than establishing a European Union."

"[On the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) policy in London] You can make the case that it’s a clumsy policy, that it’s going to affect people who can least afford it. There are all kinds of arguments made about that and lots of policies relating to the environment and climate change. [...] The job of governments and politicians is to find the solutions that are going to be the least painful, most effective, and if that requires you to rethink individual policies then go for it. But what I think is not negotiable, is the overarching challenge that we face."

"I can't be bought. I don't need to be bought. I'm not a careerist. I don't need to have a career in politics. I'm in a very, very luxurious position, but I am in a position of strength. I think I have been selected by Cameron, within the context of that understanding."

"[In response to Sunak's letter accepting his resignation] I am happy to apologise for publicly sharing my views on the Privileges Committee. I firmly believe our parliamentary democracy can only be strengthened by robust scrutiny, and parliamentarians should of course be free to be critical of its reports and proceedings. But as a minister I shouldn't have commented publicly. No 10 asked me to acknowledge that, and made clear that there was no question of my being 'sacked' if I did so. I was - and am - happy to do so. My decision to step down has been a long time coming."

"Prime Minister, having been able to get so much done previously, I have struggled even to hold the line in recent months.The problem is not that the government is hostile to the environment, it is that you, our Prime Minister, are simply uninterested. That signal, or lack of it, has trickled down through Whitehall and caused a kind of paralysis. I will never understand how, with all the knowledge we now have about our fundamental reliance on the natural world and the speed with which we are destroying it, anyone can be uninterested. But even if this existential challenge leaves you personally unmoved, there is a world of people who do care very much. And you will need their votes. ... And as these issues inevitably grow in importance, so too will the gap between the British people and a Conservative Party that fails to respond appropriately."

"In 10 years' time, I might be an eco terrorist. But I'll take the most effective path, whatever that is."

"[On disorder and untidiness of his office at The Ecologist] This place is like a Swiss watch compared to my house - at least until Sheherazade moved in."

"I was brought up by my father to identify very strongly as Jewish. But the truth is, that beyond my name, which is a fairly strong Jewish name, 'Zacharias Goldsmith' changed from 'Goldschmidts' – I cannot claim to be all that Jewish. But if you type in my name on Twitter, you will find that I am at the very heart of the Jewish conspiracy. [They say] I have this amazing control over the press – which should make my mayoral contest very easy; and that my family have completely infiltrated the royal family."

"I used to be obsessed by David Attenborough as a boy. He was my hero, and it was his work that made me fall in love with the natural world. At the same time I was exposed to information - through The Ecologist, actually, which in those days was rather boring - that told me how that natural world was under siege more than at any other time in its history. I used to sit in school learning about how to use a calculator and so on, but learning nothing about the threat to the ground beneath our feet. Why was no one screaming and yelling about it?"

"If the magazine collapsed, if the world was going to self-destruct, I would just sink my hands into the mud and live like a pig. Not in a negative sense [...] I mean, I love pigs."

"Every man today is afraid he's firing blanks; it's becoming very much harder for humans to reproduce. According to Danish research, we now have the sperm count of a hamster."

"[On Tony Blair, then Labour prime minister] Wouldn't trust him with my dog. Wouldn't trust him with my budgerigar."

"It seems there is no good in the world that they cannot somehow attribute to the EU and no imagined disaster they cannot predict if we vote leave,"

"[Brexit is] our opportunity to take back control of a whole area of democratic decisions"

"We know that you, the organised workers of the country, are our friends ... As for the rest, they do not matter a tinker's cuss."

"The people you step over when you come out of the opera."

"A great deal of difficulty has been caused in the administration of the law, and particularly of the common law, by decisions in which technical rules have been formulated which were not true—that is, were not in accordance with the facts of the case."

"Public policy requires that some hardship should be suffered by individuals rather than that judicial proceedings should be held in secret."

"An amendment ought not to be allowed if it will occasion injustice; but if it can do no injustice, and will only save expense, it ought to be made."

"I for one will not re-open the floodgates of Admiralty jurisdiction upon the people of this country."

"To my mind when a great Judge, a master of the whole subject, thinking it necessary for the decision of the case to carefully examine into and to state the practice, it is nothing to say as against that, that it was not necessary for the decision."

"The Court ought never to come to the conclusion that two cases in the same Court, or in Courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction, are in conflict, unless it is obliged to. I agree that if two cases are in conflict the Court must say with which of them it agrees."

"Well, then, the moment there is a patent case one can see it before the case is opened, or called in the list. How can we see it? We can see it by a pile of books as high as this invariably... Now, what is the result of all this? Why that a man had better have his patent infringed, or have anything happen to him in this world, short of losing all his family by influenza, than have a dispute about a patent. His patent is swallowed up, and he is ruined. Whose fault is it? It is really not the fault of the law; it is the fault of the mode of conducting the law in a patent case. This is what causes all this mischief."

"Working days in England are not the same as working days in foreign ports, because working days in England, by the custom and habits of the English, if not by their law, do not include Sundays."

"It seems to me that whenever circumstances arise in the ordinary business of life in which, if two persons were ordinarily honest and careful, the one of them would make a promise to the other, it may properly be inferred that both of them understood that such a promise was given and accepted."

"I do not think that a Judge would wish any statement which he may have made in the course of a case, merely obiter and casually, to be treated as necessarily being an authority on the subject in question; but when a Judge has thought it necessary for the purpose of a case to make a deliberate examination of the practice of his Court, and to state such practice, I do not think the authority of such statement can be got rid of merely by arguing that it was not really necessary for the actual decision of the case. I think that such a statement if cited as an authority is entitled to great weight, though of course not binding on us as a decision."

"Personally, I detest any attempt to bring the law into maxims. Maxims are invariably wrong, that is, they are so general and large that they always include something which is not intended to be included."

"Parties cannot by consent give to the Court a power which it would not have without it."

"I agree that is the law, though I think it is a hard law; but we have nothing to do with the question of hardship."

"As to proceedings in Courts of justice, it is for the interest of all the public to hear what takes place in Court."

"Where a man calls himself by a name which is not his name, he is telling a falsehood."

"In the administration of justice, whether by a recognised legal Court or by persons who, although not a legal public Court, are acting in a similar capacity, public policy requires that, in order that there should be no doubt about the purity of the administration, any person who is to take part in it should not be in such a position that he might be suspected of being biassed."

"Every man ought to have the fullest opportunity of establishing his innocence if he can."

"No system of judicature can be suggested in which occasionally failure to insure complete justice may not arise."

"One cannot look too closely at and weigh in too golden scales the acts of men hot in their political excitement."

"Legality and oppression are not unknown to run hand in hand."

"I rejoice to think that since the days of Queen Elizabeth, our laws have been so far humanized that a bastard child is no longer a mere thing to be shunned by an overseer,—whose existence is unrecognised until it becomes a pauper, and whose only legitimate home is a workhouse, that it is no longer permissible to punish its unfortunate mother with hard labour for a year, nor its father with a whipping at the cart's tail; but that even an illegitimate child may find itself a member of some honest family, and that the sole obligation now cast upon its parents is that each may be compelled to bear his and her own fair share of the maintenance and education of the unfortunate offspring of their common failing."

"I must treat with reverence everything which Lord Kenyon has said: but not everything which text writers have represented him to have said, which he did not say."