Barrister

🇮🇳Mahatma Gandhi

Politics

nonviolence

1869–1948

"One of the objects of a newspaper is to understand popular feeling and to give expression to it; another is to arouse among the people certain desirable sentiments; and the third is fearlessly to expose popular defects."

Margaret Thatcher

Politics

1925–2013

"Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul."

🇵🇰Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Politics

1876–1948

"Think a hundred times before you take any decision, but once a decision is taken, stand by it as one man."

Jawaharlal Nehru

Politics

1889–1964

"History is almost always written by the victors and conquerors and gives their view. Or, at any rate, the victors' version is given prominence and holds the field."

🇮🇳Nanabhoy Palkhivala

Economics

1920–2002

"India is like a donkey carrying a sack of gold. The donkey does not know what it is carrying but is content to go along with its load on the back."

Fali Sam Nariman

Law

1929–2024

"Don't despair. Governments are the same everywhere - in every country."

Virchand Gandhi

Philosophy

1864–1901

"Even the street-sweeper is frequently more profoundly versed in subtle metaphysics and divine wisdom than the missionary sent to convert him."

"And lastly, if, after a day of rest, one should feel energised for recreation of an amorous kind, he or she must heed the cautionary chorus: ‘Never on a Sunday’."

Alexander Cockburn

Politics

1802–1880

"The First Law of Journalism: to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it."

Nathaniel Lindley

Law

1828–1921

"I confess that when I am sought to be driven to a conclusion which appears to me unreasonable and unjust, I at once suspect the validity of the premises, even if I can detect no flaw in the reasoning from them."

"Acts of hostility shall be intended matters of force."

William Brett

Law

1815–1789

"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."

Patrick Pearse

Literature

Irish nationalism

1879–1916

"The Murder Machine - Pearse's groundbreaking article on Montessori education"

James Fitzjames Stephen

Law

1829–1894

"Originality consists in thinking for yourself, not in thinking differently from other people."

🇮🇳Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

Politics

1875–1950

"There only one nationalist Muslim in India: Maulana Nehru."

🇭🇺Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner

Art

1840–1899

"M. Ikram Chaghatai: Writings of Dr. Leitner, Sang-e-Meel Publications, Lahore, 2002"

🇬🇧Wilkie Collins

Literature

1824–1889

"People who read stories are said to have excitable brains."

🇬🇧Keir Starmer

Politics

b. 1962

"When you say you will leave without a deal - do or die - what sort of message does that send to the people of Northern Ireland?"

Frederic William Maitland

History

1850–1906

"It was a court of politicians enforcing a policy, not a court of judges administering the law."

🇬🇧Edward Jenks

Law

1861–1939

"It is true, that a Law of Contract based on causae will always be an arbitrary and inelastic law; but it is a kind of law with which some great nations are satisfied at the present day."

🇬🇧Dominic Grieve

Politics

b. 1956

"I don't think is in any way inhibited by normal propriety in government."

🇮🇳M. C. Chagla

Politics

1900–1981

"I appeal to the Muslim community ... to join the national mainstream.... What we want is that all of us... should ... feel and think as Indians and should not get into separate compartments."

🇬🇧Arthur Kekewich

Law

1832–1907

"I do not think I can pass over the distinct words of Sir George Jessel, who knew practice as thoroughly as any Judge who ever sat on the bench."

James Joseph Sylvester

Mathematics

1814–1897

"Number, place, and combination . . . the three intersecting but distinct spheres of thought to which all mathematical ideas admit of being referred."

🇬🇧Anthony Fitzherbert

Law

1470–1538

"An housbande can not well thryue by his come without he haue other cattell, nor by his cattell without come. For els he shall be a byer, a borrower or a beggar."

"Peter B. Nockles, ‘Knox, Alexander ’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, October 2005, accessed 1 June 2007"

🇦🇺Malcolm Turnbull

Science

b. 1954

"Well the laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia."

W. S. Gilbert

Music

1836–1911

"I can tell a woman's age in half a minute — and I do!"

🇬🇧Fabian Picardo

Politics

b. 1972

"The position of the United Kingdom is as usual so nuanced that it's difficult to see where they are on the spectrum, but look, that's what Britain's like and we all love being British."

🇬🇧David_Mellor

Politics

b. 1949

"I'm afraid the people of Putney said: "Up your hacienda, Jimmy."

🇬🇧Emily Thornberry

Economics

b. 1960

"We have to negotiate a new agreement. That, we think, is likely to be a customs union that will look pretty much like the current customs union."

🇮🇪Arthur Murphy

1727–1805

"Above the vulgar flight of common souls."

🇬🇧Roger North

Politics

1651–1734

"And grant that a man read all the books of music that ever were wrote, I shall not allow that music is or can be understood out of them, no more than the taste of meats out of cookish receipt books."

🇬🇧Philip James Bailey

Literature

1816–1902

"Respect is what we owe; love what we give."

🇬🇧John Buchan

Politics

1875–1940

"You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn."