Legislator Quotes

There are wise people who talk ever so knowingly and complacently about "the working classes," and satisfy themselves that a day's hard intellectual work is very much harder than a day's hard manual toil, and is righteously entitled to much bigger pay. Why, they really think that, you know, because they all know about the one, but haven't tried the other. But I know all about both; and as far as I am concerned, there isn't money enough in the universe to hire me to swing a pickaxe thirty days, but I will do the hardest kind of intellectual work for just as near nothing as you can cipher it down--and I will be satisfied, too. Intellectual "work" is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation and its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer, is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the magician with the fiddle-bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him--why certainly, he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same. The law of work does seem utterly unfair--but there it is, and nothing can change it: the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash, also.

The same things are best both for individuals and for states, and these are the things which the legislator ought to implant in the minds of his citizens.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan [is] easily the most original thinker in the Senate.

I have been in more classrooms than any legislator will ever walk into in their lives, and I see wonderful, caring, dedicated teaching out there.

REPRESENTATIVE, n. In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next.

The honorable senator who introduced the legislation to pay me the $25,000 for my Civil War negative collection demanded half the proceeds, but I will not name the honorable gentleman.

Don't be afraid of me. I'm a law maker I'm not a law breaker.

The member of Congress who is not making a career of politics looks quite differently at the world.

In all forms of government the people is the true legislator.

I'm a good legislator. I'm a bad some other things.

Instead of taking a very high-paying type of law job or something that I might be able to do, I have been a legislator. That's what I do. I think it's an honorable profession - if you're honest and have integrity and work hard.

Paul Ryan has been a responsible legislator and public servant, almost alone among members of Congress in his belief that we need to strengthen and save our social entitlements.

As a California state legislator, I supported our cap-and-trade law to force polluters to pay for releasing harmful greenhouse gases to combat climate change.

If you can’t learn to compromise an issue without compromising yourself then you better not be a legislator and you better not marry.

Senator: Person who makes laws in Washington when not doing time.

Starting in 2005, my first session in the legislature, my colleagues elected me to be Democratic whip.

Orrin Hatch has a five pound tongue in a four pound head.

The good lawgiver should inquire how states and races of men and communities may participate in a good life, and in the happiness which is attainable by them.

We worked very well with Mark Sanford. We stood shoulder to shoulder fighting for the principles that we believe in. But another person that stood there as well was a legislator, State Senator Larry Grooms.

Probably the most effective legislator we've ever had.

An MP is an MP whether male or female.

Being a new mother was a joyful and sometimes overwhelming experience - and as the first Missouri female state legislator to have a baby while in office, having heath care for myself and my son gave me some needed peace of mind.

The legislator commands the future.

Being an MP is not a desperately hard life, like going down the pit or working in the steelworks - with which I am all too familiar, having been brought up in the city of Sheffield; and it certainly isn't badly paid compared with any of my constituents.

I have the greatest respect and admiration for Congressman Issa, but I don't intend to be Darrell Issa-like.