Boyle Roche

Sir Boyle Roche Irish politician, famed for his highly ornamented and often inaccurate speech, which often included amusing mixed metaphors and malapropisms.

Sourced

• ...it is impossible I could have been in two places at once, unless I were a bird.
  • In parliament, alluding to Jevon’s play, The Devil of a Wife.
    • Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
• There is no Levitical decree between nations, and on this occasion I can see neither sin nor shame in marrying our own sister.
  • In parliament, defending the proposed union of Ireland with Great Britain.
    • • Why we should put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity, for what has posterity ever done for us?
        • In a debate in the Irish House of Commons on the vote of a grant which was recommended by Sir John Parnell, Chancellor of the Exchequer, as one not likely to be felt burdensome for many years to come, it was observed in reply that the House had no right to load posterity with a debt for what could in no degree operate to their advantage. This quotation was Sir Boyle's response.
          • • It would surely be better ... to give up not only a part, but, if necessary, even the whole, of our constitution, to preserve the remainder!
              • Arguing for the habeas corpus suspension bill in Ireland.
                • • [...they] would cut us to mincemeat, and throw our bleeding heads on that table to stare us in the face.
                    • In disparagement of the French revolution and its practitioners.
                      • • It would surely be better ... to give up not only a part, but, if necessary, even the whole, of our constitution, to preserve the remainder.
                          • In parliament.
                            • • The best way to avoid danger is to meet it plump.
                                • In parliament.
                                  • • I hope, my lord, if you ever come within a mile of my house that you will stay there all night.
                                      • In a letter.
                                        • • [...I] answer boldly in the affirmative, "No!
                                            • Occasion unknown.
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                                                Attributed

                                                • I concluded from the beginning that this would be the end; and I am right, for it is not half over yet.
                                                • As I write these words, I am holding a rapier in one hand and a pistol in the other.
                                                • The only thing to prevent what's past is to put a stop to it before it happens.
                                                • At present there are such goings-on that everything is at a standstill.
                                                • At the end of a letter: P.S. If you do not receive this, of course it must have been miscarried; therefore I beg you to write and let me know.
                                                • I told you to make one longer than another, and instead you have made one shorter than the other - the opposite.
                                                • Half of the lies our opponents tell about us are not true.
                                                • All along the untrodden paths of the future, I can see the footprints of an unseen hand.
                                                • On a scene of great poverty: Little children who could neither walk nor talk were running about in the streets cursing their Maker.
                                                • The cup of Ireland's miseries has been overflowing for centuries, and is not yet full.
                                                • Their heads at present are hot, and will so remain till they grow cool again.
                                                • We should silence anyone who opposes the right to freedom of speech.
                                                
                                                

                                                Misattributed

                                                • A quart bottle should hold a quart.
                                                  • The title of a bill in the Irish House of Commons. Often misquoted as "a pint bottle should hold a quart."
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                                                      About

                                                      • Herodotus is not more indisputably the father of history than is Sir Boyle Roche the father of Bulls. No doubt there were makers of bulls before his day, even as brave men lived before Agamemnon; but they are not remembered, and if their bulls have survived them they are credited to Sir Boyle by a posterity generously forgiving and forgetful of his famous indictment.
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                                                          • ...as Sir Boyle Roche would say, like the last rose of summer...