British Politician Quotes

Winston Churchill

Margaret Thatcher

Tony Blair

David Cameron

Benjamin Disraeli

Anne of Great Britain

Neville Chamberlain

No Western nation has to build a wall round itself to keep its people in.

Margaret Thatcher

Television? The word is half Latin and half Greek. No good can come of it.

Socialists make the mistake of confusing individual worth with success. They believe you cannot allow people to succeed in case those who fail feel worthless.

Kenneth Baker, Baron Baker of Dorking

I am of opinion that it is highly requisite forthwith to pass a law, prohibiting upon great penalties all trade with our enemies, and more especially the supplying of them with arms, ammunition or provisions of any kind whatsoever.

William Shirley

The basic drive behind real philosophy is curiosity about the world, not interest in the writings of philosophers. Each of us emerges from the preconsciousness of babyhood and simply finds himself here, in it, in the world. That experience alone astonishes some people. What is all this — what is the world? And what are we? From the beginning of humanity some have been under a compulsion to ask these questions, and have felt a craving for the answers. This is what is really meant by any such phrase as "mankind's need for metaphysics."

In Great Britain, governments often change their policies without changing their men. In France, they usually change their men without changing their policy.

Winston Churchill

People are very interested in politics, they just don't like it labelled 'politics'.

No amount of study or learning will make a man a leader unless he has the natural qualities of one.

Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell

It is impossible that the whisper of a faction should prevail against the voice of a nation.

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell

During the days of his last illness:

If Mr. Selwyn calls again, show him up: if I am alive I shall be delighted to see him; and if I am dead he would like to see me.

Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland

Democracy is perhaps the most promiscuous word in the world of public affairs.

They found more dangerous chemicals in Coca-Cola's Dasani mineral water than they did in the whole of Iraq.

Sin is bad in the eye, worse in the tongue, worse still in the heart, but worst of all in the life.

Jolie hypothese elle explique tant de chases. A pretty hypothesis which explains many things.

Most idealistic people are skint. I have discovered that people with money have no imagination, and people with imagination have no money.

Rainbow George Weiss

These, then, are the qualities of my ideal diplomatist. Truth, accuracy, calm, patience, good temper, modesty and loyalty. They are also the qualities of an ideal diplomacy. But, the reader may object, you have forgotten intelligence, knowledge, discernment, prudence, hospitality, charm, industry, courage and even tact. I have not forgotten them. I have taken them for granted.

Harold Nicolson

The sea has formed the English character and the essential England is to be found in those who follow it. From blue waters they have learned mercifulness, and they have also learned - in the grimmest of schools - precision and resolution. The sea endures no makeshifts. If a thing is not exactly right it will be vastly wrong.

Complexity means recognising difference and valuing it. Europe is not the United States of America. It is not a nation state at this point. It is a collection of states with some common culture and some very different cultural aspects. To that, we must also add an unbelievably bloody history. Building a good Europe - which must be the goal of a vision based in the common good, therefore means addressing complexity - accepting it, and embracing it.

This is not a Budget, but a revolution; a social and political revolution of the first magnitude.

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

The power of the press is very great, but not so great as the power of suppress.

Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe

I am a doer and I want to do things, but there exists the terrible possibility in politics that you might never win.

John Smith (Labour Party leader)

Can't' will be the epitaph of the British Empire - unless we wake up in time.

There is practically no figure whom the press would rather vilify than the wise virgin.

He gave himself diligently to mathematics, which he liked "vastly." "I believe they are useful," he writes, "and I am sure they are entertaining, which is alone enough to recommend them to me."

Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet

The feminine graces of Madame de Sevigne's genius are exquisitely charming; but the philosophy and eloquence of Madame de Stael are above the distinction of sex.

James Mackintosh