British Politician Quotes

Winston Churchill

Margaret Thatcher

Tony Blair

David Cameron

Anne of Great Britain

Benjamin Disraeli

Neville Chamberlain

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

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

Margaret Thatcher

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

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell

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

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."

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

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

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

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

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

The Conservative Party always in time forgives those who were wrong. Indeed often, in time, they forgive those who were right.

When I came here seventeen years ago and I said that I wanted to lead a campaign to get Britain to leave the European Union, you all laughed at me — well, I have to say, yow're not laughing now, are you?

Whoever of ye Whigs thinks I am to be Hecktor'd or frighted into a Complyance tho I am a woman, are mightely mistaken in me. I thank God I have a Soul above that, & am too much conserned for my reputation to do any thing to forfeit it.

Anne of Great Britain

India has left a deeper mark upon the history the philosophy and the religion of mankind than any other terrestrial unit in the universe.

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston

Politicians are like monkeys. The higher they climb, the more revolting are the parts they expose.

Gwilym Lloyd George, 1st Viscount Tenby

When once you have plunged into the strife for power, it is the fear of those who are seeking for power over you that so easily persuades to all the great crimes.

Auberon Herbert

I do not believe there is a long-term future for the privately rented sector in its present form.

Anthony Crosland

There is no end to observations on the difference between the measures likely to be pursued by a minister backed by a standing army, and those of a court awed by the fear of an armed people.

I love to consider an Infidel, whether distinguished by the title of deist, atheist, or free-thinker, by three different lights, in his solitude, his afflictions, and his last moments.... [In these situations such people show themselves] in solitude, incapable or rapture or elevation,... in distress, [with] a halter or a pistol the only refuge [they] can fly to,... [and liable to conversion] at the approach of death.

In the last Parliament, the House of Commons had more MPs called John than all the women MPs put together.

I was tenaciously opposed by the governor and deputy-governor of the Bank, who had seats in parliament, and I had the City for an antagonist on almost every occasion.

William Ewart Gladstone

Trusting in the God of our fathers and confident that our cause is just, we will never surrender our heritage.

If we expect to inherit the blessings of our Fathers, we should return a little more to their primitive Simplicity of Manners.

Of course there are regrets. I shall regret always that I found my own authentic voice in politics. I was too conservative, too conventional. Too safe, too often. Too defensive. Too reactive. Later, too often on the back foot.

The only lasting solution is that Europe itself should gradually find its way to an internal equilibrium and a limitation of armaments by political appeasement.

Philip Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian