British Politician Quotes

But I must not go on singling out names. One must not be a name-dropper, as Her Majesty remarked to me yesterday.

Norman St John-Stevas

Wine has made me bold, but not foolish; has induced me to say silly things, but not do them.

Denis Healey: Can he assure us there is no question of American military intervention as this could only make the situation worse?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: There is no question of that.

Each successive Labour Government has been the most rapacious, doctrinaire and unpatriotic conspiracy to be seen this side of the Iron Curtain.

You can bend it and twist it... You can misuse and abuse it... But even God cannot change the Truth.

Michael Levy, Baron Levy

What right does the public have to interfere with my private life? None.

On his parliamentary expenses

It is never wise to appear to be more clever than you are. It is sometimes wise to appear slightly less so.

William Whitelaw, 1st Viscount Whitelaw

Several of the women attending Cabinet —myself included—have been treated by you as little more than female window dressing.

He thinks nothing more absurd than the common notion of Instruction, as if Science were to be poured into the Mind, like water into a cistern, that passively waits to receive all that comes.

James Harris (grammarian)

I have principles and I am not going to be forced to compromise them.

You can't think rationally on an empty stomach, and a whole lot of people can't do it on a full stomach either.

John Reith, 1st Baron Reith

We want the mathematical genius - there is work for him. We want the literary genius - there is work for him, especially in my office. We want the scientific brain - there is more than enough work for him. We want the man of brains and we want the man of common sense and little brain. We want the man of initiative and the man of action, the methodical man and even the crank. We open our ranks widely to all.

Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard

Quitters have the good sense to admit their mistakes, cut their losses, and move on.

O worship the King, all-glorious above;
O gratefully sing his power and his love:
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendour, and girded with praise.

You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy…In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women. You must entirely resist both temptations, and, while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy. Do your duty bravely. Fear God. Honour the King.

Religion and Science are to be finally reconciled... when Religion has abandoned every dogma and every positive belief, and takes the shape of a final negative proposition that Science never rejected [that its explanations are proximate and relative], and has long affirmed.

J. M. Robertson

The tendency everywhere in America to concentrate power and responsibility in one man is unmistakable.

Of British Cabinet government:

I don't think collective responsibility is a myth. I think it is a reality. It is cumbersome. It is difficult. It has all sorts of disadvantages and it is possible it may need to change [...] probably under any of these systems it is going to be a bit of a shambles. But I do think it has got to be, so far as possible, a democratic and accountable shambles.

John Hunt, Baron Hunt of Tanworth

I dislike censorship. Like an appendix it is useless when inert and dangerous when active.

Maurice Edelman

For a profest architect is proud, opiniative and troublesome, seldom at hand, and a head workman pretending to the designing part, is full of paltry vulgar contrivances; therefore be your owne architect, or sitt still.

With what a bold brush volcanoes can stain a whole landscape...

Martin Conway, 1st Baron Conway of Allington

Loopholes are not always of a fixed dimension. They tend to enlarge as the numbers that pass through wear them away.

Harold Lever, Baron Lever of Manchester

The colonization and exploitation of Africa and the enslavement of African people must be the biggest crime in the whole of history, and one from which we still suffer, both materially and psychologically. Yet we never had even an apology, let alone any form of compensation.

[National Socialism] has survived the flames of war and the tempest of vilification because, when war has done its worst and vilification has run its entire gamut, National Socialism remains, in the final analysis, synonymous with higher man's will to survive, his instinct for health and strength, and his desire for beauty in life; and, as long as that will, that instinct, and that desire remain on this earth, the creed of National Socialism will remain, indestructible.

From the days when the miners' leaders thought they owned the Government to the day when every miner owns part of his own mine – that's the British revolution.

Cecil Parkinson