Politician Quotes

I have no interest sitting all day in Brussels committees enacting job-killing, democracy-destroying legislation inspired by the EU.

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)

The Bush National Security Strategy is the imperial edict of a superpower out to exploit its present supremacy to make itself permanent Lord Protector of the universe.

Being English means, to me, tea on vicarage lawns, roses in a summer twilight, people keeping themselves to themselves, well-fed cats purring on hearthrugs, the bottom right-hand column of the 'Times' correspondence column.

I think that's wrong... I actually believe that people of faith make better leaders... Whether they are Christians, as I am. My faith has sustained me through some very bad times. I've battled cancer, I've lost a child, I've been tested. But whether it's a person of Christian faith or Jewish faith or Muslim faith or other faiths, I think faith gives us humility, and empathy and optimism, and I think those are important things... Yes, I would be fine with that...

We've got to remember that the people who first hit us in 9/11 entered this country through Canada.

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

Method is everything in archaeology, my boy. Why, we always deal with our finds in order.

Sir Joseph Scott, 1st Baronet

There was never a continent naturally so clean, and made so dirty, as Australia. There was not an animal pest, scarcely a vegetable pest; fools and the old world supplied them all.

Randolph Bedford

There is but one Earth, tiny and fragile, and one must get 100,000 miles away to appreciate fully one's good fortune in living on it.

Michael Collins

Good jests ought to bite like lambs, not dogs: they should cut, not wound.

Charles II of England

Every man is the architect of his own fortune.

Appius Claudius Caecus

Time after time, on matters great and small, we are still standing on the sidelines, mutely accepting what is decided elsewhere instead of raising our voices and making our own choices. Scotland's much vaunted partnership of Jonah and the whale.

History never exactly repeats itself, but it does some rather good impressions.

Not thus HYPERBOLA; — with subtlest art The blue-eyed wanton plays her changeful part; Quick as her conjugated axes move Through every posture of luxurious love, Her supportive limbs with easiest grace expand....

No nostalgia runs deeper than that for something one has never known and now cannot obtain.

The only magic in our lives as runners is the magic of consistency. Not every run will make you feel great.

When I make up my mind, I act. If I speak, what I say, I will do. If the hail rattles, let the flowers be crushed. The oak of the forest will lift up its head to the sky and the storm, towering and unscathed.

The British had a poor record of retreating from colonies. There are more than ten years of transition period before our resumption of sovereignty. Will the British be irresponsible and "mess up" Hong Kong like comrade Deng Xiaoping said? We should be on guard. This is our major consideration for setting up the Joint Liaison Group. Surely, it will be beneficial for both countries, as other things may need to be settled by the two sides.

In a meeting with Xu Jiatun

I feel no wrath against the people, I am only doing my duty.

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh

There is a sacred realm of privacy for every man and woman where he makes his choices and decisions-a realm of his own essential rights and liberties into which the law, generally speaking, must not intrude.

Geoffrey Fisher

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?

Chicago has been characterized as the most segregated city in the United States, a city they said could never change.

Harold Washington

I must needs say my judgement was for the Parliament, as the King's, and Kingdom's, great and safest Council.

A Pack of Spanish Lies sent abroad in the world, first printed in the Spanish tongue, and translated out of the original. Now ripped up, unfolded and by just examination condemned, as containing false, corrupt and detestable wares worthy to be damned and burned.

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley