Tony Blair Quotes

93 Sourced Quotes

It is important that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world.

Tony Blair
Don't say yes to that question, that would be difficult.
Blair quickly interrupted when a reporter asked Bush if he sees Blair as his poodle

Tony Blair
A day like today is not a day for, sort of, soundbites, really - we can leave those at home - but I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders, I really do.

Tony Blair
It is not a sensible or intelligent response for us in Europe to ridicule American argument or parody their political leadership.

Tony Blair
What you can't do is have a situation where you get a rejection of the treaty and then you just bring it back with a few amendments and say we will have another go. You can't do that and I am not going to get drawn into speculating the way forward because I don't intend to lose the referendum.

Tony Blair
Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing.

Tony Blair
The British are special. The world knows it. In our innermost thoughts we know it. This is the greatest nation on earth. So it has been an honour to serve it. I give my thanks to you, the British people, for the times that I have succeeded, and my apologies to you for the times I have fallen short. But good luck.

Tony Blair
We do, as a new Government, have to be extremely careful after 18 years in opposition. A lot of people who worked for us, they then go on and work for the lobby firms. I think we have to be very careful with people fluttering around the new Government, trying to make all sorts of claims of influence, that we are purer than pure, that people understand that we will not have any truck with anything that is improper in any shape or form at all.

Tony Blair
I thought that it was the most predictable speech that we could have heard from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He may want to pose as the nice Dr. Jekyll, but we know that, deep down, he is still the same old Mr. Howard.

Tony Blair
The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.

Tony Blair
We can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world.

Tony Blair
I fear my own conscience on Africa. I fear the judgement of future generations, where history properly calculates the gravity of the suffering. I fear them asking: but how could wealthy people, so aware of such suffering, so capable of acting, simply turn away to busy themselves with other things? What greater call to action could there be? Did they really know and yet do nothing? I feel that judgement of the future alongside the now. It gives me urgency. It fills me with determination.

Tony Blair
I think this has gone beyond, as it were, Al Qaida as a specific network. I mean, this is — there is no central command in this ideology, the way that, you know, you would normally describe one unit of — that leads and operation. It's not like that. But the fact is that they are loosely linked by an ideology. They have very strong links with each other, right across the national boundaries. And you know, would be no surprise to me if the people that were engaged in the Mumbai attacks had links with other countries as well.

Tony Blair
The intelligence is clear: [Saddam Hussein] continues to believe that his weapons of mass destruction programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression. It is essential to his regional power. Prior to the inspectors coming back in, he was engaged in a systematic exercise in concealment of those weapons.

Tony Blair
The full horror of what has happened in the United States earlier today is now becoming clearer. It is hard even to contemplate the utter carnage and terror which has engulfed so many innocent people. We've offered President Bush and the American people our solidarity, our profound sympathy, and our prayers. But it is plain that citizens of many countries round the world, including Britain, will have been caught up in this terror.

Tony Blair
This is not a time for soundbites. We've left them at home. I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders.

Tony Blair
We've already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.

Tony Blair
Arrayed against us: the forces of conservatism, the cynics, the elites, the establishment. On our side, the forces of modernity and justice.

Tony Blair
We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years–contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence–Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.

Tony Blair
The first rule in politics is that there are no rules, at least not in the sense of inevitable defeats or inevitable victories. If you have the right policy and the right strategy, you always have a chance of winning. Without them, you can lose no matter how certain the victory seems.

Tony Blair
What amazes me is how many people are happy for Saddam to stay. They ask why we don't get rid of Mugabe, why not the Burmese lot. Yes, let's get rid of them all. I don't because I can't, but when you can you should.

Tony Blair
As for those that carried out these attacks there are no adequate words of condemnation. Their barbarism will stand as their shame for all eternity.

Tony Blair
Analogies with the past are never properly accurate and analogies especially with the rising fascism can be easily misleading, but in pure chronology I sometimes wonder if we're not in the 1920s or 1930s again... This ideology now has a state, Iran, that is prepared to back and finance terror in the pursuit of destabilising countries whose people wish to live in peace.

Tony Blair
Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government.

Tony Blair
Freedom of information: Three harmless words. I look at those words as I write them, and feel like shaking my head till it drops off my shoulders. You idiot. You naïve, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop.

Tony Blair
The reason we are finding it hard to win this battle is that we're not actually fighting it properly. We're not actually standing up to these people and saying, "It's not just your methods that are wrong, your ideas are absurd. Nobody is oppressing you. Your sense of grievance isn't justified."

Tony Blair
Go round smiling at everyone, and get other people to shoot them.
On constituency party enemies

Tony Blair
So, of course, the visions are painted in the colours of the rainbow, and the reality is sketched in duller tones of black and white and grey. But I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong. That is your call. But believe one thing, if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country.

Tony Blair
The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us.

Tony Blair
Sometimes, and in particular dealing with a dictator, the only chance of peace is a readiness for war.

Tony Blair