British Quotes

A fairly bright boy is far more intelligent and far better company than the average adult.

You can get on with your job. I'm going to get on with mine. And mine is to deliver for the people of Northern Ireland, that's what they expect from me and I'm not going to be deflected by interesting academic or media speculation or attempts to take the whole debate back.

When you look at what I've done here, you see a consistent theme of reforms which is not driven by any dogma from across the water, but a radical agenda to make sure Northern Ireland's people enjoy equal opportunities, driven by the values of social justice.

What's crucial is that the IRA produce a credible statement that paramilitary and criminality activity is a thing of the past. That they are committed to a future which is exclusively peaceful and democratic.

What my job is, is to get on with getting the process of democratic politics, back on the road, entrenching the peace settlement, and I ask you to judge me on my record.

We'll be launching the new public prosecution service in Northern Ireland tomorrow. I'll be doing it in Belfast tomorrow. This is an entirely new era, in which criminal justice now exercised on an equal basis, not the old basis in which community division was a feature.

We now have a political process, we've had a period of parties that have been fighting each other quite literally with bombs and bullets, talking to each other, and having sat together in the assembly and sharing government with each other.

There will be no support in the island of Ireland for building a nuclear power station.

The big missing part of the jig-saw is to get the assembly back up and running here in Northern Ireland, to get shared government back in business, that is my objective, and we await the IRA statement to see if this will trigger a new dawn.

That Sinn Fein, as I've already indicated, their leaders have already indicated that's what they want to achieve - once we get that credible statement, then we can get around the table and start to move forward, and I'm confident we can do so.

Taxpayers will not stand for - nor should they - the funding of poster sites, leaflets or advertising. What people will support is funding for political education, for training, for party organization.

My job now, as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is to take this process forward, and that I'm determined to do, whatever old clippings you dig out and whatever old quotes you put before me.

It's been fascinating watching all those pictures of me with a lot more hair Jeremy, and looking very young. And we've all got things we've said, twenty, thirty years ago, indeed the whole world has changed since then.

I've had very good meetings with Unionist leaders, Democratic Unionist Party, Ian Paisley and his team.

I'm going to be looking forward, asked to be judged on my record, not taken back as has been the - in a sense, the tendency throughout politics in Northern Ireland, is to always look back, always look at what was said a long time ago, instead of looking forward.

I was never Vice Chair of the Troops Out Movement.

I strongly support European sanctions against Mugabe and his ruling clique. We must do all in our power to help the people of Zimbabwe achieve their freedom and prosperity once again.

A lot of leading countries in the world, including the United States and Russia, have to take their responsibilities much more seriously to ensure we are back on the road to peace and stability.

The introduction of religious passion into politics is the end of honest politics, and the introduction of politics into religion is the prostitution of true religion.

The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the right.

In a confrontation with the politics of power, the soft center has always melted away.

I regard freedom of expression as the primary right without which one can not have a proper functioning democracy.

A reasonable doubt is nothing more than a doubt for which reasons can be given. The fact that 1 or 2 men out of 12 differ from the others does not establish that their doubts are reasonable.

The idea that a war can be won by standing on the defensive and waiting for the enemy to attack is a dangerous fallacy, which owes its inception to the desire to evade the price of victory.

So long as the opposing forces are at the outset approximately equal in numbers and moral and there are no flanks to turn, a long struggle for supremacy is inevitable.

Once the mass of the defending infantry become possessed of low moral, the battle is as good as lost.

Obviously, the greater the length of a war the higher is likely to be the number of casualties in it on either side.

Further, a defensive policy involves the loss of the initiative, with all the consequent disadvantages to the defender.

I gave up lots of things I love doing: writing, and business, and playing the piano and so on.

I don't think a wise thing at this moment is for Israel to launch a military attack on Iran.