John Major Quotes

In the next ten years we will have to continue to make changes which will make the whole of this country a genuinely classless society.

Fifty years from now Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and - as George Orwell said - “old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist” and if we get our way - Shakespeare still read even in school.

A country of long shadows on county cricket grounds, warm beer, green suburbs, dog lovers, and old maids cycling to holy communion through the morning mist.

The first requirement of politics is not intellect or stamina but patience.

Politics is a very long run game and the tortoise will usually beat the hare.

Whether you agree with me, disagree with me, like me or loathe me, don't bind my hands when I am negotiating on behalf of the British people.

The politician who never made a mistake never made a decision.

I want to see us build a country that is at ease with itself, a country that is confident and a country that is able and willing to build a better quality of life for all its citizens.

When I was in office the fundraising was done by the party treasurers.

Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be too clever by half.

The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

I inherited a sick economy and passed on a sound one.

But one abiding regret for me is that, in between, I did not have the resources to put in place the educational and social changes about which I cared to much; I made only a beginning, and it was not enough.

I have been reading the press more regularly than others over 50 years and it seems to me that there are things that have changed in the press that have changed its character.

If you look at things that really affect people's lives - sport, the arts, charities - they were always at the back of the queue for government money - health, social security, defence, pensions were all way ahead. And each of those areas - sports, the arts, the lottery - got relatively petty cash from the government.

A consensus politician is someone who does something that he doesn't believe is right because it keeps people quiet when he does it.

Well, I think there's a distinction between sexing-up the intelligence and sexing-up the presentation of the intelligence.

Let's turn British inventions into British industries, British factories and British jobs. Let them make pounds for us, not dollars marks or yen for others.

Ronnie Barker will forever be remembered as one of the great comic actors.

You don't forget crises and neither does the Queen.

I will turn directly to the Asylum Bill later.

I would rather go while I am being urged to stay, than to stay beyond the time when I should go.

The world has gone through tremendous change recently; both nationally andinternationally.

[on Queen Mother] Our country is the richer for her life and the poorer at her death.

I am not running as Son of Margaret Thatcher. I have my own priorities and my own programmes.

I'm very proud of what my parents achieved and what they stood for.

They didn't have much, but in many ways they were richer than most.

My mother was the center of the family.

Well, I have concerns about the effectiveness of Europe to compete.

Political suicide can end a career.

Give the Germans five deutschmarks and they will save it.

But give the British £5 and they will borrow £25 and spend it.

If the answer is more politicians, you are asking the wrong question.

If is a very big preposition.

They seem to have moved from total opposition to total subservience.

I can't legislate to change human nature.

Too many people looked to me in the eye and did not tell me the truth.

You're lucky to head a coalition government. I am a coalition government on my own.

I am walking over hot coals suspended over a deep pit at the bottom of which are a large number of vipers baring their fangs.

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.

UN goodwill may be a bottomless pit but it's by no means limitless.

You cannot think of Margaret without Denis.

There comes a time when every Prime Minister needs someone to give him or her the unvarnished truth, and, in Denis, Margaret had just that.

Some people eat eggs, I wear them.

The British don't runaway from terrorism.

We have had 30-odd years of terrorism in our own country from the Irish Republican Army. We're used to it.

When our backs are against the wall, we must turn around and march forward.

Tentacles of terrorism spread everywhere

Liberty is equally desirable to the good and to the bad, to the brave and to the dastardly.

The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change.

My father was 64 when I was conceived, my mother 38, which was late for babies in the 1940s.

I mean if you have ever found a politician who says, 'No, no, I would do everything exactly as I did,' then you can tell when he is lying because his lips are moving.

Neil Kinnock's speeches go on for so long because he has nothing to say and so he has no way of knowing when he's finished saying it.