Denis Healey Quotes

• World events do not occur by accident. They are made to happen, whether it is to do with national issues or commerce; and most of them are staged and managed by those who hold the purse strings.

  Denis Healey

  Money, Issues, Political

  62 Copy quote

• The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison wall.

  Denis Healey

  Wall, Business, Differences

  "Holes in the Net". www.economist.com. May 04, 2006.

  90 Copy quote

• I often compare Margaret Thatcher with Florence Nightingale. She stalks through the wards of our hospitals as a lady with a lamp. Unfortunately, it's a blowlamp.

  Denis Healey

  Florence Nightingale, Lamps, Stalking

  22 Copy quote

• Being attacked by him is like being savaged by a dead sheep.

  Denis Healey

  Sarcastic, Sheep

  On being criticized by Sir Geoffrey Howe in the House of Commons, 'Hansard' 14 June 1978, col. 1027

  12 Copy quote

• It is a good thing to follow the First Law of Holes: if you are in one, stop digging.

  Denis Healey

  Digging A Hole, Law, Firsts

  "The old bruiser who remained the boy next door". Interview with William Keegan, www.theguardian.com. December 2, 2006.

  17 Copy quote

• Unless you understand the history of a situation, you can't ever hope to solve problems.

  Denis Healey

  Problem, Situation, Solve

  11 Copy quote

• Squeeze property speculators until the pips squeak.

  Denis Healey

  Rich

  Speech in Lincoln, The Times (p. 4), February 19, 1974.

  11 Copy quote

• Trying to create a sense of common interest does involve getting people actually to work together on common problems. It can't be created by law, that's why I disagree with the liberal approach becuase it's essentially a lawyer's approach.

  Denis Healey

  Law, People, Trying

  15 Copy quote

• Socialism to me is establishing social control of power in society, and where that differs from liberalism for example which aims at a similar situation in some respects, is we think you can only establish control over power by changing the structure and distribution of power, notably economic power.

  Denis Healey

  Thinking, Distribution Of Power, Example

  15 Copy quote

• Nothing is more dangerous that the politician who uses politics as a surrogate for an unsatisfactory personal life.

  Denis Healey

  Use, Politician, Dangerous

  10 Copy quote

• The right hon. Gentleman will be known for ever as the only Chancellor in the post-war period who brought this country to the brink of bankruptcy.

  Denis Healey

  Country, War, Gentleman

  9 Copy quote

• The Americans have a very active presence and policy in every single part of the world and if we broke with them, we would lose any possibility of influencing them. They would go in for global unilateralism, and the world would be a more dangerous place.

  Denis Healey

  Would Be, World, Influence

  12 Copy quote

• Mrs Thatcher tells us she has given the French President a piece of her mind... not a gift I would receive with alacrity.

  Denis Healey

  Mind, President, Pieces

  9 Copy quote

• Many of us in the West have come to feel that the development of technology in the military and economic fields has produced a single world in which the central problems, both military and economic, are going to require co-operation rather than continued confrontation and competition.

  Denis Healey

  Military, Technology, Competition

  8 Copy quote

• I've got a happy marriage, which is the most important singular thing.

  Denis Healey

  Important, Happy Marriage

  7 Copy quote

• If you’re in a hole, stop digging.

  Denis Healey

  Digging, Holes, Ifs

  12 Copy quote

• Karl Marx himself preferred a glass of claret to the mug of tea affected by some of his recent converts.

  Denis Healey

  Glasses, Tea, Mug

  7 Copy quote

• An aircraft which is used by wealthy people on their expense accounts, whose fares are subsidized by much poorer taxpayers.

  Denis Healey

  People, Aviation, Used

  6 Copy quote

• First law on holes - when you're in one, stop digging!

  Denis Healey

  Funny, Life, Law

  9 Copy quote

• I've always criticised American policy when I've disagreed with it. Just as I've criticised British policy. I was violently anti-Suez and pro-American in 1956, just as I was violently anti-Soviet on the invasion of Hungary which took place at the same time.

  Denis Healey

  Invasion, Hungary, British

  7 Copy quote

• We cannot hope to achieve full employment and sustain it until we have mastered inflation.

  Denis Healey

  Employment, Economics, Achieve

  7 Copy quote

• War inside countries is all too common.

  Denis Healey

  Country, War, Common

  4 Copy quote

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