John Major Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• 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.

  John Major

  Regret, Voice, Feet

  John Major (2013). “John Major: The Autobiography”, p.9, HarperCollins UK

  18 Copy quote

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

  John Major

  Wall, March, Turns

  7 Copy quote

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

  John Major

  Believe, People, Doe

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• 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.

  John Major

  Patience, Running, Games

  "The Wit and Wisdom of Margaret Thatcher: And Other Tory Legends". Book by Richard Benson, 2010.

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• 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.

  John Major

  Thinking, Giving, Needs

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• "Government gets things right" does not encourage sales. "Government makes another blunder" does encourage sales, so there's a commercial imperative that pushes sensationalism.

  John Major

  Government, Doe, Blunders

  "'I shouldn't have read the papers so much when I was PM'". Interview with Julia Langdon, www.theguardian.com. March 4, 2007.

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  John Major

  Sports, Art, Government

  7 Copy quote

• If is a very big preposition.

  John Major

  Bigs, Prepositions, Ifs

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• My mother was the center of the family.

  John Major

  Mother

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• 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.

  John Major

  Reading, Character, Years

  "I shouldn't have read the papers so much when I was PM" by Julia Langdon, www.theguardian.com. March 4, 2007.

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  John Major

  Numbers, Hot, Coal

  "Major threatens general election if he fails to win Maastricht vote". "The Sunday Times" Newspaper, October 25, 1992.

  68 Copy quote

• 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.

  John Major

  Lying, Moving, Mean

  7 Copy quote

• I want Britain to punch its weight in the European Community.

  John Major

  Community, Weight, Want

  4 Copy quote

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

  John Major

  Brave, Liberty, Desirable

  John Major (1821). “An Introduction to Latin Syntax ...: To which is Subjoined An Epitome of Ancient History ... to which is Added a Proper Collection of Historical and Chronological Questions”, p.50

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

  John Major

  Government, Lucky, Coalitions

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• Whatever efforts for peace President Gorbachev had in mind, they were pretty substantially undercut very swiftly by Saddam Hussein.

  John Major

  Effort, Mind, President

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

  John Major

  Europe, Britain, Moved

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• I think the biggest mistake I made was this wretched ability to see both sides of an argument.

  John Major

  Mistake, Thinking, Sides

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• If you look back historically, admittedly a long time ago, there were three Afghan wars in which Britain didn't even come a good second. In more recent years the Russians were there with 120,000 men for ten years.

  John Major

  War, Men, Years

  6 Copy quote

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

  John Major

  Mother, Baby, Father

  "John Major: The old man and me" by Angela Wintle, www.theguardian.com. September 21, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• I will turn directly to the Asylum Bill later.

  John Major

  Asylums, Bills, Turns

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• 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.

  John Major

  Clever, Stupid, Silly

  1991 Quoted in the Observer, 7 Jul.

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

  John Major

  Thinking, Distinction, Wells

  "Former PM John Major: 'British don't turn tail' from terror". Interview with Wolf Blitzer, www.cnn.com. September 10, 2003.

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

  John Major

  Eye, People, Tell Me The Truth

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• I thought I could do something different from any Conservative prime minister before me. But I couldn't.

  John Major

  Different, Conservative, Prime

  "John Major: The old man and me". Interview with Angela Wintle, www.theguardian.com. September 21, 2012.

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