Top 52 Quotes & Sayings by Gerry Adams

Hugging trees has a calming effect on me. I'm talking about enormous trees that will be there when we are all dead and gone. I've hugged trees in every part of this little island.

Your determination, selflessness and courage have brought the freedom struggle towards its fulfilment.

When I wrote 'Before The Dawn,' I made it quite clear that there are lots of people involved in my life who I can't talk about simply because I'd put them at risk.

I think there is a huge responsibility upon governments to understand the consequence of their decisions.

The catalyst for much of this change is the growing support for republicanism.

It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo.

I think the worst kind of grief is unacknowledged grief.

Sinn Fein has demonstrated the ability to play a leadership role as part of a popular movement towards peace, equality and justice.

I stopped buying Sunday papers about 15 years ago, because you'd buy handfuls of them, and what you got, because the hard news comes from so many other channels, was opinion pieces. You're better off spending the money on a good novel.

I like to think I'm very grounded. I'm very grounded in my family. I'm very grounded in my community.

The Good Friday Agreement and the basic rights and entitlements of citizens that are enshrined within it must be defended and actively promoted by London and Dublin.

It's hard to think of a 16-month child being anything other than a delight to be around.

But if republicans are to prevail, if the peace process is to be successfully concluded and Irish sovereignty and re-unification secured, then we have to set the agenda - no-one else is going to do that.

Making peace, I have found, is much harder than making war.

The Irish Republican Army has kept every commitment made by its leadership.

At that time, the army leadership said the implementation of this agreement would allow everyone, including the IRA, to take its political objectives forward by peaceful and democratic means.

You can only judge anything that happened in the times, in the times that that happened.

The last months, weeks and days have seen accelerating discussions, involving the DUP for the first time, about a comprehensive agreement which would see all outstanding matters dealt with and the Good Friday Agreement implemented in full.

In the past I have defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle. I did so because there was no alternative for those who would not bend the knee, or turn a blind eye to oppression, or for those who wanted a national republic.

But I also hold the very strong view that republicans need to lead by example.

We have to make sure the Good Friday Agreement works.

Republican patience with how unionism deals with the political institutions, and with key issues like equality and human rights, will be tested because, obviously, there will be a battle a day on these matters. So lets face up to all of this with our eyes wide open.

Your ability as republican volunteers, to rise to this challenge will mean that the two governments and others cannot easily hide from their obligations and their responsibility to resolve these problems.

Sinn Fein has the potential and capacity to become the vehicle for the attainment of republican objectives.

In this context the British and Irish governments will have to promote a new, imaginative and dynamic alternative in which both governments will share power in the north.

The days of humiliation, of second-class citizens and of inequality are over and gone forever.

If I didn't forgive the people who took me into the barracks and beat me unconscious over a period of days during the period when the British state was indicted for inhuman and degrading treatment in 1971-72, or even the guys who shot me, if you don't forgive them, you end up with unnecessary baggage.

Sinn Fein has productively taken the example of South Africa and, as we develop the peace process, we continue to use examples from South Africa.

The unionists also for their part, want to minimise the potential for change, not only on the equality agenda but on the issues of sovereignty and ending the union.

Such decisions will be far reaching and difficult. But you never lacked courage in the past. Your courage is now needed for the future.

When others stood idly by, you and your families gave your all, in defence of a risen people and in pursuit of Irish freedom and unity.

The way forward is by building political support for republican and democratic objectives across Ireland and by winning support for these goals internationally.

For good or ill, I'm a person of leadership. I do my best. I don't dodge responsibility.

We are totally committed to ending partition and to creating the conditions for unity and independence.

One man's transparency is another's humiliation.

For over 30 years, the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms.

We can be revisionist, and that's a good thing to be at times, but we shouldn't airbrush our history, so we can only make judgments in the objective conditions of that time.

War... some people glamorise war and glorify war. It's not nice, from whatever point of view you come from.

If you militarise a situation, you beg for an armed response.

It's been a long time coming but the reality is that this process is at a crossroads.

A real possibility now exists for a Government that is not led by either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil

Once water charges are in place they will only go up. This has been the history of all these charges

No Irish nationalist could support any treaty which institutionalizes British government claims to a part of Irish national territory. Indeed, the term - 'constitutional nationalism'- used by Mr.Mallon (SDLP) and his colleagues to describe their political philosophy is a contradiction in terms. The only constitutional nationalist in Ireland today is Sean McBride. He puts his nationalism within a framework of Irish constitutionality. Mr. Mallon, however, puts his within the framework of British constitutionality. Irish nationalism within British constitutionality is a contradiction in terms.

Your determination, selflessness and courage have brought the freedom struggle towards its fulfillment.

Peace cannot be built on exclusion. That has been the price of the past 30 years.

There needs to be nationalist and republican confidence in unionism.

Armed struggle is a necessary and morally correct form of resistance in the Six Counties against a government whose presence is rejected by the vast majority of the Irish people There are those who tell us that the British government will not be moved by armed struggle. As has been said before, the history of Ireland and of British colonial involvement throughout the world tells us that they will not be moved by anything else.

It might or might not be right to kill, but sometimes it is necessary.

War some people glamorise war and glorify war. It's not nice, from whatever point of view you come from.

I nominate the Reverend Ian Paisley for the position of First Minister of northern Ireland

I was leaving the Belfast court, where I had been called to answer a very flimsy charge, later dismissed. You're relatively safe in such areas in the Irish community, but to go to downtown Belfast for me is dangerous. My appearance in court had been well advertised by the police. I think it was too much of a coincidence that the people who shot me were just passing by.

There can be no such things as an Irish nationalist accepting the loyalist veto and partition. You cannot claim to be an Irish nationalist if you consent to an internal six county settlement and if you are willing to negotiate the state of Irish society with a foreign government.