Top 17 Quotes & Sayings by Michael Howard

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British historian Michael Howard.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
Michael Howard

Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005. He previously held cabinet positions in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, including Secretary of State for Employment, Secretary of State for the Environment and Home Secretary.

The important thing when you are going to do something brave is to have someone on hand to witness it.
Let us be clear. Prison works. It ensures that we are protected from murderers, muggers and rapists, and it makes many who are tempted to commit crime think twice.
I make no apologies for any inconsistencies or contradictions in my essays. Those who do not change their minds in the course of a decade have probably stopped thinking all together. The true use of history, whether civil or military, is not to make man clever for the next time, it is to make him wise forever.
The true use of history, whether civil or military, is not to make man clever for the next time, it is to make him wise forever.
Tony Blair is already secretly grinning at the prospect of his third victory. You don't have to settle for that.
I am happy to debate the past with the Prime Minister... I have a big dossier on his past, and I did not even have to sex it up.
What is Parliament for if it is not to be a means to make ministers accountable for the services for which they are responsible.
We must rediscover the habit of thinking the best of each other — © Michael Howard
We must rediscover the habit of thinking the best of each other
We cannot possibly take them all into this country [asylum seekers] - it is a completely unrealistic expectation.
A common language is the most obvious binding element in any society.
I will never stand again for the leadership of the Conservative Party.
There is only one opinion poll that I am interested in and that is the one that will take place on election day. — © Michael Howard
There is only one opinion poll that I am interested in and that is the one that will take place on election day.
People often of masterful intelligence, trained usually in law or economics or perhaps in political science, who have led their governments into disastrous decisions and miscalculations because they have no awareness whatever of the historical background, the cultural universe, of the foreign societies with which they have to deal.
I believe abortion should be available to everyone, but the law should be changed. In the past I voted for a restriction to 22 weeks, and I would be prepared to go down to 20.
So long as the international community consists of sovereign states, war between them remains a possibility, of which all governments have to take reasonable account.
History is what we read, write and think about the past.
We're not saying, 'We're politicians, trust us.' We know you don't trust us.
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