Top 346 Quotes & Sayings by Tony Blair - Page 6

The Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories.

There have been the most terrible, shocking events taking place in the United States of America within the last hour or so... I am afraid we can only imagine the terror and the carnage there and the many, many innocent people who will have lost their lives... It is perpetrated by fanatics who are utterly indifferent to the sanctity of human life and we, the democracies of this world, are going to have to come together to fight it together and eradicate this evil completely from our world.

I mean, you can agree or disagree with Iraq or Afghanistan, but by the way, now the great campaigning cause out there is the absence of intervention in Syria. And then in Libya, it's partial intervention. And that doesn't really explain why some countries that have literally nothing to do with the interventions in the Middle East end up getting targeted.

I say the elite looks out of touch because it's kind of saying; look we'll manage all this for you. You know, we know best. We'll sort it all out for you. And then because people believe that doesn't meet their case for change and they want real change, social media and the way the relationship between people can come into a sense of belonging very quickly, that then is itself a revolutionary phenomenon. You see this around the world.

She was the people's princess and that is how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and our memories for ever.

I don't concede it at all that the intelligence at the time was wrong.

You've got problems in Central Asia. And you've got problems within our own communities back home. So if we end up saying, look, this has nothing to do with Islam or it's got no connection with that broader question, then we look, frankly, as if we're in denial about the problem. And the interesting thing in the Middle East is that they have absolutely no problem there in identifying that as Islamist extremism and calling it that.

I have absolutely no doubt at all that we will find evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes.

I don't think it's surprising we will have to look for them. I'm confident that when the Iraq Survey Group has done its work we will find what's happened to those weapons because he had them.

I think people think their incomes have been flat lining for a long period of time. They feel that the next generation's opportunities are not going to be improvement. So and I also think that social media then allows insurgent movements to gain scale at speed.

My course has never been about triangulation, and neither, really, is Bill Clinton's. It's not - it's about applying your values to the future in a practical and unblinking way, and that is an ideological view that is every bit as strong as views from the left or from the right.

What I will say to people is what you require are rules and not prejudices.

It's not that tens of millions of people all want to be violent. But they share the worldview that then, at its extreme, gives rise to the violence. And in my view, this is why this is such a global problem.

I'm one of these people that, once you have had your election and you have elected your candidate, let's see what actually happens.

I haven't come to the conclusion that centrist politics is wrong or dead. On the contrary. I think it's very much alive - but it needs to be given a renewal, a revival, and a muscularity which it presently lacks.

What I'm really more interested in doing - because I think, in a way that's kind of obvious - and you can see, look into Austria - you've got a far-right candidate who may become the president because he's in a close-run race.

I don't think there Is a way politically to beat "Insurgent Movement Of Populism".

I'm a Labour politician, but, you know, I can see decent Tories with good ideas.

I do believe that if you reach a just and fair settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians it will have a massive influence on countering extremism. Which is not to say that the Israel-Palestinian situation is the source of the problem, but it is very potent fuel.

I think social media is a revolutionary phenomenon all in itself.

What the commission that myself and Leon Panetta is trying to do is analyze this in two respects. First of all, what's the right military response and security response?

There's a great frustration with the system. There's a lot of anger out there. But in the end, you need answers and not just anger. But anyway, let me not trespass too much into your politics. I've got enough problems in my own politics.

I think we've, again, got to be extremely careful; otherwise we'll misunderstand what's going on in Iraq and in Syria today. Of course, you can't say that those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation in 2015.

We have taken a situation in the U.K. because of concerns, for example, over immigration and other things, so Britain now is on a path out of Europe.

There's a deep affection and respect for the Queen and the monarchy in the U.K. But Diana was an extraordinary, iconic figure and her death sparked a fierce reaction, part grief and part anger at her being taken away. It was very fraught.

I think conspiracy theories have gotten more and more close to the mainstream because what you've got is a fragmentation of the media, where the media becomes much more polarized today, left and right.

People always think American politics is very different, but usually it is a predictor of what happens in the politics elsewhere.

The thing always is to go to where people really are and what they're really feeling about life.

I think the center ground have got to become the people of change again and not the guardians of the status quo. And that is the weakness it comes to in our campaign. You can see it in your politics, you can see it everywhere.

I had no intention of returning into the British political debate, really at all, even though I've obviously got very strong views on it, until Brexit happened, because I think Brexit is a destiny-changing decision for my country.

I'm an avowed centrist, and I believe that - centrism is often - it's almost the wrong word to use, because it's often seen as sort of splitting the difference between right and left.

Saddam was a threat, that the threat had to be dealt with.

You don't have to keep looking at the future foreign policy in terms, simply, of the past.

A lot of the politics that is going on left and right at the moment is more about a protest, which we should respond to. It's not often about a policy. And that's why what you get is this strange coalition of different views of what the future should be, coming together in alliance to protest against the status quo.

I always say, when they ask me about American politics, is for you guys to decide who you elect.

I still think there is a residual desire amongst the majority of the public to be given a proper solution.

There are big questions about the sort of skills you need in modern government today. You put politicians in charge of billions of dollars with absolutely no training and very little support system around them. It's an extraordinary thing.

There's a huge wave of anti-establishment feeling. There's an enormous amount of anger. And it's collapsing governments and political movements across the world right now.

The trouble is nowadays that parts of the media operate in a very partisan way. There's no point in complaining about it, that's the way it is. But let's be clear, a lot of it is driven by the views of a pretty small number of people, rather than a normal standard of journalism.

Well, we definitely need a strong and clear and assertive America. That's for sure. But you've always got to build alliances. And so it's very important that we are able to build those alliances. And where we don't do what in a way to extremists want us to do, which is to make this into a battle between the West and Islam - it's not. This isn't a clash between civilizations. It's about whether the values of tolerance and respect for difference prevail.

There are solutions that are proper, but they require the painstaking and difficult work of building alliances and also being prepared to analyze the problem realistically. And exactly the same thing is going on my side of the Atlantic as is going on your side of the Atlantic.

You've got to listen but you've also got to lead.

Because I happen to believe that the best policy solutions lie in the center ground, then I want to see, how does the center revitalize itself? How does it develop the policy agenda for the future? And how do we link up people who have the same basic ideas and attachments to the same basic values across the world?

I still think the world is better off and safer without Saddam Hussein.

You choose your own reality and you - social media then amplifies those conspiracy theories. So that's why I say social media is itself a revolutionary phenomenon.

Now, again, what the center ground has got to do is to respond to people's genuine concerns and fears.