Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by William Hague - Page 2

Someone once claimed I was not really a Yorkshireman!

I have found that I get a better reaction from people once I am less bothered about their reaction.

The world is not going into concentric blocs of power. It is actually going into a diffusion of power with more centres of decision-making than ever in human civilisation. That requires you to place yourself in far more hubs of power than ever before.

You do have to do business with and to try to influence people you don't agree with, or find disagreeable, so it's important to stress that balance.

I don't deny that there are problems in the intelligence world, but I would argue that in the UK we try to uphold the highest standards in the world.

Whatever happens in Mogadishu, in Somalia, will happen in Great Britain. We have interlocking interests.

The low carbon economy is at the leading edge of a structural shift now taking place globally.

I don't think my principles change. I think the way in which you apply those principles to modern society changes.

You can gain in your effectiveness as a politician from a wide acquaintance with the world and from a degree of independence that having some outside interests gives.

For the security of the UK, it matters a lot for Somalia to become a more stable place.

Turning away Turkey from the EU would be a great, long-term - a century-long - error by Europe.

As far as I'm aware, everybody in the shadow cabinet accepts that there's a compelling case on climate change and a strong scientific case.

People feel that in too many ways the EU is something that is done to them, not something over which they have a say.

Ambition is best tempered with self-knowledge!

Well, if you're looking for me to lead a normal representative life, well good luck finding a foreign secretary who'd be like that - totally dependant on the political system and has never earned any money. Then you'll get the politicians you deserve.

I know people are fickle.

The Bill of Rights was intended to secure freedom of speech - the freedom of speech of members of parliament to speak freely rather than be at threat of... the threat of an over powerful monarch at the time.

We hope that the long darkness through which the Burmese people have lived may now be coming to an end.

I believe we should reframe our response to climate change as an imperative for growth rather than merely being a way of being green or meeting environmental commitments.

If some of the people who write about mojo came with me for a week, they would drop dead on their feet.

Yes, I've never inherited a penny!

People feel that the EU is a one-way process, a great machine that sucks up decision-making from national parliaments to the European level until everything is decided by the EU. That needs to change.

Iran's continued, widespread persecution of ethnic minorities, human rights defenders and political prisoners is a disgrace and stands as a shameful indictment of Iran's leaders.

Where defining foreign policy as 'ethical' went wrong was that it implied that all decisions would be exclusive in every respect of any dealings with unethical regimes.

I described the euro as a burning building with no exits and so it has proved for some of the countries in it.

I have always thought that foreign-policy idealism has to be tempered with realism.

When we have a Deputy Prime Minister who tells people not to drive cars but has two Jags himself, and where the Minister who tells people not to have two homes turns out to have nine himself - no wonder the public believe politicians are hypocrites.

I thank the Prime Minister for his remarks about me. Debating with him at the Dispatch Box has been exciting, fascinating, fun, an enormous challenge and, from my point of view, wholly unproductive in every sense. I am told that in my time at the Dispatch Box I have asked the Prime Minister 1,118 direct questions, but no one has counted the direct answers-it may not take long.

How long do Syrian families have to live in fear that their children will be killed or tortured, before the Security Council will act? How many people need to die before the consciences of world capitals are stirred?

When we said that no more areas of power should go to the EU we were right. And now thanks to the European Union Act 2011, by law that cannot happen without a referendum. And we are just as right that the EU has more power in our national life than it should, and I believe as strongly as I ever have that when the right moment comes this party should set out to reduce it.

People work hard and save hard to own a car. They do not want to be told that they cannot drive it by a Deputy Prime Minister whose idea of a park and ride scheme is to park one Jaguar and drive away in another.

The low carbon economy is at the leading edge of a structural shift now taking place globally...

On the question of taking credit for what goes right and blame for what goes wrong - having led the Conservative party for four years, I have never heard of this notion before.

When a Cabinet Minister who is sacked for telling lies is re-appointed, in the face of every constitutional convention, only for the same man to be sacked again from the same Cabinet for the same offence by the same Prime Minister ? no wonder the public are cynical about politics.

I'm going to reduce the size of the Cabinet, cut the number of ministers, reduce the size of the House of Commons, campaign for a European Parliament with 100 fewer members, halve the number of political advisers, and abolish a huge swathe of Labour's regional bureaucracies - and agencies and their offices in Brussels.

It was inevitable the Titanic was going to set sail, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea to be on it.

If there?'s one thing above all that sets me apart from Tony Blair, it?s this: I?m not embarrassed to articulate the instincts of the British people.

It is not my policy to hit voters during the election.

People feel that the EU is a one-way process, a great machine that sucks up decision-making from national parliaments to the European level until everything is decided at that level.

I feel fortunate that, by the age of 40, I had crammed in an entire political career.I had been in the Cabinet and been leader of the party, so now I can branch out into other things... it is a very liberating feeling.

Not all politicians are bonkers, but most of them are.

Gordon Brown promised to abolish boom and bust. He has kept half his promise.

It makes life very simple actually. You could be giving a TV interview in howling gale and it no longer matters.