Top 50 JOHN MAJOR quotes and sayings

The British don't runaway from terrorism. We have had 30-odd years of terrorism in our own country from the Irish Republican Army. We're used to it.
-- John Major

#Country #Army #Years

The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change.
-- John Major

#War #Men #Regimes

Neil Kinnock's speeches go on for so long because he has nothing to say and so he has no way of knowing when he's finished saying it.
-- John Major

#Knowing #Long #Goes On

In housing in the fifties in Britain and the sixties, we pulled down the terraces - destroyed whole communities and replaced them with tower blocks and we built walkways that became rat-runs for muggers. That was the fashionable opinion. But it was wrong.
-- John Major

#Running #Block #Community

Ronnie Barker will forever be remembered as one of the great comic actors.
-- John Major

#Forever #Actors #Comic

They seem to have moved from total opposition to total subservience.
-- John Major

#Europe #Britain #Moved

Well what would happen is that if Greece defaulted and couldn't pay its debts, all the Greek bonds that are held in other banking systems across Western Europe would suddenly have no value. You could as a knock-on effect create a banking crisis in Western Europe.
-- John Major

#Europe #Greek #Pay

In the next ten years we will have to continue to make changes which will make the whole of this country a genuinely classless society.
-- John Major

#Country #Years #Next

Tentacles of terrorism spread everywhere
-- John Major

#Terrorism #Tentacles #Spread

Too many people looked to me in the eye and did not tell me the truth.
-- John Major

#Eye #People #Tell Me The Truth

Well, I have concerns about the effectiveness of Europe to compete.
-- John Major

#Europe #Effectiveness #Concern

Political suicide can end a career.
-- John Major

#Suicide #Careers #Political

If the answer is more politicians, you are asking the wrong question.
-- John Major

#Asking #Answers #Politician

Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and, as George Orwell said, 'Old maids bicycling to holy communion through the morning mist' and, if we get our way, Shakespeare will still be read even in school.
-- John Major

#Country #Dog #Morning

Give the Germans five deutschmarks and they will save it. But give the British Â£5 and they will borrow Â£25 and spend it.
-- John Major

#Business #Giving #Debt

Let's turn British inventions into British industries, British factories and British jobs. Let them make pounds for us, not dollars marks or yen for others.
-- John Major

#Jobs #Dollars #Pounds

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

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

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

Whether you agree with me or disagree with me; like me or loathe me, don't bind my hands when I am negotiating on behalf of the British nation.
-- John Major

#Hands #British #Behalf

When I was in office the fundraising was done by the party treasurers.
-- John Major

#Party #Fundraising #Office

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

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

'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

You've had an extremely weak euro on the foreign exchange markets, you've had a very dubious policy being followed.
-- John Major

#Dubious #Weak #Foreign Exchange

I think it's extremely unlikely that the European Union will fracture with nations dropping off the edge.
-- John Major

#Thinking #Unions #Dropping

I like the best of the British press. The best of the British press is very good.
-- John Major

#British #Very Good

I don't think it's the role of the prime minister to court the press.
-- John Major

#Thinking #Roles #Prime

I don't have a shred of regret about entering the exchange-rate mechanism.
-- John Major

#Regret #Entering #Rate

Certainly we've seen the enormous changes across the whole of the Middle East. The democratic genie is out of the bottle.
-- John Major

#Middle East #Bottles #Enormous

I have a huge admiration for the House of Lords, I have a huge admiration for the people who work in the House of Lords, they're great public servants and they do an absolutely tremendous job.
-- John Major

#Jobs #People #House

What happens when there is a conflict between the Scottish parliament, if it was established, and the Westminster parliament? Who is supreme?
-- John Major

#Conflict #Scottish #Parliament

There are more myths about Black Wednesday than the Greeks ever created.
-- John Major

#Greek #Black #Myth

It is time to return to core values, time to get back to basics , to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for the others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family - and not shuffling it off on other people and the state.
-- John Major

#Responsibility #Self #Law

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

I inherited a sick economy and passed on a sound one. But one abiding regret for me is that, in between, I did not have the resources to put in place the educational and social changes about which I cared to much; I made only a beginning, and it was not enough.
-- John Major

#Regret #Educational #Sick

I don't think nations can stand aside for ethnic cleansing and genocide.
-- John Major

#Thinking #Cleansing #Genocide

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

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

#Mistake #Thinking #Sides

I think the majority of the British people are still sanguine about the need for war.
-- John Major

#War #Thinking #People

Life is full of surprises.
-- John Major

#Life Is #Surprise #Life Is Full Of Surprises

When the euro was born, it was born in the wrong economic circumstances.
-- John Major

#Economic #Born #Circumstances

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

#Effort #Mind #President

Well British troops are superb in the field in terms of conflict.
-- John Major

#Fields #Troops #Conflict

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

If we want to deliver opportunity for all, we need an economy that delivers jobs for the future.
-- John Major

#Jobs #Opportunity #Needs

I'm not about to write my memoirs. Not for a long time.
-- John Major

#Writing #Long #Memoir

I want Britain to punch its weight in the European Community.
-- John Major

#Community #Weight #Want

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

#Different #Conservative #Prime

I think we can get respect for Parliament back providing governments and oppositions are frank.
-- John Major

#Thinking #Government #Parliament

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

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

Liberty is equally desirable to the good and to the bad, to the brave and to the dastardly.
-- John Major

#Brave #Liberty

I want to see us build a country that is at ease with itself, a country that is confident and a country that is able and willing to build a better quality of life for all its citizens.
-- John Major

#Country #Quality #Citizens

I'm very proud of what my parents achieved and what they stood for. They didn't have much, but in many ways they were richer than most.
-- John Major

#Parent #Proud #Way

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

#Mother #Baby #Father

My mother was the center of the family.
-- John Major

#Mother

John Major famous quotes

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