Chris Patten famous quotes

03-28-2025

In a democracy everybody has a right to be represented, including the jerks.
-- Chris Patten

#Freedom #Democracy #Jerk
You don't have to wait until people say they accept everything you say until you are actually prepared to sit down and discuss matters with them.
-- Chris Patten

#People #Waiting #Down And
Multilateralism is not an easy option. We're going to find that the world is very difficult. And relationships between America and the rest of the world are very difficult.
-- Chris Patten

#America #World #Easy
It'd make a wonderful change to have the leader of a pluralist democracy who acted on that, who told people just how tough things are going to be, just what's going to have to be done - and, maybe, ran all the risks on the side of honesty, rather than spinning stories and trying to win the headlines every day.
-- Chris Patten

#Honesty #Winning #People
I suppose I've always carried what is regarded as a bit of unnecessary baggage in Britain. I've always carried the charge that I am an intellectual in politics.
-- Chris Patten

#Intellectual #Baggage #Unnecessary
I think that if politics is just about getting your backside on important seats, then it's a pretty worthless endeavor.
-- Chris Patten

#Thinking #Important #Endeavor
It is a sort of great Victorian truth that actually, trying to do the right thing is pretty good for you and pretty good for business as well, by and large.
-- Chris Patten

#Trying #Wells #Right Thing
It is almost always wrong that the time isn't ripe to decide something. That is always said of difficult problems.
-- Chris Patten

#Problem #Said #Difficult
Undoubtedly, at the moment, the major cause of CO2 emission is what happens in developed countries.
-- Chris Patten

#Country #Causes #Moments
Of course, there were huge disagreements in the arguments of military intervention, .. There is no point at the moment on focusing on those disagreements.
-- Chris Patten

#Military #Argument #Moments
Throwing young men out of work, throwing people into poverty and ending business life don't promote stability in the Palestinian territories,.
-- Chris Patten

#Men #People #Territory
All parts of the society need to feel that the police service is their police service, and that does not happen unless all parts of society are represented in the police
-- Chris Patten

#Police #Doe #Needs
We're not trying to recreate Yugoslavia
-- Chris Patten

#Yugoslavia #Trying #Recreation
I don't think that capitalism should be unbridled, if by "unbridled" you mean unregulated.
-- Chris Patten

#Mean #Thinking #Should
I believe in trying to get a balance between individual freedom on the one hand and social responsibility on the other.
-- Chris Patten

#Believe #Responsibility #Hands
There is a sort of exotic preposterousness about a lot of elections, the way arguments are made even cruder.
-- Chris Patten

#Voting #Exotic #Way
In democracy everyone has the right to be represented, even the jerks.
-- Chris Patten

#Freedom #Democracy #Jerk
But the ability to articulate what you are doing, to be clear about it, and to stick to it is, I think, the essence of political leadership.
-- Chris Patten

#Thinking #Essence #Political
So, what I say to people is that politics has got to be about principle and values above all. Of course, there are times when you have to make accommodations.
-- Chris Patten

#People #Principles #Accommodations
Those of us who had a perfectly happy childhood should be able to sue for deprivation of literary royalties.
-- Chris Patten

#Childhood #Able #Royalty
Hong Kong's people will get what they want, despite China's objections. Freedom invariably wins in the end.
-- Chris Patten

#Winning #People #Want
I think that what most surprises anybody who goes into politics from even a modestly cerebral background is the vulgarity of much of the cut and thrust of politics.
-- Chris Patten

#Cutting #Thinking #Surprise
We have our own system, ... and journalists in our system are not put in prison for embarrassing the government by revealing things the government might not wish to have revealed. The important thing is that our system, under which journalists can write without fear or favor, should continue.
-- Chris Patten

#Writing #Government #Wish
It is curious that atheists have proved to be so intolerant of those who have a faith.
-- Chris Patten

#Atheist #Curious
Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off.
-- Chris Patten

#Growth #World #Green
Hong Kong represents the kind of Asia with which both West and East are comfortable, ... ... It offers, in that sense, a vision for the future of Asia.
-- Chris Patten

#Vision #East #Asia

You may also like:

David Cameron
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Diane Coyle
Economist
E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax
Former Viceroy of India
Ed Miliband
British Politician
Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
Edward Heath
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Gordon Brown
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Harold MacMillan
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Harold Wilson
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
James Callaghan
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Jimmy Savile
DJ
John Major
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Kenneth Clarke
Former Minister without portfolio
Margaret Thatcher
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Neil Kinnock
Former Leader of the Labour Party
Queen Elizabeth II
Monarch
Tony Blair
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
William Hague
British Politician
George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
Former Viceroy of India
Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Former Lord Privy Seal