William Hague famous quotes

Unless there is meaningful change in Syria and an end to the crackdown, President Assad and those around him will find themselves isolated internationally and discredited within Syria.
-- William Hague

#Meaningful #President #Assad

Ambition is best tempered with self-knowledge!
-- William Hague

#Ambition #Self #Self Knowledge

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.
-- William Hague

#Iran #Rights #Leader

Obviously a Conservative government will always leave taxes lower than they have been under Labour. Those things go with the territory of the Conservative Party.
-- William Hague

#Party #Government #Territory

Governments that block the aspirations of their people, that steal or are corrupt, that oppress and torture or that deny freedom of expression and human rights should bear in mind that they will find it increasingly hard to escape the judgement of their own people, or where warranted, the reach of international law.
-- William Hague

#Block #Rights #Government

There's only one growth strategy: work hard.
-- William Hague

#Hard Work #Growth #Strategy

Inspiring scenes of people taking the future of their countries into their own hands will ignite greater demands for good governance and political reform elsewhere in the world, including in Asia and in Africa.
-- William Hague

#Country #Hands #People

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.
-- William Hague

#Believe #Commitment #Growth

Let's not be afraid to speak the common sense truth: you can't have high standards without good discipline.
-- William Hague

#Discipline #Common Sense #High Standards

Egypt is a sovereign nation.
-- William Hague

#Egypt #Sovereign

I'm not, nor is anybody I know in government part of a nasty right wing clique.
-- William Hague

#Wings #Government #Nasty

I've always been opposed myself to prisoners having the vote.
-- William Hague

#Vote #Prisoner

It's necessary for Israelis and Palestinians to make the compromises that are required to get the direct talks back on track.
-- William Hague

#Track #Compromise #Palestinian

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

#People #Way #Done

Remember the No campaign is Conservative people, Labour people, people of no party.
-- William Hague

#Party #People #Campaigns

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.
-- William Hague

#Stress #People #Important

The EU is not a country and it's not going to become a country, in my view, now or ever in the future. It is a group of countries working together.
-- William Hague

#Country #Views #Together

The EU should be concentrated on adapting to globalisation and global competitiveness, not building more powerful centralised institutions in Brussels.
-- William Hague

#Powerful #Building #Should

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.
-- William Hague

#Powerful #Rights #Freedom Of Speech

Governments that use violence to stop democratic development will not earn themselves respite forever. They will pay an increasingly high price for actions which they can no longer hide from the world with ease, and will find themselves on the wrong side of history.
-- William Hague

#Government #Forever #Use

Someone once claimed I was not really a Yorkshireman!
-- William Hague

To the teacher weighed down with paperwork, I say: you've been messed around too often. You came into teaching to spend your time teaching children not filling in forms.
-- William Hague

#Teacher #Children #Teaching

I think Britain would be alright, if only we had a different Government.
-- William Hague

#Thinking #Government #Would Be

I still agree with the invasion of Iraq. I don't agree with most of the decisions that accompanied it.
-- William Hague

#Iraq #Decision #Invasion

I don't think a wise thing at this moment is for Israel to launch a military attack on Iran.
-- William Hague

#Wise #Military #Thinking

I know people are fickle.
-- William Hague

#People #Fickle

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.
-- William Hague

#Believe #Hypocrite #Home

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

#Matter #Somalia #Security

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

#Thinking #Way #Principles

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

#Realism #Idealism #Foreign Policy

It's not too late to stop the Lisbon Treaty.
-- William Hague

#Too Late #Treaties

Wouldn't it be better to have a watertight law designed to catch the guilty, rather than a press release law designed to catch the headlines?
-- William Hague

#Law #Guilty #Headlines

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

#People #Found #Reactions

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.
-- William Hague

#Trying #World #Arguing

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

#Country #Burning #Exit

Elected presidents are for countries.
-- William Hague

#Country #President

Britain does not normally these days play a huge part in peacekeeping.
-- William Hague

#Play #Doe #These Days

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.
-- William Hague

#Strong #Shadow #Cabinets

A generation of children has been betrayed.
-- William Hague

#Children #Betrayed #Generations

Very few conflicts in the history of the world have been satisfactorily concluded according to a published timetable, because you lose all flexibility in dealing with your opponents.
-- William Hague

#Opponents #World #Conflict

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.
-- William Hague

#Good Luck #Political #Normal

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.
-- William Hague

#Lying #Men #Cynical

We're not getting involved in terms of sending ground forces into Libya. Let's be clear about that. And indeed the UN Resolution forbids that. It says no foreign occupation of any part of Libya.
-- William Hague

#Occupation #Resolution #Force

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.
-- William Hague

#Decision #Defining #Would Be

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

#Mean #Ideas #Inevitable

Today further EU targeted sanctions on Syria come into force. The message is clear and unambiguous: those responsible for the repression will be singled out and held accountable.
-- William Hague

#Today #Messages #Responsible

You have to have as many defences in place as you possibly can. But even then of course - and it's important to stress this - you cannot guarantee being able to prevent every attack or every kind of attack.
-- William Hague

#Stress #Important #Guarantees

Labour have been listening for too long to the so-called experts who think that competition is a dirty word and that communicating facts to our children is elitist.
-- William Hague

#Children #Dirty #Thinking

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.
-- William Hague

#Hard Work #Ideas #People

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.
-- William Hague

#Party #Careers #Leader

The British retreat is over and now the advance will begin.
-- William Hague

#Retreat #British

One day I will go back to my books and piano, but not yet.
-- William Hague

#Book #Piano #One Day

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.
-- William Hague

#Effectiveness #Giving #Independence

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

#Long #People #Darkness

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

#Mogadishu #Britain #Somalia

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

#Writing #Feet #People

In my view what you can't argue for is a system that is neither decisive nor proportional and can be indecisive and disproportionate at the same time.
-- William Hague

#Views #Arguing #Indecisive

We are making progress militarily, there is no doubt about that. You've seen the reports from Misrata, although reports of the Gaddafi forces completely pulling out of Misrata seem to be exaggerated.
-- William Hague

#Doubt #Progress #Gaddafi

I gave up lots of things I love doing: writing, and business, and playing the piano and so on.
-- William Hague

#Writing #Piano #Gave Up

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.
-- William Hague

#Fun #Views #Long

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.
-- William Hague

#Decision #World #Centre

The people of Britain want a Home Secretary who will give them back their streets. They want a Home Secretary who will speak up for the victim, not the criminal.
-- William Hague

#Home #People #Giving

Time is not on Gaddafi's side. People ask about the exit strategy. It's Colonel Gaddafi who needs an exit strategy because this pressure will only mount and it will be intensified over the coming days and weeks.
-- William Hague

#People #Needs #Pressure

You can see over time whether people are prepared to differ or not.
-- William Hague

#People #Prepared

Yes, I've never inherited a penny!
-- William Hague

#Pennies

When you reduce taxes on higher earners it's vital to be reducing them on lower earning people as well so the nation shares in the approach.
-- William Hague

#People #Earning #Share

We have to face the reality of climate change. It is arguably the biggest threat we are facing today.
-- William Hague

#Reality #Today #Faces

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

#Europe #Turkeys #Errors

Those who back the Syrian regime from now on will find themselves in an even more isolated and indefensible minority.
-- William Hague

#Minorities #Regimes #Isolated

There is no budget for travel for a Shadow Foreign Secretary.
-- William Hague

#Shadow #Secretary

The total economy of Latin America is bigger than China.
-- William Hague

#Latin #America #Economy

To the hard-working people who set a little bit aside each month, to provide for their children, or to fund their own retirement, I say: you should be rewarded not punished.
-- William Hague

#Retirement #Children #Hard Work

We are not directly involved in Syria. But we will be working with our partners in the European Union and at the United Nations to see if we can persuade the Syrian authorities to go, as I say, more in that direction of respect for democracy and human rights.
-- William Hague

#Rights #Democracy #Unions

The appalling crackdown that we witnessed in Hama and other Syrian cities on 30 and 31 July only erode the regime's legitimacy and increase resentment. In the absence of an end to the senseless violence and a genuine process of political reform, we will continue to pursue further EU sanctions.
-- William Hague

#July #Cities #Political

Syria should not belong to one family, to one coterie, or to one party. It belongs to all the people of Syria equally, in all their religious and ethnic diversity.
-- William Hague

#Religious #Party #Diversity

Spending only what the country can afford, rewarding savings, encouraging independence, supporting marriage: people know that these things are common sense.
-- William Hague

#Country #Common Sense #People

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.
-- William Hague

#People #Decision #Needs

It's really necessary for the United States to continue to give strong leadership to the Middle East peace process, supported by European countries at the same time.
-- William Hague

#Country #Strong #Giving

If there's one thing above all that sets me apart from Tony Blair it is this - I am not embarrassed to articulate the instincts of the British people.
-- William Hague

#People #Instinct #Blair

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.
-- William Hague

#Cutting #Numbers #Agency

I think the way things have been left after Iraq is that people won't believe the Government of the day, so they have to know that lessons have been learnt and that all political parties and people, whether they were for or against the invasion of Iraq, have learnt lessons.
-- William Hague

#Believe #Party #Thinking

At a time of such hope and optimism in the Middle East, we cannot let the Libyan government violate every principle of international law and human rights with impunity.
-- William Hague

#Rights #Government #Law

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

#Economy #Carbon #Lows