John Major Quotes

When your back is against the wall, there is only one thing to do, and that is turn around and fight.

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.

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.

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

Life is full of surprises.

Recovery begins from the darkest moment.

Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less.

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

A country of long shadows on county cricket grounds, warm beer, green suburbs, dog lovers, and old maids cycling to holy communion through the morning mist.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Disunity costs votes.

The politician who never made a mistake never made a decision.

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

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

I am not running as Son of Margaret Thatcher. I have my own priorities and my own programmes.

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

If is a very big preposition.

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

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.

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

My mother was the center of the family.

You don't forget crises and neither does the Queen.

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.

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.

A consensus politician is someone who does something that he doesn't believe is right because it keeps people quiet when he does it.

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.

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

When our backs are against the wall, we must turn around and march forward.

"Government gets things right" does not encourage sales. "Government makes another blunder" does encourage sales, so there's a commercial imperative that pushes sensationalism.

Political suicide can end a career.

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

You cannot think of Margaret without Denis. There comes a time when every Prime Minister needs someone to give him or her the unvarnished truth, and, in Denis, Margaret had just that.

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

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

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

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

They seem to have moved from total opposition to total subservience.

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

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

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

Tentacles of terrorism spread everywhere

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

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.

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