Paddy Ashdown Quotes

In the modern age where everything is connected to everything, the most important thing about what you can do is what you can do with others.

The generous way of putting it is that we were not ready for this. The less generous way is to say: How was it possible to return to the politics of appeasement of the 1930s?

The greatest failure is that although we have created institutions, we have not created a civil society.

Truth and reconciliation' are always combined, but I would split them: I don't think Bosnia is ready for reconciliation, but I do think it is ready for truth.

The advent of interconnectedness and of weapons of mass destruction means that, increasingly, I share a destiny with my enemy.

There can be no place in a 21st-century parliament for people with 15th-century titles upholding 19th-century prejudices.

I've had much nastier things said about me in the British press than in the Bosnian press.

Politics is compromise.

The United States will remain the most powerful nation on Earth for the next 10, 15 years, but the context in which she holds her power has now radically altered.

What my future will not be is active politics in the Liberal Democrat party.

It would be a foolish high representative who worked that way.

I am formally accountable to the steering board of the PIC, and I meet with nine ambassadors from the PIC every week. I have to have the capitals' broad agreement with what I do.

I can create institutions, but I can't rewrite the chips in people's heads.

People do not want politicians they know to be corrupt.

It's not my job to be popular. I'm goal-driven; my job is to get results.

I can establish the expectation of retributive justice. Have we done that? No.

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.

Blair is regarded by most people in Britain as a smarmy git.

Coalition will come sooner or later, I'm certain of that.

One of the great barriers to peace in the Middle East is that both sides, both Israel and the Palestinians, do not understand that they share a collective destiny.

We have invented a new human right here - the right to return home after a war.

We have to make their livelihoods viable, get them the proper prices for their produce, try and make them stay rather than sell their property and leave again.

I don't think Bosnia is ready for reconciliation, but I do think it is ready for truth.