Gerry Adams Quotes

#1. At that time, the army leadership said the implementation of this agreement would allow everyone, including the IRA, to take its political objectives forward by peaceful and democratic means.

Gerry Adams

#2. It might or might not be right to kill, but sometimes it is necessary.

Gerry Adams

#3. If you militarise a situation, you beg for an armed response.

Gerry Adams

#4. The Irish Republican Army has kept every commitment made by its leadership.

Gerry Adams

#5. Your ability as republican volunteers, to rise to this challenge will mean that the two governments and others cannot easily hide from their obligations and their responsibility to resolve these problems.

Gerry Adams

#6. Sinn Fein has demonstrated the ability to play a leadership role as part of a popular movement towards peace, equality and justice.

Gerry Adams

#7. The catalyst for much of this change is the growing support for republicanism.

Gerry Adams

#8. Sinn Fein has the potential and capacity to become the vehicle for the attainment of republican objectives.

Gerry Adams

#9. There can be no such things as an Irish nationalist accepting the loyalist veto and partition. You cannot claim to be an Irish nationalist if you consent to an internal six county settlement and if you are willing to negotiate the state of Irish society with a foreign government.

Gerry Adams

#10. One man's transparency is another's humiliation.

Gerry Adams

#11. For over 30 years, the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms.

Gerry Adams

#12. There needs to be nationalist and republican confidence in unionism.

Gerry Adams

#13. It's hard to think of a 16-month child being anything other than a delight to be around.

Gerry Adams

#14. For good or ill, I'm a person of leadership. I do my best. I don't dodge responsibility.

Gerry Adams

#15. I think the worst kind of grief is unacknowledged grief.

Gerry Adams

#16. When I wrote 'Before The Dawn,' I made it quite clear that there are lots of people involved in my life who I can't talk about simply because I'd put them at risk.

Gerry Adams

#17. In the past I have defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle. I did so because there was no alternative for those who would not bend the knee, or turn a blind eye to oppression, or for those who wanted a national republic.

Gerry Adams

#18. Republican patience with how unionism deals with the political institutions, and with key issues like equality and human rights, will be tested because, obviously, there will be a battle a day on these matters. So lets face up to all of this with our eyes wide open.

Gerry Adams

#19. Hugging trees has a calming effect on me. I'm talking about enormous trees that will be there when we are all dead and gone. I've hugged trees in every part of this little island.

Gerry Adams

#20. The unionists also for their part, want to minimise the potential for change, not only on the equality agenda but on the issues of sovereignty and ending the union.

Gerry Adams

#21. I stopped buying Sunday papers about 15 years ago, because you'd buy handfuls of them, and what you got, because the hard news comes from so many other channels, was opinion pieces. You're better off spending the money on a good novel.

Gerry Adams

#22. Sinn Fein has productively taken the example of South Africa and, as we develop the peace process, we continue to use examples from South Africa.

Gerry Adams

#23. The last months, weeks and days have seen accelerating discussions, involving the DUP for the first time, about a comprehensive agreement which would see all outstanding matters dealt with and the Good Friday Agreement implemented in full.

Gerry Adams

#24. But if republicans are to prevail, if the peace process is to be successfully concluded and Irish sovereignty and re-unification secured, then we have to set the agenda - no-one else is going to do that.

Gerry Adams

#25. The days of humiliation, of second-class citizens and of inequality are over and gone forever.

Gerry Adams

#26. Once water charges are in place they will only go up. This has been the history of all these charges

Gerry Adams

#27. You can only judge anything that happened in the times, in the times that that happened.

Gerry Adams

#28. We have to make sure the Good Friday Agreement works.

Gerry Adams

#29. Peace cannot be built on exclusion. That has been the price of the past 30 years.

Gerry Adams

#30. But I also hold the very strong view that republicans need to lead by example.

Gerry Adams

#31. When others stood idly by, you and your families gave your all, in defence of a risen people and in pursuit of Irish freedom and unity.

Gerry Adams

#32. I think there is a huge responsibility upon governments to understand the consequence of their decisions.

Gerry Adams

#33. I nominate the Reverend Ian Paisley for the position of First Minister of northern Ireland

Gerry Adams

#34. In this context the British and Irish governments will have to promote a new, imaginative and dynamic alternative in which both governments will share power in the north.

Gerry Adams

#35. We are totally committed to ending partition and to creating the conditions for unity and independence.

Gerry Adams

#36. The way forward is by building political support for republican and democratic objectives across Ireland and by winning support for these goals internationally.

Gerry Adams

#37. The Good Friday Agreement and the basic rights and entitlements of citizens that are enshrined within it must be defended and actively promoted by London and Dublin.

Gerry Adams

#38. Your determination, selflessness and courage have brought the freedom struggle towards its fulfilment.

Gerry Adams

#39. It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo.

Gerry Adams

#40. Making peace, I have found, is much harder than making war.

Gerry Adams

#41. War ... some people glamorise war and glorify war. It's not nice, from whatever point of view you come from.

Gerry Adams

#42. It's been a long time coming but the reality is that this process is at a crossroads.

Gerry Adams

#43. Such decisions will be far reaching and difficult. But you never lacked courage in the past. Your courage is now needed for the future.

Gerry Adams

#44. I like to think I'm very grounded. I'm very grounded in my family. I'm very grounded in my community.

Gerry Adams

#45. We can be revisionist, and that's a good thing to be at times, but we shouldn't airbrush our history, so we can only make judgments in the objective conditions of that time.

Gerry Adams