Top 100 Tony Blair Quotes
#1. Today the impulse towards interdependence is immeasurably greater. We are witnessing the beginnings of a new doctrine of international community
Tony Blair
#2. It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that fails to choose.
Tony Blair
#3. We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years-contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence-Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.
Tony Blair
#4. The Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories, workings by scientists, plans to develop long range ballistic missiles.
Tony Blair
#5. The first rule in politics is that there are no rules, at least not in the sense of inevitable defeats or inevitable victories. If you have the right policy and the right strategy, you always have a chance of winning. Without them, you can lose no matter how certain the victory seems.
Tony Blair
#6. But as I always say to people I'm essentially a public service person.
Tony Blair
#7. Lord Cranborne told the leader of the opposition to 'back me or sack me' - he succeeded in doing both.
Tony Blair
#8. If I'd proposed solving the pension problem by compulsory euthanasia for every fifth pensioner I'd have got less trouble for it.
Tony Blair
#9. In retrospect, the Millennium marked only a moment in time. It was the events of September 11 that marked a turning point in history, where we confront the dangers of the future and assess the choices facing humankind.
Tony Blair
#10. There are solutions that are proper, but they require the painstaking and difficult work of building alliances and also being prepared to analyze the problem realistically. And exactly the same thing is going on my side of the Atlantic as is going on your side of the Atlantic.
Tony Blair
#11. People should go about their daily lives, to work, to live, to travel, to shop, to do the things people did in the same way as they did them before 11 September.
Tony Blair
#12. You know, one of the things I've learnt since coming out of office is how much easier it is to give the advice than take the decision. I mean, you know, it's tough.
Tony Blair
#13. I shall not rest until, once again, the destinies of our people and our party are joined together again in victory at the next general election Labour in its rightful place in government again.
Tony Blair
#14. I can stand here today, leader of the Labour Party, Prime Minister, and say to the British people: you have never had it so ... prudent.
Tony Blair
#15. Values unrelated to modern reality are not just electorally hopeless, the values themselves become devalued. They have no purchase on the real world.
Tony Blair
#16. Fanaticism is not a state of religion but a state of mind.
Tony Blair
#17. Retreat might give us a moment of respite but years of repentance at our weakness would, I believe, follow.
Tony Blair
#18. I think people think their incomes have been flat lining for a long period of time. They feel that the next generation's opportunities are not going to be improvement. So and I also think that social media then allows insurgent movements to gain scale at speed.
Tony Blair
#19. I feel like everyone else in this country today. I am utterly devastated.
Tony Blair
#20. What we also know is we haven't found them [weapons of mass destruction] in Iraq - now let the survey group complete its work and give us the report ... They will not report that there was no threat from Saddam, I don't believe.
Tony Blair
#21. The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.
Tony Blair
#22. I do not want to end up with an American style of politics, with us going out there beating our chest about our faith. Politics and religion - it is not that they do not have a lot in common, but if [religion] ends up being used in the political process, I think that is a bit unhealthy.
Tony Blair
#23. I am absolutely delighted to give my full support to Gordon as the next leader of the Labour Party and as prime minister and to endorse him fully.
Tony Blair
#24. If we want to contrast what we have done in the past few years on delivery with what the right hon. and learned Gentleman delivered, let us remember the interest rates at 10 per cent. to 15 per cent., the 1.5 million fewer people in work, the boom and the bust and the borrowing at 8 per cent.
Tony Blair
#25. When Europe and America stand together the world is a better and more prosperous place.
Tony Blair
#26. The problem with the old ideology was that it suppressed the individual by starting with society. But it is from a sense of individual duty that we connect the greater good and the interests of the community
Tony Blair
#27. I don't concede it at all that the intelligence at the time was wrong.
Tony Blair
#28. There is no doubt that the time to act is now. It is now that timely action can avert disaster. It is now that with foresight and will such action can be taken without disturbing the essence of our way of life, by adjusting behaviour, but not altering it entirely.
Tony Blair
#29. What we want to see is the development of human rights and greater democracy, not just because it is our system but because we think that's the best way that economic and political development go hand in hand.
Tony Blair
#30. I think most people who have dealt with me, think I'm a pretty straight sort of guy, and I am.
Tony Blair
#31. In government you carry each hope; each disillusion. And in politics it's always about the next challenge.
Tony Blair
#32. I actually did trouble to read Marx first hand. I found it illuminating in so many ways; in particular, my perception of the relationship between people and the society in which they live was irreversibly altered
Tony Blair
#33. The threat from Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons capability - that threat is real.
Tony Blair
#34. The British are special. The world knows it. In our innermost thoughts we know it. This is the greatest nation on earth.
Tony Blair
#35. We can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world.
Tony Blair
#36. Labour is the party of law and order in Britain today. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.
Tony Blair
#37. I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honour, but sometimes it is the price of leadership and the cost of conviction.
Tony Blair
#38. It is not a sensible or intelligent response for us in Europe to ridicule American argument or parody their political leadership.
Tony Blair
#39. There is no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice: Defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must.
Tony Blair
#40. The fear of missing out means today's media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack. In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no-one dares miss out.
Tony Blair
#41. We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world.
Tony Blair
#42. Society works by putting opportunity and responsibility together.
Tony Blair
#43. The relationship between Britain and the US is fantastically important when confronting terrorism.
Tony Blair
#44. For most normal people, politics is a distant, occasionally irritating fog.
Tony Blair
#45. We are all internationalists now, whether we like it or not
Tony Blair
#46. I don't like it, to be honest, when politicians make a big thing of their religious beliefs, so I don't make a big thing of it.
Tony Blair
#47. What is true about (ex-Iraq Survey Group head) David Kay's evidence, and this is something I have to accept, and is one of the reasons why I think we now need a new inquiry - it is true David Kay is saying we have not found large stockpiles of actual weapons.
Tony Blair
#48. The only society that works today is also one founded on mutual respect, on a recognition that we have a responsibility collectively and individually, to help each other on the basis of each other's equal worth. A selfish society is a contradiction in terms.
Tony Blair
#49. Whatever the short term clashes between protecting the environment and eradicating poverty, medium term and long term it is clear. Unless we grow sustainably, at some point we face catastrophe
Tony Blair
#50. You get these insurgent movements of populism, left and right. An insurgent movement of populism took my political party over in the UK for example.
Tony Blair
#51. Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war.
Tony Blair
#52. In no relationship at the top of any walk of life is it always easy, least of all in politics which matters so much and which is conducted in such a piercing spotlight.
Tony Blair
#53. Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain Britain. So conform to it, or don't come here.
Tony Blair
#54. And the problem is, I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam.
Tony Blair
#55. But the world is ever more interdependent. Stock markets and economies rise and fall together. Confidence is the key to prosperity. Insecurity spreads like contagion. So people crave stability and order.
Tony Blair
#56. Their barbarism will stand as their shame for all eternity.
Tony Blair
#57. Times are tough but they are tough because the government is trying to do the right thing, whether on public service reform, education, health, anti-social behaviour and welfare, or in counter-terrorism
Tony Blair
#58. It is absurd to say in respect of any intelligence that it is infallible, but if you ask me what I believe, I believe the intelligence was correct, and I think in the end we will have an explanation.
Tony Blair
#59. Surely we have the wit and will to develop economically without despoiling the very environment we depend upon
Tony Blair
#60. Ask me my three main priorities for Government, and I tell you: education, education, and education.
Tony Blair
#61. There's a great frustration with the system. There's a lot of anger out there. But in the end, you need answers and not just anger. But anyway, let me not trespass too much into your politics. I've got enough problems in my own politics.
Tony Blair
#62. After the terrible events of last week, there is still the shock and disbelief; there is anger; there is fear; but there is also, throughout the world, a profound sense of solidarity; there is courage; there is a surging of the human spirit.
Tony Blair
#63. We've seen the reality of Saddam's regime: his thugs prepared to kill their own people, the parading of prisoners of war and now the release of those pictures of executed British soldiers.
Tony Blair
#64. That's the art of leadership. To make sure that what shouldn't happen, doesn't happen.
Tony Blair
#65. Fifteen years ago, if you said business will help save the environment people would have laughed at you. Today, I believe this is a serious proposition
Tony Blair
#66. A challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence ... There is no doubt that the time to act is now.
Tony Blair
#67. The best philanthropy is not just about giving money but giving leadership. The best philanthropists bring the gifts that made them successful-the drive, the determination, the refusal to accept that something can't be done if it needs to be into their philanthropy.
Tony Blair
#68. Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government.
Tony Blair
#69. Examine the legacy that we inherited and what we did. We had boom-and-bust economics and a doubled national debt.
Tony Blair
#70. The biological agents we believe Iraq can produce include anthrax, botulinum, toxin, aflatoxin and ricin. All eventually result in excruciatingly painful death.
Tony Blair
#71. I learnt a lot in government, and I've learnt a lot since leaving government. The kind of journey of being in government is that you start at your most popular and least capable, and you end at your most capable and least popular.
Tony Blair
#72. The first big choice: a government with the strength to deliver stability, or a government that takes the country back to boom and bust.
Tony Blair
#73. There are millions of young children being educated to a very narrow-minded view of religion. And it's out of that education of large numbers of young people that you then get this extremism.
Tony Blair
#74. I think I made the wrong career choice
Tony Blair
#75. Deportation is a decision taken by the home secretary under statute, The new grounds will include fostering hatred, advocating violence to further a person's beliefs, or justifying or validating such violence.
Tony Blair
#76. If you are trying to take a difficult decision and you're weighing up the pros and cons, you have frank conversations. Everybody knows this in their walk of life.
Tony Blair
#77. I have long believed this interdependence defines the new world we live in.
Tony Blair
#78. We must support and protect individuals and companies engaged in life saving medical research
Tony Blair
#79. Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also.
Tony Blair
#80. This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism.
Tony Blair
#81. We know the problems ... and we know the solution; sustainable development. The issue is the political will
Tony Blair
#82. I can't stand politicians who wear God on their sleeves.
Tony Blair
#83. I think life is a gift from God and should be lived to the full and with purpose.
Tony Blair
#84. The public think the politicians don't know or care about their lives; and the politicians feel misunderstood.
Tony Blair
#85. The emphasis placed by more and more companies on corporate social responsibility symbolises the recognition that prosperity is best achieved in an inclusive society
Tony Blair
#86. The great advantage of the Lib Dems is precisely that no-one knows what they stand for.
Tony Blair
#87. If we are going to carry on growing, and we will, because no country is going to forfeit its right to economic growth, we have to find a way of doing it sustainably.
Tony Blair
#88. Whatever the dangers of the action we take, the dangers of inaction are far, far greater.
Tony Blair
#89. Ah yes, liberal democrats unified as ever in opportunism and in error.
Tony Blair
#90. There should not be a party within a party.
Tony Blair
#91. The view we took at the time and we take it now is that the war was justified legally because he [Saddam Hussein] remained in breach of UN resolutions.
Tony Blair
#92. The single hardest thing for a practicing politician to understand is that most people, most of the time, don't give politics a first thought all day long.
Tony Blair
#93. So actually I only got a mobile phone the day after I left being Prime Minister.
Tony Blair
#94. Sovereignty rests with me as an English MP and that's the way it will stay.
Tony Blair
#95. There can be no freedom for Africa without justice; and no justice without declaring war on Africa's poverty, disease and famine with as much vehemence as we remove the tyrant and the terrorist.
Tony Blair
#96. I don't think there Is a way politically to beat "Insurgent Movement Of Populism".
Tony Blair
#97. Conflict is not inevitable, but disarmament is ... everyone now accepts that if there is a default by Saddam the international community must act to enforce its will.
Tony Blair
#99. My view is that you still, in order to win from the Labour perspective, have to have a strong alliance with business as well as the unions. You have got to be very much in the centre ground on things like public sector reform.
Tony Blair
#100. I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.
Tony Blair
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