Delors Quotes

#1. Fundamentally, American society is composed of individuals who don't go out of their way to do each other favours.

Jacques Delors

#2. For me, socialism has always been about liberty and solidarity, but also about responsibility.

Jacques Delors

#3. Yes, the European model remains superior to that of America and Japan.

Jacques Delors

#4. We will have to create an avant-garde ... We could have a Union for the enlarged Europe, and a Federation for the avant-garde.

Jacques Delors

#5. Who will see you through the darkness? "Me," I key in the answer. "I'll find my own way.

Julie Anne Peters

#6. The problem of how we finance the welfare state should not obscure a separate issue: if each person thinks he has an inalienable right to welfare, no matter what happens to the world, that's not equity, it's just creating a society where you can't ask anything of people.

Jacques Delors

#7. Any union that can't accept workers choosing their own representatives through universal franchise is finished.

Jacques Delors

#8. I have the death sentence in seven genres.

Jasper Fforde

#9. Even in Britain, the trade unions tell me that employment contracts have less protection than in the past.

Jacques Delors

#10. Cinema explains American society. It's like a Western, with good guys and bad guys, where the weak don't have a place.

Jacques Delors

#11. The European model is in danger if we obliterate the principle of personal responsibility.

Jacques Delors

#12. The driving force behind the liberal counter-offensive in Europe has been a reaction against irresponsibility.

Jacques Delors

#13. My problem is how to find the best way of being useful.

Jacques Delors

#14. I came to understand that we do not change gradually, peacefully, over time, but that we undergo sudden upheavals that overthrow our best-laid plans, change our character and redesign the shape of our life, all in the matter of moments.

Catherine Delors

#15. Contrary to what people say, my wife never turned me away from the presidency. She told me to reflect on it and do what I wanted.

Jacques Delors

#16. We have to struggle against the conservatives from all sides, not only the right-wingers, but also the left-wing conservatives who don't want to change anything.

Jacques Delors

#17. The unions may continue to decline, but if they do, it'll be their fault.

Jacques Delors

#18. All right you bloody Scottish bastard, lets see how stubborn you really are.

Diana Gabaldon

#19. The problem with a purely collective system is not only that it requires economic growth, and the right sort of demographic trends, but that it prevents people thinking about their futures in a responsible way.

Jacques Delors

#20. I had to think whether, after 50 years of hard slog, I was still lucid and fresh enough for the job.

Jacques Delors

#21. These days there are not enough of such intermediary groups, between the state and the individual, with the result that political leaders are often unduly guided by opinion polls.

Jacques Delors

#22. We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.

Thomas Jefferson

#23. I cannot resign myself to the decline of Europe, and of France.

Jacques Delors

#24. If you don't have collective agreements between unions and employers, governments have to legislate more.

Jacques Delors

#25. I was a common man, and I will always remain a common man. No amount of stardom will ever consume my soul. Money comes, money goes. Fame comes, fame goes. I believe every human being is a celebrity in their own right.

A.R. Rahman

#26. This weakening is worsened by the widening distance between the governed and their governments.

Jacques Delors

#27. I would not be opposed to devising a new system of pensions, in which one part was based on collective provision, but which also gave incentives for people to take out an additional, personal plan.

Jacques Delors

#28. The unions still have a job to do, representing their members' interests to governments and parliaments. And I think collective agreements still have a role, alongside markets and laws.

Jacques Delors

#29. The countries that share this conception should be able to go further together, without excluding the others, since they can still live in a greater community of exchange and co-operation.

Jacques Delors

#30. A free economy and strong communities honor the dignity of every person, rewarding effort with justice, promoting upward mobility, and building solidarity among citizens.

Paul Ryan

#31. My presidential victory, if it had happened, would have been artificial in relation to the Socialist party. It may be that on my deathbed, I will come to regret my decision, but for the moment, I live at peace with it.

Jacques Delors

#32. Therefore one should speak at the same time of national citizenship and wider European citizenship.

Jacques Delors

#33. The past is a tricky thing and we let it define us when we should embrace the here and now, and all that's still coming. You need to let yourself live from a place of love, not from a place of fear over the things you can't control.

Jennifer Farwell

#34. Within ten years 80% of our economic legislation, perhaps even fiscal and social as well' would come from the EU.

Jacques Delors

#35. This desire for equity must not lead to an excess of welfare, where nobody is responsible for anything.

Jacques Delors

#36. Reverence the sovereign power over things in the Universe; this is what uses all and marshals all. In like manner, too, reverence the sovereign power in yourself; and this is of one kind with that. For in you also this is what uses the rest, and your manner of living is governed by this.

Marcus Aurelius

#37. The European model is, first, a social and economic system founded on the role of the market, for no computer in the world can process information better than the market.

Jacques Delors