Tony Blair Quotes
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
So actually I only got a mobile phone the day after I left being Prime Minister.
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.
Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.
The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.
It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that fails to choose.
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.
Education is the best economic policy there is.
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.
By nature, I am a unifier. I am a builder of consensus. I don't believe in sloppy compromise. But I do believe in bringing people together.
Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing.
The threat today is not that of the 1930s. It's not big powers going to war with each other. The ravages which fundamentalist political ideology inflicted on the 20th century are memories. The Cold war is over. Europe is at peace, if not always diplomatically.
In Downing Street they called me 'Boss'. Civil servants would always call me 'Prime Minister'.
Choice dependent on wealth; those are the Tory words.
Human progress has never been shaped by commentators, complainers or cynics.
Once his wife goes to sleep it takes a minor nuclear explosion to wake her.
Whatever the dangers of the action we take, the dangers of inaction are far, far greater.
And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it around an idea. And that idea is liberty.
In April 1991, after the Gulf war, Iraq was given 15 days to provide a full and final declaration of all its WMD.
Leaders lead but in the end it's the people who deliver.
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.
The purpose of terrorism lies not just in the violent act itself. It is in producing terror. It sets out to inflame, to divide, to produce consequences which they then use to justify further terror.
I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.
Be a doer and not a critic.
Genetic modification has many different areas, for example in medicine, and Britain is at the leading edge of this new technology. I don't know, but people tell me, it could indeed by the leading science of the 21st century. All I say to people is: 'Just keep an open mind and let us proceed according to genuine scientific evidence.'
My faith foundation works to bring about a greater respect and understanding between different faiths. We basically work with six popular religions in the world which are the three Abrahamic religions, Hinduism and Buddhism and Sikhism.
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.
But I am an optimist about Britain; and the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is not that the optimist believes the world is wonderful and the pessimist believes it's beset by challenges; the difference is the pessimist believes we will be defeated by them; the optimist thinks the challenges can be overcome.
I can only go one way. I've not got a reverse gear.
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.
Labour is the party of law and order in Britain today. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.
I happen to think it's the politics that makes you electable, but the reason for that is politicians sometimes talk about electability as if it's just a matter of conning the public. Actually, it's a matter of persuading the public, and in my experience, usually, the public gets it right.
Those who wish to cause religious conflict are small in number but often manage to dominate the headline.
The threat from Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons capability - that threat is real.
My office is on Twitter. I don't tweet myself - at least, not intentionally, but I probably should do.
Every so often, I feel I should graduate to classical music, properly. But the truth is, I'm more likely to listen to rock music.
I may find Saddam Hussein's regime abhorrent - any normal person would - but the survival of it is in his hands.
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.
When Europe and America stand together the world is a better and more prosperous place.
The spread of freedom is the best security for the free.
My dad was a militant atheist, or is a militant atheist. My mum was sort of bought up in a religious family because she was a Protestant from Ireland but wasn't especially religious.
I think the journey for a politician goes from wanting to please all the people all the time, to a political leader that realises in the end his responsibility is to decide. And when he decides, he divides.
Our new world rests on order. The danger is disorder. And in today's world, it can now spread like contagion.
However much I dislike the idea of abortion, you should not criminalize a woman who, in very difficult circumstances, makes that choice.
In government you carry each hope; each disillusion. And in politics it's always about the next challenge.
I say to the Taliban: surrender the terrorists; or surrender power. It's your choice.
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.
This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism.
Values unrelated to modern reality are not just electorally hopeless, the values themselves become devalued. They have no purchase on the real world.
I mean, I went to a church school when I was younger and imbibed a certain amount of religion then but it was really in university that I got interested in religion and politics at the same time. I don't think as if it were one moment of conversion but my spiritual journey really began then.
I feel like everyone else in this country today. I am utterly devastated.
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.
But in terms of how people live together, how we minimize the prospects of conflict and maximize the prospects of peace, the place of religion in our society today is essential.
Yes, I feel I've got something to say. If people want to listen, that's great, and if they don't, that's their choice.
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.
I believe Mrs. Thatcher's emphasis on enterprise was right.
You know, the media and politicians are always gonna be in a bit of tension with one another and probably most of the time that's healthy and indeed even creative. But it's where - it's really when news organisations are used as kind of instruments of politics that it gets tricky.
I cannot think of any circumstances in which a government can go to war without the support of parliament.
What people should understand is that I adore the Labour party.
I have long believed this interdependence defines the new world we live in.
There is no way you're going to have an event like 9/11 and expect things to remain the same. They killed 3,000 people in New York on that day, and if they could have they would've killed 300,000.
People know where I stand in the Labour party and what I believe in.
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.
You only require two things in life: your sanity and your wife.
The public think the politicians don't know or care about their lives; and the politicians feel misunderstood.
I would've loved to have been in a band, but sadly I just wasn't good enough.
The great advantage of the Lib Dems is precisely that no-one knows what they stand for.
But as I always say to people I'm essentially a public service person.
Look, I am very competitive.
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.