John Major's Quotes

Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be too clever by half. The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

Ronnie Barker will forever be remembered as one of the great comic actors.

The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change.

The British don't runaway from terrorism. We have had 30-odd years of terrorism in our own country from the Irish Republican Army. We're used to it.

The politician who never made a mistake never made a decision.

There are more myths about Black Wednesday than the Greeks ever created.

Too many people looked to me in the eye and did not tell me the truth.

Well British troops are superb in the field in terms of conflict.

Well, I have concerns about the effectiveness of Europe to compete.

Well, I think there's a distinction between sexing-up the intelligence and sexing-up the presentation of the intelligence.

Whatever efforts for peace President Gorbachev had in mind, they were pretty substantially undercut very swiftly by Saddam Hussein.

When I was in office the fundraising was done by the party treasurers.

When the euro was born, it was born in the wrong economic circumstances.

Whether you agree with me or disagree with me; like me or loathe me, don't bind my hands when I am negotiating on behalf of the British nation.

You don't forget crises and neither does the Queen.

You've had an extremely weak euro on the foreign exchange markets, you've had a very dubious policy being followed.

'Government gets things right' does not encourage sales. 'Government makes another blunder' does encourage sales, so there's a commercial imperative that pushes sensationalism.

I have a huge admiration for the House of Lords, I have a huge admiration for the people who work in the House of Lords, they're great public servants and they do an absolutely tremendous job.

I have been reading the press more regularly than others over 50 years and it seems to me that there are things that have changed in the press that have changed its character.

I mean if you have ever found a politician who says, 'No, no, I would do everything exactly as I did,' then you can tell when he is lying because his lips are moving.

If you look at things that really affect people's lives - sport, the arts, charities - they were always at the back of the queue for government money - health, social security, defence, pensions were all way ahead. And each of those areas - sports, the arts, the lottery - got relatively petty cash from the government.

If you look back historically, admittedly a long time ago, there were three Afghan wars in which Britain didn't even come a good second. In more recent years the Russians were there with 120,000 men for ten years.

In housing in the fifties in Britain and the sixties, we pulled down the terraces - destroyed whole communities and replaced them with tower blocks and we built walkways that became rat-runs for muggers. That was the fashionable opinion. But it was wrong.

Let's turn British inventions into British industries, British factories and British jobs. Let them make pounds for us, not dollars marks or yen for others.

Of course there are regrets. I shall regret always that I found my own authentic voice in politics. I was too conservative, too conventional. Too safe, too often. Too defensive. Too reactive. Later, too often on the back foot.

September the 11th was a huge shock in the United States. It was the first time you had been hit at home in your own territory by terrorist on this scale.