Sean Quinn's Quotes

I no longer own or control the businesses which I have spent my life building up.

I suppose I was always very greedy. I was never happy with what we had, and I was always looking for new opportunities.

Never in my life did I steal a penny that didn't belong to me.

I am not in the business of pointing fingers or making excuses. However, recent history has shown that I, like thousands of others in Ireland, incorrectly relied upon the persons who guided Anglo and who wrongfully sought to portray a 'blue chip' Irish banking sector.

I was never one to run away from trouble - I intend to continue to fight my corner and try to redeem our reputation in some way. It's very difficult when you see the PR campaign that Anglo have built up against us. A lot of the media would be very anti-Quinn and have fallen hook, line and sinker for the Anglo story where they are the good guys.

I'm a hard-nosed businessman, that if a company is paying its way, increasing profits for thirty-odd consecutive years, you don't put it into receivership.

If Anglo feels it hasn't done enough damage to me already by taking my money, my company, my reputation, if they want to finish it off by putting me in prison, then so be it - I'll accept that.

In 2009 we increased the cash in Quinn Direct as we had in 2008. We increased the cash in it in 2010. The outstanding claims were €20m in March 2010 but Quinn Direct had more business in the U.K. than in Ireland.

Let's not forget, it was the government, Department of Finance and Central Bank that decided to unfairly land the taxpayers of this country with unmitigated losses of Anglo and massive legacy issues that would have been expected when nationalising a fraudulent bank.

The vast majority of debt that Anglo maintains is owed is strenuously disputed. However, I cannot now pay those loans which are due, following Anglo taking control of the Quinn Group of companies, which I and a loyal team spent a lifetime building.

Yes, I am scared of prison. It's the last thing if you are after building up a business over 38 years and you are approaching your 66th birthday and you never owed a man a penny and you feel hard done by and you try to protect yourself and your family and go to prison - if that is the society we are living in, I am happy to accept that.

It is worth while too to warn the teacher that undue severity in correcting faults is liable at times to discourage a boy's mind from effort.

Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.

Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.

Our minds are like our stomaches; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite.

That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.

The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation of virtue and vice.

The pretended admission of a fault on our part creates an excellent impression.

The prosperous can not easily form a right idea of misery.

Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.

Though ambition itself be a vice, yet it is often times the cause of virtues.

To my mind the boy who gives least promise is one in whom the critical faculty develops in advance of the imagination.

To swear, except when necessary, is becoming to an honorable man.

Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.

Verse satire indeed is entirely our own.

When we cannot hope to win, it is an advantage to yield.