Tony Blair Quotes

I want my son to grow up in a place where the people are more powerful than the government and not the other way around.

What is obviously unfair is that the half of the population that doesn't go to university that's often on lower incomes pays more taxes in order to send other people to university, without them, you know, contributing.

The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.

I'm not asking you to agree with me, but at least open your mind.

At the heart of my politics has always been the value of community, the belief that we are not merely individuals struggling in isolation from each other, but members of a community who depend on each other, who benefit from each other's help, who owe obligations to each other. From that everything stems: solidarity, social justice, equality, freedom.

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.

Education is the best economic policy there is.

The class war is over.

Leaders lead but in the end it's the people who deliver.

My teachers used to call me a failure

Global warming is too serious for the world any longer to ignore its danger or split into opposing factions on it.

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 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.

It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that fails to choose.

I would've loved to have been in a band, but sadly I just wasn't good enough.

Politics is about listening and it's about leading.

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.

I hope that people know me well enough and realise that I would never do anything to harm the country or anything improper. I never have. I think most people who have dealt with me think I am a pretty straight sort of a guy.

Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain, Britain. Conform to it; or don't come here.

I believe Mrs. Thatcher's emphasis on enterprise was right.

September 11 was, and remains, above all an immense human tragedy. But September 11 also posed a momentous and deliberate challenge not just to America but to the world at large. The target of the terrorists was not only New York and Washington but the very values of freedom, tolerance and decency which underpin our way of life.

There are people who are anxious about immigration for reasons that are perfectly sensible. They think it's uncontrolled. They think it's, therefore, arbitrary in its consequences, and there are some communities affected much more deeply than others.

One of the most important things in politics is you've got to keep your mind infinitely curious and alive to what is happening differently.

I had discovered long ago the first lesson of political courage: to think anew. I had then learned the second: to be prepared to lead and to decide. I was now studying the third: how to take the calculated risk. I was going to alienate some people, like it or not. The moment you decide, you divide.

The big issue of our time is trying to deal with extremism based on a perversion of religion and how you get peaceful coexistence between people of different faiths and cultures.