95 quotes found
"The reason it's on the rise is because probably the boom times are getting even more boomer."
"I don't know how people who engage in that don't commit suicide"
"Time magazine reported him as speaking of "upsetting the apple tart"."
"I never condemn wrongdoing in any area"
"I have always found him to be a proud, honourable man, loyal, true, persevering, principled, caring and committed but tough and a person who lost friends easily. On behalf of the Government but in particular on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party, I thank him for his distinguished years of service to his constituents and his country."
"The public are entitled to have an absolute guarantee of the financial probity and integrity of their elected representatives, their officials and above all of Ministers. They need to know that they are under financial obligations to nobody."
"It is quite unacceptable that a member of Dáil Éireann and in particular a Cabinet Minister and Taoiseach, should be supported in his personal lifestyle by gifts made to him personally."
"I continued the arrangement, so whatever was on my mind, and the reason I probably can't give you a better reflection of what I was doing on the 19th of January is because I didn't do it. I am sure there are some mornings you get up and you think I might do this or I might do that and then you don't do them so, its hard to remember."
"governments can defer these things for a period and then, as they've previously done, go back and pay it all again. I mean, that's really only playing smokes and daggers with it."
"Some people dye their hair yellow or put rings in their noses"
"It was a political donation for my personal use."
"It is not correct, and if I said so, I was not correct — I cannot recall if I said it, but I did not say, or if I did, I did not mean to say it"
"That decision will in history be written as the biggest mistake that American administration ever made, because Lehmans was a world investment bank. They had testicles everywhere."
"It took Ireland thirty years to become an overnight success."
"He's the man. He's the best, the most skilful, the most devious, and the most cunning of them all."
"Did Ahern, in his 11 years of power, make the most of this unprecedented prosperity for the public benefit? The answer can hardly be positive, given the present state of health, education and infrastructure, generally."
"We can spit on Bertie Ahern till our mouths run dry, but he didn’t invent the amorality of our public culture. He was never a large enough figure to be able to shape the way Irish society thinks and feels. He was just an artful dodger, a skilled exploiter of the opportunities created by widespread tolerance for ingratiating chancers."
"There exists in our country a solid continuity of Bonapartism, where the vocation for grandeur of France, the monarchist tradition, and the passion for national unity, the Jacobin tradition get together."
"To every reversal of people’s soveregnity, to every disappearance of the Republic corresponds a frank or disguised restitution in force of the regal justice. ‘’Tell me, according to what you judge and I’ll tell you who you are.” […] No axiom in politics is more certain than this."
"What has begun in this evening will not stay for a long time, and because you represent the forces of the world of labour, you, forces of the youth, your victory is inevitable."
"Behind each great man, there's a Richard Delisle."
"For me Greece is Maria Farantouri. This is how I imagined Goddess Hera to be: strong, pure and vigilant. I have never encountered any other artist able to give me such a strong sense of the divine."
"The man of the past."
"One must defeat their prejudices. What I demand you here is almost impossible, for we have to defeat our history. And yet, if we do not defeat it, one must know a rule will impose itself, ladies and gentlemen: nationalism is war! War is not only our past, it may be our future; and you members of parliament are henceforth the guardians of our peace, of our security, and of this future."
"I believe in the forces of the spirit, and I won't leave you."
"In such countries, genocide is not too important…"
"I would like to say, sincerity. But it is, in fact, indifference."
"The 1980s was a radical conservative decade, and even in states where socialist or Labour governments were elected, the drift away from Marxism, collectivism and all the traditional ‘isms’ of the Left was marked. The process was particularly notable in France. The election of the socialist François Mitterrand as President in 1981, after twenty-three years of Gaullism and its successors, introduced a brief period of socialist egalitarianism and anti-business policies, which led in rapid succession to three devaluations of the franc; thereafter, the French Socialist Party moved sharply to the Right and to free-market policies; and in the later 1980s and early 1990s, alternations in power between socialist and Conservative prime ministers appeared to make little difference, in economic policy, defence or foreign affairs."
"We are an enemy of the nuclear threat and we are an enemy of testing nuclear weapons in the South Pacific. New Zealand did not buy into this fight. France put agents into New Zealand. France put spies into New Zealand. France lets off bombs in the Pacific. France puts its President in the Pacific to crow about it."
"It's been quite a journey this decade, and we held together through some stormy seas. And at the end, together, we are reaching our destination. The fact is, from Grenada to the Washington and Moscow summits, from the recession of '81 to '82, to the expansion that began in late '82 and continues to this day, we've made a difference. The way I see it, there were two great triumphs, two things that I'm proudest of. One is the economic recovery, in which the people of America created—and filled—19 million new jobs. The other is the recovery of our morale. America is respected again in the world and looked to for leadership. Something that happened to me a few years ago reflects some of this. It was back in 1981, and I was attending my first big economic summit, which was held that year in Canada. The meeting place rotates among the member countries. The opening meeting was a formal dinner of the heads of government of the seven industrialized nations. Now, I sat there like the new kid in school and listened, and it was all Francois this and Helmut that. They dropped titles and spoke to one another on a first-name basis. Well, at one point I sort of leaned in and said, "My name's Ron." Well, in that same year, we began the actions we felt would ignite an economic comeback—cut taxes and regulation, started to cut spending. And soon the recovery began. Two years later, another economic summit with pretty much the same cast. At the big opening meeting we all got together, and all of a sudden, just for a moment, I saw that everyone was just sitting there looking at me. And then one of them broke the silence. "Tell us about the American miracle," he said."
"Power corrupts, and, in many cases, absolute power makes you really horny. Clinton, Chirac, Mao, Mitterrand."
"Of course, peace might have come to Europe without the Union. Maybe. We will never know. But it would never have been of the same quality. A lasting peace, not a frosty cease-fire. To me, what makes it so special, is reconciliation. In politics as in life, reconciliation is the most difficult thing. It goes beyond forgiving and forgetting, or simply turning the page. To think of what France and Germany had gone through …, and then take this step … Signing a Treaty of Friendship … Each time I hear these words – Freundschaft, Amitié –, I am moved. They are private words, not for treaties between nations. But the will to not let history repeat itself, to do something radically new, was so strong that new words had to be found. For people Europe was a promise, Europe equalled hope. When Konrad Adenauer came to Paris to conclude the Coal and Steel Treaty, in 1951, one evening he found a gift waiting at his hotel. It was a war medal, une Croix de Guerre, that had belonged to a French soldier. His daughter, a young student, had left it with a little note for the Chancellor, as a gesture of reconciliation and hope. I can see many other stirring images before me. Leaders of six States assembled to open a new future, in Rome, città eterna … Willy Brandt kneeling down in Warsaw. The dockers of Gdansk, at the gates of their shipyard. Mitterrand and Kohl hand in hand. Two million people linking Tallinn to Riga to Vilnius in a human chain, in 1989. These moments healed Europe."
"Ska vi vara ärliga så är en hel del av jobbproblematiken kopplad till utrikes födda."
"We have a strong economy but we don't have the job creation we need. We want more job creation."
"The Nordic welfare model is in many aspects a good model but it needs more of a choice for individuals."
"Om alla liknar Carl bekräftas vanföreställningarna av moderaterna. Det blir ett parti för Carl Bildt-kopior."
"Ursvenskt är bara barbariet. Resten av utvecklingen har kommit utifrån. [...] Det kan ibland vara bra att ödmjukt påminna om att väldigt mycket av det som är Sverige har skapats i utveckling, just för att vi varit öppna för att ta emot andra människor och andra erfarenheter"
"I våldets Sverige så får hederliga medborgare flytta åt sidan. I rädsla för att vara nästa som drabbas av våldsverkaren, med vapen i hand, med drogögon mitt i ansiktet, så vet vi inte vad den här personen är kapabel att göra"
"Iraq has WMDs. It is not something we think, it is something we know. Iraq has itself admitted that it has had mustard gas, nerve gas, anthrax, but Saddam won't disclose. He won't tell us where and how these weapons have been destroyed. We know this from the UN inspectors, so there is no doubt in my mind."
"That's what it's like when people have crawled very high up in a tree, then they sometimes need help to get down with ladders and ropes and other instruments."
"The good thing is that all the symbolic elements are gone, and that which really matters – the core – is left."
"I was deeply distressed that the cartoons were seen by many Muslims as an attempt by Denmark to mark and insult or behave disrespectfully towards Islam or Mohammed."
"It could never happen in Denmark, Danish people are much more calm than those further south."
"I often use Sweden as a discouraging example to promte a free and open debate and maintain a strict immigration policy."
"They [i.e. the Christian National Union] don't emphasize procapitalist thinking. Basing themselves on the social teachings of the church, they will advocate the model of the denominational state. That is why two strong rightist parties will arise. The Liberal party will resolutely distance itself from the nationalist orientation. It will occupy the Center-Right niche and enter into a coalition with democratic and procapitalist forces, e.g., with the Movement for Polish Politics."
"I can confirm that Poland will join the euro zone, and not just because all the treaties are signed, but because I consider it of strategic interest both for Poland and the European Union. But only a fool would believe that the euro could provide a guarantee that a financial crisis would never happen again."
"I'm incapable of getting angry with Angela Merkel."
"We want to understand democracy as an endless discussion, or a constant debate when we choose a path. (...) But when the consensus comes, (...) we work as one body."
"Europe is not old, haggard or barren. Europe is young, dynamic and vital. Our continent remains the best place in the world to live."
"To defend [my vision of Europe] does not mean to lecture anyone. The British citizens will make this decision themselves and they do not need any whisperers, especially from Brussels. I understand this very well. But when I hear the EU being compared to the plans and projects of Adolf Hitler I cannot remain silent. Such absurd arguments should be completely ignored if they hadn't been formulated by one of the most influential politicians of the ruling party."
"As a historian I fear Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also Western political civilisation in its entirety."
"Every family knows that a divorce is traumatic for everyone. Everyone in the EU, but especially the Brits themselves, would lose out economically [if Britain left the EU]."
"Tragic paradox that the subject of #NiceAttack was the people celebrating liberty, equality and fraternity."
"The claims, increasingly taking the form of threats that no agreement will be good for the UK, and bad for the EU, need to be addressed. I want to be clear that a 'no deal scenario' would be bad for everyone, but above all for the UK, because it would leave a number of issues unresolved."
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
"I still have dreams. Politics without dreams – it would be a nightmare."
"No-one will ever tell me that Brexit is a good thing because as I have always said, in fact, Brexit is only about damage control."
"The EU will be able to rise to every scenario as long as we are not divided."
"EU27 is not working on 'no-deal' scenario."
"If the UK government sticks to its decision to leave, Brexit will become a reality - with all its negative consequences - in March next year. Unless there is a change of heart among our British friends. Wasn't it David Davis himself who said 'if a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy'. We, here on the continent, haven't had a change of heart. Our hearts are still open to you."
"There can be no frictionless trade outside of the customs union and the single market. Friction is an inevitable side-effect of Brexit by nature."
"Brexit means drifting apart but we don't want to build a wall."
"It will make it more complicated and costly than today for all of us. This is the essence of Brexit."
"I may be from the east but I am not a beast."
"The UK's decision on Brexit has caused the problem and the UK will have to solve it. Without a solution there will be no withdrawal agreement and no transition."
"Europe should be grateful by President Trump, because thanks to him we have got rid of old illusions. He has made us realise that if you need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of your arm."
"If a deal is impossible, and no-one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?"
"[David Cameron told me] he felt really safe, because he thought at the same time that there’s no risk of a referendum, because his coalition partner, the Liberals, would block this idea of a referendum. But then, surprisingly, he won and there was no coalition partner. So paradoxically David Cameron became the real victim of his own victory."
"There is a special place in hell for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out safely."
"It means that until 12 April, anything is possible: a deal, a long extension if the United Kingdom decided to rethink its strategy, or revoking Article 50, which is a prerogative of the UK government. The fate of Brexit is in the hands of our British friends. As the EU, we are prepared for the worst, but hope for the best. As you know, hope dies last."
"The fate of Brexit is in the hands of our British friends. As the EU, we are prepared for the worst, but hope for the best. As you know, hope dies last."
"[I will] not co-operate on [a] no-deal."
"Tomorrow I meet PM Boris Johnson. I hope that he will not like to go down in history as “Mr. No Deal”."
"But if we restore the normal role of public television. Not that they say 'Tusk is a genius and Kaczyński is a Jew'. Just saying... Only that there would be normal public television again, people with different views, debates and so on."
"Bad politicians are elected by good citizens who stay at home."
"Now, all that matters is help for people threatened by flooding and state action. Those who can, let them help, those who can't, let them not hinder. Politics must give way to solidarity."
"The paradox is that 500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians. We must rely on ourselves, fully aware of our potential and with confidence that we are a global power."
"If we told our story even half as well as we actually governed, we would be winning election after election."
"I know the taste of victory, I know the bitterness of defeat, but I don't know the word surrender."
"More and more leads, more and more information, and more and more commentary in the global press all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services. I don't need to tell you how serious the increasingly likely possibility that Russian intelligence services co-organised this operation is for the security of the Polish state. This can only mean that they also possess compromising materials against many leaders still active today."
"Mr Tusk, who has been given to using the analogies of the divorce and divorce petition, is behaving like a cuckolded husband who is taking it out on the children."
"I am only an Aryan."
"There’s a war criminal coming to this country. ... The occupation and expansion … building of settlements, of occupied territory, this is according to the Rome Statute, which is… the setup… the statute on which the is based, in so many words, a . ... So why should we receive someone who continues with such things, we could have sent him right away to the international criminal court, that would have been better"
"So, Mr Barroso, the most important conclusion of today has to be the message that you gave. You gave it here, very well and to much applause, but now you have to repeat it in another place, somewhere in Brussels, at the Council. I am no longer there, but I am sure we will know what you say there. You will have to repeat it there, telling them that the intergovernmental method is a bad method that cannot work. And why can it not work? Because it needs unanimity; the Polish know about that, as Poland disappeared in the 18th century because of the unanimity rule in the Polish Parliament: that is history and reality. The same could happen in Europe if we continue with this unanimity rule. We have to abolish it. Colleagues, this is the real problem. Why is there such a problem in this crisis? Because the Member States are reluctant to transfer new sovereignty and powers to the European Union. We all know that the only way out of this crisis is a new transfer of powers to the European Union and to the European institutions. That is at stake."
"[Brexit] is stupidity for a country with 53 percent of its exports going to the Continent and to the rest of Europe. It’s even so stupid that Britain’s best friends, the U.S., don’t understand it all."
"The only winners from a Brexit would be Nigel Farage and Vladimir Putin; who would relish a divided Europe."
"I know that within the Tory party the hard Brexiteers are compared to the leaders of the French revolution. I think Gove is Brissot, and Boris Johnson is Danton, and Rees-Mogg is compared to Robespierre. We should not forget that the efforts of these men were not appreciated by the common man they claimed to represent – because they all ended up on the guillotine. So that’s important to remind [them]."
"There is only one pro-European party in Britain and it is the Lib Dems."
"I think there will be huge support for Remain – that’s very clear. We’re going to see it... I’m pretty sure that there will be great support and certainly for the most pro-European party: the Lib Dems."
"If the UK doesn’t pay what is due, the EU will not negotiate a trade deal."
"I wanted to be sure that there would be no automatic deportation for people after that period because it can be people who are very vulnerable"
"It is sad to see a country leaving that twice liberated us, [that has] twice given its blood to liberate Europe"
"There is a historic battle going on across the west, in Europe, America, and elsewhere. It is globalism against populism. And you may loathe populism, but I’ll tell you a funny thing. It is becoming very popular! And it has great benefits. No more financial contributions, no more European Courts of Justice. No more European Common Fisheries Policy, no more being talked down to. No more being bullied, no more Guy Verhofstadt! What’s not to like. I know you’re going to miss us, I know you want to ban our national flags, but we’re going to wave you goodbye, and we’ll look forward in the future to working with you as a sovereign nation… [Farage is cut off by the chair]"
"An absolute majority doesn't mean absolute power. It doesn't mean governing alone. It's an increased responsibility."
"This is a special night for me. The Portuguese have confirmed that they want a Socialist Party government for the next four years ... They want stability, certainty and security."