John Major Quotes

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.

John Major

• People
• Money
• Health

The right hon. and learned Member is the man who likes to say yes in Europe — Monsieur Oui, the poodle of Brussels.

John Major

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.

John Major

• Character
• Reading

I am walking over hot coals suspended over a deep pit at the bottom of which are a large number of vipers baring their fangs.

John Major

• Deep
• Walking

I inherited a sick economy and passed on a sound one. But one abiding regret for me is that, in between, I did not have the resources to put in place the educational and social changes about which I cared to much; I made only a beginning, and it was not enough.

John Major

• Beginning
• Sick
• Regret

I want Britain to punch its weight in the European Community.

John Major

• Community

Well what would happen is that if Greece defaulted and couldn't pay its debts, all the Greek bonds that are held in other banking systems across Western Europe would suddenly have no value. You could as a knock-on effect create a banking crisis in Western Europe.

John Major

• Value
• Greek

I like the best of the British press. The best of the British press is very good.

John Major

• Good

Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less.

John Major

• Society

We will do precisely what the British nation has done all through its history when it had its back to the wall — turn round and fight for the things it believes in, and that is what I shall do.

John Major

• Done
• History
• Wall

It is the one event in my life of which I am most ashamed and I have long feared would be made public.

John Major

• Life
• Long

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

John Major

• People
• Truth

I think the majority of the British people are still sanguine about the need for war.

John Major

• People
• War

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.

John Major

• Opinion

I want to see us build a country that is at ease with itself, a country that is confident and a country that is able and willing to build a better quality of life for all its citizens.

John Major

• Life
• Country
• Quality

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

John Major

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

John Major

I don't think nations can stand aside for ethnic cleansing and genocide.

John Major

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

John Major