Quotes & Sayings About Prime Ministers

What is good is the fact that we've got a broad selection of candidates [for Prime Minister] ... to choose from, representing a diverse set of backgrounds, a diverse set of perspectives. — Nicky Morgan

... people always credit prime ministers with more brains than they've got. — Ken Follett

Of course I want to be [prime minister]. — Jeremy Corbyn

In the old days we were the challenger brand competing against the big banks, but today I go round the world and I sit with governors of central banks and finance ministers and, in some cases, prime ministers. They all know Travelex. We are regarded as the establishment - the world's largest retailer of foreign currency. — Lloyd Dorfman

Mr. President, prime ministers, let us have ambitions: ambitions to move beyond the violence and occupation, to the day when two states, Palestine and Israel, can live together side by side in peace and security. — Abdallah II Of Jordan

The reason most people don't express their individuality and actually deny it, is not fear of what prime ministers think of us or the head of the federal reserve, It's what their families and their friends down at the bar are going to think of them. — David Icke

There seems to be a sense in the British media that prime ministers enjoy going to war. They do not. The decision to send British soldiers into battle is the worst and most stomach-churning senior politicians have to take. It makes them wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worrying if they have done the right thing. — Jonathan Powell

I think personality correction is necessary for successful men, like prime ministers, businessmen, politicians ... it's essential that one should keep an eye on one's own personality. You must have seen people in politics who become chief ministers and then pass into oblivion - how egotistical they became and how pathetic they look. — Dilip Kumar

If I'm the British prime minister I won't be dictated to on the timetable or the manner of the negotiations. — Michael Gove

Political risk is hard to manage because so much comes down to the personal choices of policymakers, whether prime ministers or heads of central banks. — James Surowiecki

If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we've experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign, — William F. Buckley Jr.

Just as the England football manager starts with bells and flags and balloons and ends up reviled, so do prime ministers. Tony Blair - is there anyone more despised now? Gordon Brown - all right, nobody voted for him but, you know ... just think of any of them. Margaret Thatcher. John Major. Steve McLaren. Fabio Capello. — Terry Wogan

As a student, I had stayed with Winston Churchill; later, I had lunched with Harold Macmillan - in fact, had met most of the post-war prime ministers of Great Britain from Douglas-Home to Tony Blair. — Nigel Hamilton

Over the last few years, the Islamic world has produced more female presidents and prime ministers than both Europe and North America combined. — Reza Aslan

Solomon resumes talking to

the envoys of Sheba: "Go back and tell her what you have seen, how the rare substance she

thinks we value can be scraped up anywhere as soil. Tell her the elaborate throne she loves

looks more like a bandage over a hurt place. We admire Ibrahim, who left his kingdom so

quickly. With us, one genuine kneeling down in total humility would buy hundreds

of governments. Our currency is an eagerness to accept the gift of soul change. Nothing

else. Sheba's sumptuous life is just a hole in the ground with children playing in it,

pretending to be kings and prime ministers. We perform reverse alchemy, transmuting

gold mines into abandoned sites! — Jalaluddin Rumi

Media people should have long noses like an elephant to smell out politicians, mayors, prime ministers and businessmen. We need to know the reality, the good and the bad, not just the appearance. — Dalai Lama

I would not wish to be Prime Minister, dear. — Margaret Thatcher

We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other wedded couples they sometimes live apart. — Hector Hugh Munro

Resignations are for Prime Ministers and those caught with their trousers down, not for me. — Brian Clough

New Zealand, by the way, where I was ambassador, has had two women prime ministers - one from either party. — Carol Moseley Braun

Refuse to accept the narrative of history laid down by presidents, prime ministers, generals and journalists. — Robert Fisk

There is something utterly nauseating about a system of society which pays a harlot 25 times as much as it pays its prime minister, 250 times as much as it pays its members of Parliament and 500 times as much as it pays some of its ministers of religion. — Harold Wilson

In my view it is better for the Labour Party, the leadership and the new prime minister that he be given the maximum flexibility. — John Richard Reid

I'm the f***ing Prime Minister! — Tony Blair

Some people find it difficult to argue with a woman Prime Minister and shrivel up. — Douglas Hurd

The first law I passed in my cabinet was a law eliminating the double salary for the prime minister and the ministers. I have a salary as member of parliament. I don't want a double salary. So it was a very important decision. — Enrico Letta

It is now in Gordon Brown's - and the Labour party's - best interests for those seeking the prime minister's immediate departure to back off — David Blunkett

I appreciate my brother, His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the U.A.E. and Ruler of Dubai, and the Council of Ministers, who face every morning challenges, but plan and remove all obstacles to score achievements. — Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan

The suggestion that the prime minister had been flirting with one of the senior women cabinet ministers made me laugh every time I saw it, and I thought, "if you only knew!" Perhaps they should have pushed it a bit harder. — Edwina Currie

Women are secretaries of state and prime ministers - but people still don't expect women to be involved in violence. — Mia Bloom

We have done much in the last few years to destroy the severe limitations of Victorian delicacy, and all of us, from princesses and prime-ministers' wives downward, talk of topics that would have been considered quite gravely improper in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, some topics have, if anything, become more indelicate than they were, and this is especially true of the discussion of income, of any discussion that tends, however remotely, to inquire, Who is it at the base of everything who really pays in blood and muscle and involuntary submissions for your freedom and magnificence? This, indeed, is almost the ultimate surviving indecency. — H.G.Wells

Or how it feels to be more important than kings and queens, than presidents or prime ministers or heroes, to be sure of it, in the same way that people are more important than brussels sprouts? — Neil Gaiman

If our system of cabinet government is to work effectively, the prime minister of the day must appoint ministers he or she trusts and then leave them to carry out that policy. — Nigel Lawson

I am absolutely sure to be the most democratic man to ever become Prime Minister in Italy. — Silvio Berlusconi

Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars ... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are. — Osho

Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which Prime ministers have never yet been invested. — Winston Churchill

Prime ministers require the hide of a rhinoceros, the morals of St. Francis, the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the leadership of Napoleon, the magnetism of a Beatle and the subtlety of Machiavelli. — Lester B. Pearson

It is the only time that I can ever remember the Prime Minister reading out the conclusions of a meeting that did not take place. They were already written before it started. — Michael Heseltine

Presidents and prime ministers, whether they live in the rich or the poor world, are insulated and isolated from the devastating impact of global poverty. They read the statistics, but they rarely witness at first hand the misery and degradation of life on a dollar a day. — Jonathan Dimbleby

Did the Prime Minister have some sort of grudge against you by sending this publicity crazed person into your Department? — David Winnick

So you know, formally, what the government here is saying is that Israel's prime minister announced the appointment on Twitter. He didn't follow diplomatic protocol. But what we know is that it's about much more than that. It is about who Dani Dayan is. — Lourdes Garcia-Navarro

What do you do after you are world-famous and nineteen or twenty and you have sat with prime ministers, kings and queens, the Pope? Do you go back home and take a job? What do you do to keep your sanity? You come back to the real world. — Wilma Rudolph

The miracle of life is given by One greater than ourselves, but once given, each life is ours to nurture and preserve, to foster, not only for today's world but for a better one to come. There is no purpose more noble than for us to sustain and celebrate life in a turbulent world, and that is what we must do now. We have no higher duty, no greater cause as humans. Life and the preservation of freedom to live it in dignity is what we are on this Earth to do. Everything we work to achieve must seek that end so that some day our prime ministers, our premiers, our presidents, and our general secretaries will talk not of war and peace, but only of peace. — Ronald Reagan

I think it's time for the Prime Minister to stop making excuses and to start governing. — Tony Abbott

I am not deeply involved in Australian politics but I know there are prime ministers, governments around the world who are not acting responsibly in relation to climate change. — Jane Goodall

If Margaret Thatcher had been Prime Minister at the time, there would have been no Treaty of Maastricht. — Douglas Hurd

In the end we are all sacked and it's always awful. It is as inevitable as death following life. If you are elevated there comes a day when you are demoted. Even Prime Ministers. — Alan Clark

Events went on to show that it is not by chance that a prime minister reaches such lofty heights and that, as the infallible wisdom of nations has demonstrated time and time again, each country gets the government it deserves, although it must be said that while it is true to say that prime ministers, for good or ill, are not all the same, it is no less true to say, are all countries. — Jose Saramago

If the basis of trust between the Prime Minister and her Defence Secretary no longer exists, there is no place for me with honour in such a Cabinet. — Michael Heseltine

It is easy to criticize and find fault with the conduct of kings, and write furious articles against them in newspapers, or make violent speeches about them on platforms. Any fool can rip and rend a costly garment, but not every man can cut out and make one. To expect perfection in kings, prime ministers, or rulers of any king, is senseless and unreasonable. We would exhibit more wisdom if we prayed for them more, and criticized less. — J.C. Ryle

You don't try and put rockets under prime ministers. — Andrew Forrest

Governments govern, but prime ministers and presidents do not personally turn up in people's homes to tell them how to run their lives, because of the mortal danger this would present. There are laws instead. — Terry Pratchett

As an economist specializing in the global economy, international trade and debt, I have spent most of my career helping others make big decisions - prime ministers, presidents and chief executives - and so I'm all too aware of the risks and dangers of poor choices in the public as well as the private sphere. — Noreena Hertz

I think prime ministers, I actually think Cabinet ministers should be subject to intense scrutiny, I think that's in the public interest, even if some of the allegations made aren't right and so on, and they have to correct the record, it doesn't matter. — Alexander Downer

Well, there have been periods in the past when prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand were at each others' throats publicly and frequently. That's not productive at all. — Helen Clark

It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become Prime Minister — Margaret Thatcher

Well, Australians should speak for the national interests of Australia, and whatever role former Australian prime ministers may have, one of the things you do is speak frankly about the country as you see the country's best interests, you know? — Paul Keating

It is quite clear that history will record that Margaret Thatcher was the greatest Prime Minister this country has had since Churchill. — Nigel Lawson

I have never asked a prime minister for anything — Rupert Murdoch

In my experience (I am the lone father of an eight-year-old boy who lost his mother when he was one year old), parenting is the most difficult of all jobs: forget your chief executives, editors, prime ministers and the like - parenting is far more challenging. — Martin Jacques

If presidents and prime ministers can find time to stay fit, others of us can find ways to do it, too. — Julian Goater

You know, by the time you become the leader of a country, someone else makes all the decisions ... You may find you can get away with virtual presidents, virtual prime ministers, virtual everything. — William J. Clinton

The first two Prime Ministers whom I served, Ted Heath and Margaret Thatcher drew strikingly different lessons from the Second World War. — Douglas Hurd

We have, or have had women presidents or prime ministers in Liberia, Chile, Germany, Great Britain ... and yet the US of A still hasn't had a women president. It's just beyond my thinking. Look at Congress ... — Billie Jean King

There are some issues where ministers should come and talk to the prime minister, if the prime minister hasn't already talked to them. Any issue which a minister thinks is going to be profoundly controversial, where we do not have a clear existing position, it is important that there be a conversation between the minister and the prime minister. I think they all understand that and I think it is working very well. — Tony Abbott

Other prime ministers leave office and stay in London. I have come back with my whole family to Fife. This is where they are being brought up. It is better for them and better for me. It's great to see more of the kids. — Gordon Brown

You mustn't expect prime ministers to enjoy themselves. If they do, they mustn't show it - the population would be horrified — Edward Heath

When I started out as Prime Minister I wanted to please all the people all the time. By the end I was wondering if I pleased any of the people any of the time. — Tony Blair

Some information has to remain in the privy of the office of the Prime Minister and the ministers for the proper administration of government. — Jean Chretien

Pitt the Elder, had been prime minister a generation before (1766-68). He was a manic-depressive, had had a mental breakdown in 1751 while a Cabinet minister (Paymaster General) and had withdrawn from public office for three years. While serving in the highest office, clear signs of mental instability were evident. He spent most of his prime ministership sequestered away in a small room in his house at Hampstead, trying to avoid his ministers and the pressures of governing. During his time, his Chancellor was doing his own thing, unwisely levying the taxes on the North American colonies that would eventually ignite the War of Independence. — Phil Mason

I am not the Prime Minister of French capitalism. I am the Prime Minister of France. — Lionel Jospin

[When asked how it felt to be a female prime minister:] I don't know: I've never experienced the alternative. — Margaret Thatcher

We dream of an India where development is the result of all Chief Ministers, the Prime Minister, state Ministers, Union Ministers working together with even Local Body Authorities as one team, a strong and united Team India. — Narendra Modi

As a Scot Gordon Brown will find it hard to convince people in England he should be prime minister — Boris Johnson

We vote to leave, we get rid of this Prime Minister - dishonest Dave [Cameron] - and we get a better Prime Minister. — Nigel Farage

A woman said to me, 'You're better than your successor.' She then said she's lived under 10 prime ministers, and each was worse than the last. That put me in my place. — Gordon Brown

On the question of comfort women, when my thought goes to these people, who have been victimized by human trafficking and gone through immeasurable pain and suffering beyond description, my heart aches. And on this point, my thought has not changed at all from previous prime ministers. — Shinzo Abe

I began to appreciate that authentic truth is never simple and that any version of truth handed down from on high - whether by presidents, prime ministers, or archbishops - is inherently suspect. The powerful, I came to see, reveal truth only to the extent that it suits them. — Andrew Bacevich