Douglas Hurd

History provides no precise guidelines.

— Douglas Hurd

“Prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse.”

— Douglas Hurd

A genuinely democratic Iraq might well act as a fresh spur.

— Douglas Hurd

It is normal for politicians in all countries to profess themselves the pupils of history, anxious to draw the right lessons from…

— Douglas Hurd

There is nothing false or arrogant about German pride in German technical and business skills.

— Douglas Hurd

People are very interested in politics, they just don't like it labelled politics.

— Douglas Hurd

But it cannot follow that because weapons and troops are now being deployed we are bound to go to war.

— Douglas Hurd

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

— Douglas Hurd

Diplomacy is unfashionable in the world of knee-jerk reaction and the dogmatic sound bite on television.

— Douglas Hurd

We, Britain and Germany, can neither of us be happy about our handling of the Iraq war.

— Douglas Hurd

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

— Douglas Hurd

It depends on how it is done but what we are drifting into, which is that people grow up without any sense…

— Douglas Hurd

Margaret Thatcher was fearful of German unification because she believed that this would bring an immediate and formidable increase of economic strength…

— Douglas Hurd

We should be wary of politicians who profess to follow history while only noticing those signposts of history that point in the…

— Douglas Hurd

There are thus great swathes of the past where understanding is more important and reputable than judgement, because the principal actors performed…

— Douglas Hurd

No military timetable should compel war when a successful outcome, namely a disarmed Iraq may be feasible without war, for example by…

— Douglas Hurd

Margaret Thatcher, growing up in a bombed and battered Britain, derived a distrust which has grown with the years not just of…

— Douglas Hurd

Men like Hitler and Stalin and their immediate lieutenants cannot plead in defence of their actions that these were justified by the…

— Douglas Hurd

Despite this lamentable lack of balance in our education I do not believe that either children or adults in my country are…

— Douglas Hurd

Silence is regarded as a sort of sin now, and it has to be filled with a lot of gossip and soundbites.

— Douglas Hurd

It was essentially for self defence that we went to war in Afghanistan and would go to war in Iraq.

— Douglas Hurd

We must admit that history is enjoyable to a large extent because it enables us to pass judgment on the past.

— Douglas Hurd

But Germany will always suffer, I fear, from the intensely dramatic character of the crimes of the Third Reich.

— Douglas Hurd

The tragedy of 9/11 galvanised the American superpower into action, leaving us in Europe divided in its wake.

— Douglas Hurd

Wisely used history can give pleasure and provide us with a useful tool; but we should not become its slaves.

— Douglas Hurd

There is no consensus even today on the merits of Napoleon - and certainly no agreement on the rights and wrongs of…

— Douglas Hurd

Ten Downing Street is a house, not an office. That is its most important characteristic.

— Douglas Hurd

The tragedy of 9-11 galvanized the American superpower into action, leaving us in Europe divided in its wake.

— Douglas Hurd

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

— Douglas Hurd

War on Iraq runs the risk of turning the Middle East into an inexhaustible recruiting ground for anti- western terrorism.

— Douglas Hurd

People know they are lacking something, they are constantly wanting some kind of spiritual guidance.

— Douglas Hurd

I may be wrong in that, but not I think in putting the questions. In our modern democracy the government needs not…

— Douglas Hurd