Douglas Hurd Quotes

27 quotes in 390 categories

• There is no consensus even today on the merits of Napoleon - and certainly no agreement on the rights and wrongs of the origins of…
• The tragedy of 9/11 galvanised the American superpower into action, leaving us in Europe divided in its wake.
• No military timetable should compel war when a successful outcome, namely a disarmed Iraq may be feasible without war, for example by allowing more time…
• Ten Downing Street is a house, not an office. That is its most important characteristic.
• We must admit that history is enjoyable to a large extent because it enables us to pass judgment on the past.
• It is normal for politicians in all countries to profess themselves the pupils of history, anxious to draw the right lessons from her teaching.
• Margaret Thatcher, growing up in a bombed and battered Britain, derived a distrust which has grown with the years not just of Germany but of…
• There are thus great swathes of the past where understanding is more important and reputable than judgement, because the principal actors performed in line with…
• A genuinely democratic Iraq might well act as a fresh spur.
• But Germany will always suffer, I fear, from the intensely dramatic character of the crimes of the Third Reich.
• History provides no precise guidelines.
• Margaret Thatcher was fearful of German unification because she believed that this would bring an immediate and formidable increase of economic strength to a Germany…
• Men like Hitler and Stalin and their immediate lieutenants cannot plead in defence of their actions that these were justified by the accepted values of…
• People know they are lacking something, they are constantly wanting some kind of spiritual guidance.
• It depends on how it is done but what we are drifting into, which is that people grow up without any sense of a spiritual…
• But it cannot follow that because weapons and troops are now being deployed we are bound to go to war.
• It was essentially for self defence that we went to war in Afghanistan and would go to war in Iraq.
• I may be wrong in that, but not I think in putting the questions. In our modern democracy the government needs not a unanimous but…
• We must admit that history is enjoyable to a large extent because it enables us to pass judgement on the past.
• Despite this lamentable lack of balance in our education I do not believe that either children or adults in my country are permeated by a…

Browse Douglas Hurd Quotes by Category