Quotes By William Hague

It's necessary for Israelis and Palestinians to make the compromises that are required to get the direct talks back on track.

You do have to do business with and to try to influence people you don't agree with, or find disagreeable, so it's important to stress that balance.

There's only one growth strategy: work hard.

A generation of children has been betrayed.

We are not directly involved in Syria. But we will be working with our partners in the European Union and at the United Nations to see if we can persuade the Syrian authorities to go, as I say, more in that direction of respect for democracy and human rights.

The world is not going into concentric blocs of power. It is actually going into a diffusion of power with more centres of decision-making than ever in human civilisation. That requires you to place yourself in far more hubs of power than ever before.

Governments that use violence to stop democratic development will not earn themselves respite forever. They will pay an increasingly high price for actions which they can no longer hide from the world with ease, and will find themselves on the wrong side of history.

Inspiring scenes of people taking the future of their countries into their own hands will ignite greater demands for good governance and political reform elsewhere in the world, including in Asia and in Africa.

I'm going to reduce the size of the Cabinet, cut the number of ministers, reduce the size of the House of Commons, campaign for a European Parliament with 100 fewer members, halve the number of political advisers, and abolish a huge swathe of Labour's regional bureaucracies and agencies and their offices in Brussels.

When you reduce taxes on higher earners it's vital to be reducing them on lower earning people as well so the nation shares in the approach.

People feel that the EU is a one-way process, a great machine that sucks up decision-making from national parliaments to the European level until everything is decided by the EU. That needs to change.

Elected presidents are for countries.

We're not getting involved in terms of sending ground forces into Libya. Let's be clear about that. And indeed the UN Resolution forbids that. It says no foreign occupation of any part of Libya.

When the Lord Chancellor violates the trust of his great office of state to solicit party donations from people whose careers he can control, and then says I'm not sorry, and I'd do it again no wonder the public think that power has gone to their heads.

Today further EU targeted sanctions on Syria come into force. The message is clear and unambiguous: those responsible for the repression will be singled out and held accountable.

Where defining foreign policy as 'ethical' went wrong was that it implied that all decisions would be exclusive in every respect of any dealings with unethical regimes.

Those who back the Syrian regime from now on will find themselves in an even more isolated and indefensible minority.

The appalling crackdown that we witnessed in Hama and other Syrian cities on 30 and 31 July only erode the regime's legitimacy and increase resentment. In the absence of an end to the senseless violence and a genuine process of political reform, we will continue to pursue further EU sanctions.

Well, if you're looking for me to lead a normal representative life, well good luck finding a foreign secretary who'd be like that - totally dependant on the political system and has never earned any money. Then you'll get the politicians you deserve.

I think Britain would be alright, if only we had a different Government.

People know that you can't spend more than you have.

You can gain in your effectiveness as a politician from a wide acquaintance with the world and from a degree of independence that having some outside interests gives.

The British retreat is over and now the advance will begin.

People feel that in too many ways the EU is something that is done to them, not something over which they have a say.

Syria should not belong to one family, to one coterie, or to one party. It belongs to all the people of Syria equally, in all their religious and ethnic diversity.

It's not too late to stop the Lisbon Treaty.

The message I take all round the world is Britain is open for business.

The EU is not a country and it's not going to become a country, in my view, now or ever in the future. It is a group of countries working together.

I don't think my principles change. I think the way in which you apply those principles to modern society changes.

The people of Britain want a Home Secretary who will give them back their streets. They want a Home Secretary who will speak up for the victim, not the criminal.