Quotes By William Hague

Time is not on Gaddafi's side. People ask about the exit strategy. It's Colonel Gaddafi who needs an exit strategy because this pressure will only mount and it will be intensified over the coming days and weeks.

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.

Turning away Turkey from the EU would be a great, long-term - a century-long - error by Europe.

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.

I gave up lots of things I love doing: writing, and business, and playing the piano and so on.

To the hard-working people who set a little bit aside each month, to provide for their children, or to fund their own retirement, I say: you should be rewarded not punished.

I don't think a wise thing at this moment is for Israel to launch a military attack on Iran.

You have to have as many defences in place as you possibly can. But even then of course - and it's important to stress this - you cannot guarantee being able to prevent every attack or every kind of attack.

Someone once claimed I was not really a Yorkshireman!

Governments that block the aspirations of their people, that steal or are corrupt, that oppress and torture or that deny freedom of expression and human rights should bear in mind that they will find it increasingly hard to escape the judgement of their own people, or where warranted, the reach of international law.

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.

I have found that I get a better reaction from people once I am less bothered about their reaction.

I've always been opposed myself to prisoners having the vote.

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.

We have to face the reality of climate change. It is arguably the biggest threat we are facing today.

One day I will go back to my books and piano, but not yet.

I know people are fickle.

The total economy of Latin America is bigger than China.

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

The Bill of Rights was intended to secure freedom of speech - the freedom of speech of members of parliament to speak freely rather than be at threat of... the threat of an over powerful monarch at the time.

Labour have been listening for too long to the so-called experts who think that competition is a dirty word and that communicating facts to our children is elitist.

The low carbon economy is at the leading edge of a structural shift now taking place globally.

The EU should be concentrated on adapting to globalisation and global competitiveness, not building more powerful centralised institutions in Brussels.

To the teacher weighed down with paperwork, I say: you've been messed around too often. You came into teaching to spend your time teaching children not filling in forms.

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

For the security of the UK, it matters a lot for Somalia to become a more stable place.

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.

As far as I'm aware, everybody in the shadow cabinet accepts that there's a compelling case on climate change and a strong scientific case.

We hope that the long darkness through which the Burmese people have lived may now be coming to an end.

I think the way things have been left after Iraq is that people won't believe the Government of the day, so they have to know that lessons have been learnt and that all political parties and people, whether they were for or against the invasion of Iraq, have learnt lessons.