Top 180 Tony Blair Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “That’s the art of leadership. To make sure that what shouldn’t happen, doesn’t happen.”

— Tony Blair

52. “Retreat might give us a moment of respite but years of repentance at our weakness would, I believe, follow.”

— Tony Blair

53. “We are all internationalists now, whether we like it or not.”

— Tony Blair

54. “The only society that works today is also one founded on mutual respect, on a recognition that we have a responsibility collectively and individually, to help each other on the basis of each other’s equal worth. A selfish society is a contradiction in terms.”

— Tony Blair

55. “The British are special. The world knows it. In our innermost thoughts we know it. This is the greatest nation on earth.”

— Tony Blair

56. “The spread of freedom is the best security for the free.”

— Tony Blair

57. “I have never pretended to be a great House of Commons man, but I pay the House the greatest compliment I can by saying that, from first to last, I never stopped fearing it.”

— Tony Blair

58. “Fifteen years ago, if you said business will help save the environment people would have laughed at you. Today, I believe this is a serious proposition.”

— Tony Blair

59. “The threat today is not that of the 1930s. It’s not big powers going to war with each other. The ravages which fundamentalist political ideology inflicted on the 20th century are memories. The Cold war is over. Europe is at peace, if not always diplomatically.”

— Tony Blair

60. “Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war.”

— Tony Blair

61. “No one is to blame for the breakdown in trust between politics, media and the public.”

— Tony Blair

62. “I think everyone’s had their pound of flesh and now it’s time to move on.”

— Tony Blair

63. “There is good evidence that last year’s European heat wave was influenced by global warming. It resulted in 26,000 premature deaths and cost $13.5 billion.”

— Tony Blair

64. “Yes, I feel I’ve got something to say. If people want to listen, that’s great, and if they don’t, that’s their choice.”

— Tony Blair

65. “There are millions of young children being educated to a very narrow-minded view of religion. And it’s out of that education of large numbers of young people that you then get this extremism.”

— Tony Blair

66. “Our task is not to fight old battles, but to show that there is a third way, a way of marrying together an open competitive society and successful economy with a just and decent society.”

— Tony Blair

67. “The first rule in politics is that there are no rules, at least not in the sense of inevitable defeats or inevitable victories. If you have the right policy and the right strategy, you always have a chance of winning. Without them, you can lose no matter how certain the victory seems.”

— Tony Blair

68. “Sovereignty rests with me as an English MP and that’s the way it will stay.”

— Tony Blair

69. “Our aim is not just an educated nation but an intelligent one.”

— Tony Blair

70. “Most of the problems of government come from people being overwhelmed by the size and scale of what they have to do.”

— Tony Blair

71. “I think life is a gift from God and should be lived to the full and with purpose.”

— Tony Blair

72. “If we are going to carry on growing, and we will, because no country is going to forfeit its right to economic growth, we have to find a way of doing it sustainably.”

— Tony Blair

73. “There is no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice: Defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must.”

— Tony Blair

74. “The understanding which has driven New Labour’s reform is to put the individual citizen – the patient, the parent, the pupil, the law abiding citizen – at the centre of each public service, with the service reformed to meet their individual requirements.”

— Tony Blair

75. “Nothing is more important to England’s arrangements for the World Cup than the state of David Beckham’s foot.”

— Tony Blair

76. “We can debate this or that aspect of climate change, but the reality is that most people now accept our climate is indeed subject to change as a result of greenhouse gas emissions.”

— Tony Blair

77. “The big issue of our time is trying to deal with extremism based on a perversion of religion and how you get peaceful coexistence between people of different faiths and cultures.”

— Tony Blair

78. “I think most people who have dealt with me, think I’m a pretty straight sort of guy, and I am.”

— Tony Blair

79. “The first big choice: a government with the strength to deliver stability, or a government that takes the country back to boom and bust.”

— Tony Blair

80. “The problem with the old ideology was that it suppressed the individual by starting with society. But it is from a sense of individual duty that we connect the greater good and the interests of the community.”

— Tony Blair

81. “Those who wish to cause religious conflict are small in number but often manage to dominate the headline.”

— Tony Blair

82. “Times are tough but they are tough because the government is trying to do the right thing, whether on public service reform, education, health, anti-social behaviour and welfare, or in counter-terrorism.”

— Tony Blair

83. “If we take all this actions and if it turns out not be true, we have reduced pollution and have better ways to live, the downside is very small. The other way around, and we don’t act, and it turns out to be true, then we have betrayed future generations and we don’t have the right to do that.”

— Tony Blair

84. “Today the impulse towards interdependence is immeasurably greater. We are witnessing the beginnings of a new doctrine of international community.”

— Tony Blair

85. “I don’t like it, to be honest, when politicians make a big thing of their religious beliefs, so I don’t make a big thing of it.”

— Tony Blair

86. “We have no plans to increase tax at all.”

— Tony Blair

87. “Terrorism brings the reprisal; the reprisal brings the additional hatred; the additional hatred breeds the additional terrorism, and so on.”

— Tony Blair

88. “Whatever the short term clashes between protecting the environment and eradicating poverty, medium term and long term it is clear. Unless we grow sustainably, at some point we face catastrophe.”

— Tony Blair

89. “There is nothing like waking up at six in the morning and changing a baby’s nappy to bring you face to face with life’s reality.”

— Tony Blair

90. “Sometimes, and in particular dealing with a dictator, the only chance of peace is a readiness for war.”

— Tony Blair

91. “Deportation is a decision taken by the home secretary under statute, The new grounds will include fostering hatred, advocating violence to further a person’s beliefs, or justifying or validating such violence.”

— Tony Blair

92. “The free enterprise system has not failed; the financial system has failed.”

— Tony Blair

93. “I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the intelligence was genuine.”

— Tony Blair

94. “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

95. “I just want to say this. I want to say it gently but I want to say it firmly: There is a tendency for the world to say to America, ‘the big problems of the world are yours, you go and sort them out,’ and then to worry when America wants to sort them out.”

— Tony Blair

96. “Your loss we count as our loss. Your struggle we take as our struggle.”

— Tony Blair

97. “In this day and age if you’ve got the technology then it’s vital to use that technology to track people down. The number on the database should be the maximum number you can get.”

— Tony Blair

98. “When my parents were growing up the world’s population was under three billion. During my children’s lifetime, it is likely to exceed nine billion. You don’t need to be an expert to realise that sustainable development is going to become the greatest challenge we face this century.”

— Tony Blair

99. “Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.”

— Tony Blair

100. “As so often before on the courage and determination of British men and women serving our country the fate of many nations rest.”

— Tony Blair