Quotes by John Major

• Of course there are regrets. I shall regret always that I found my own authentic voice in politics. I was too conservative, too conventional. Too safe, too often. Too defensive. Too reactive. Later, too often on the back foot.
• Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less.
• The politician who never made a mistake never made a decision.
• The first requirement of politics is not intellect or stamina but patience. Politics is a very long run game and the tortoise will usually beat the hare.
• Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be too clever by half. The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.
• I inherited a sick economy and passed on a sound one. But one abiding regret for me is that, in between, I did not have the resources to put in place the educational and social changes about which I cared to much; I made only a beginning, and it was not enough.
• A consensus politician is someone who does something that he doesn't believe is right because it keeps people quiet when he does it.
• Ronnie Barker will forever be remembered as one of the great comic actors.