In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman.

Conservative principles do not change when we cross the Channel.

No government on its own can make a country prosperous. Only the people who live in it can do that—by producing and delivering the right products at the right price, at the right time. If we cannot do that, if we cannot compete on equal terms in international markets, if we cannot earn our living in the real world, then no amount of nationalist myths or socialist illusions will keep the chill winds out.

The larger the slice taken by government, the smaller the cake available for everyone.

We shall have to learn again to be one nation, or one day we shall be no nation.

Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

Throughout my life in politics I have never wavered from the views that the Churches have a vital part to play in our national life, indeed the most important part of all. Perhaps this reflects my own upbringing as a child, when I learnt to see the temporal affairs of this world in perspective, and to grasp that what matters fundamentally is Man's relationship to God. I have never thought that the Christian faith equips those of us in political life with a ready-made political philosophy; what it does give us are standards by which all political actions must, in the end, be judged.

Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper.

Diminish that variety within the Member States, and you impoverish the whole Community.

Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.

Don't let the advocates of totalitarian or authoritarian rule put the argument that it is they who have something new and interesting to offer. On the contrary, it is we, the democrats, who are still the innovators and it is our enemies who are trying to justify ancient absolutism in modern dress.

Opportunity and choice go hand in hand. Monopoly denies both.

The acid test of politics is not what you say at the hustings, but what you actually do in government.

Everywhere there is a crisis of Socialism. Everywhere a confirmation that capitalism produces freedom and prosperity. Everywhere there is a demand, we sense, for firm and traditional Government.

If policies are working badly, the fact will indeed show up first in the form of unfair consequences for one member or another. When this happens, to put the policies right is not just an act of charity or of justice. It is essential for the health and well-being of the Community as a whole.

The desire to bring about a society which promotes greater human fulfilment is not the monopoly of any one political party.

Pennies don't fall from heaven, they have to be earned here on earth.

The world will little note nor long remember what we say, but it will not forget what we do. By that test we are happy to be judged.

Law and order is a social service. Crime and the fear which the threat of crime induces can paralyse whole communities, keep lonely and vulnerable elderly people shut up in their homes, scar young lives and raise to cult status the swaggering violent bully who achieves predatory control over the streets. I suspect that there would be more support and less criticism than today's political leaders imagine for a large shift of resources from Social Security benefits to law and order - as long as rhetoric about getting tough on crime was matched by practice.

Journalism is a career which demands the highest professionalism. It demands responsibility as well, for the line between honest revelation and disingenuous sensationalism is sometimes perilously thin.

Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.

For every idealistic peacemaker willing to renounce his self-defence in favour of a weapons-free world, there is at least one warmaker anxious to exploit the other's good intentions.

We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.

Some Socialists seem to believe that people should be numbers in a State computer. We believe they should be individuals. We are all unequal. No one, thank heavens, is like anyone else, however much the Socialists may pretend otherwise. We believe that everyone has the right to be unequal but to us every human being is equally important.

The habit of ubiquitous interventionism, combining pinprick strikes by precision weapons with pious invocations of high principle, would lead us into endless difficulties. Interventions must be limited in number and overwhelming in their impact.

Let us never forget this fundamental truth: the State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves. If the State wishes to spend more it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. It is no good thinking that someone else will pay – that ‘someone else’ is you. There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers’ money.

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.

There are significant differences between the American and European version of capitalism. The American traditionally emphasizes the need for limited government, light regulations, low taxes and maximum labour-market flexibility. Its success has been shown above all in the ability to create new jobs, in which it is consistently more successful than Europe.

'Europe' in anything other than the geographical sense is a wholly artificial construct. It makes no sense at all to lump together Beethoven and Debussy, Voltaire and Burke, Vermeer and Picasso, Notre Dame and St Paul's, boiled beef and bouillabaisse, and portray them as elements of a 'European' musical, philosophical, artistic, architectural or gastronomic reality. If Europe charms us, as it has so often charmed me, it is precisely because of its contrasts and contradictions, not its coherence and continuity.

"Jam tomorrow" has never made a very satisfying diet.

In my work, you get used to criticisms. Of course you do, because there are a lot of people trying to get you down, but I always cheer up immensely if one is particularly wounding because I think well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. That is why my father always taught me: never worry about anyone who attacks you personally; it means their arguments carry no weight and they know it.

To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches.

If honest endeavour were the test, we would not fail. In the end, however, Man proposes and God disposes.