Quotes from William Hague

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.

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

Yes, I've never inherited a penny!

A generation of children has been betrayed.

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

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

Obviously a Conservative government will always leave taxes lower than they have been under Labour. Those things go with the territory of the Conservative Party.

Unless there is meaningful change in Syria and an end to the crackdown, President Assad and those around him will find themselves isolated internationally and discredited within Syria.

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.

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

Let's not be afraid to speak the common sense truth: you can't have high standards without good discipline.

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.

I don't deny that there are problems in the intelligence world, but I would argue that in the UK we try to uphold the highest standards in the world.

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

There's only one growth strategy: work hard.

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

I'm not, nor is anybody I know in government part of a nasty right wing clique.

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.

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

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.

At a time of such hope and optimism in the Middle East, we cannot let the Libyan government violate every principle of international law and human rights with impunity.

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.

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.

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