Quotes from William Hague

It's really necessary for the United States to continue to give strong leadership to the Middle East peace process, supported by European countries at the same time.

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

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.

Inspiring scenes of people taking the future of their countries into their own hands will ignite greater demands for good governance and political reform elsewhere in the world, including in Asia and in Africa.

When a Cabinet Minister who is sacked for telling lies is re-appointed, in the face of every constitutional convention, only for the same man to be sacked again from the same Cabinet for the same offence by the same Prime Minister no wonder the public are cynical about politics.

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.

Very few conflicts in the history of the world have been satisfactorily concluded according to a published timetable, because you lose all flexibility in dealing with your opponents.

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.

There is no budget for travel for a Shadow Foreign Secretary.

The EU is not a country and it's not going to become a country, in my view, now or ever in the future. It is a group of countries working together.

I trust the people.

People feel that the EU is a one-way process, a great machine that sucks up decision-making from national parliaments to the European level until everything is decided by the EU. That needs to change.

It is the mission of the next Conservative Government to build the Responsible Society.

We are not directly involved in Syria. But we will be working with our partners in the European Union and at the United Nations to see if we can persuade the Syrian authorities to go, as I say, more in that direction of respect for democracy and human rights.

You do have to do business with and to try to influence people you don't agree with, or find disagreeable, so it's important to stress that balance.

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.

The war in Iraq, clearly has not turned out in the way that was hoped.

Spending only what the country can afford, rewarding savings, encouraging independence, supporting marriage: people know that these things are common sense.

Where defining foreign policy as 'ethical' went wrong was that it implied that all decisions would be exclusive in every respect of any dealings with unethical regimes.

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.

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

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

Whatever happens in Mogadishu, in Somalia, will happen in Great Britain. We have interlocking interests.

Very few conflicts in the history of the world have been satisfactorily concluded according to a published timetable, because you lose all flexibility in dealing with your opponents.