Quotes from Jean-Claude Juncker

If we allow Catalonia - and it is none of our business - to separate, others will do the same. I do not want that.

I am against nationalists, but I am very much in favour of patriots.

We decide on something, leave it lying around, and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back.

The U.K. decided to leave the E.U. - Brexit means Brexit.

Of course Brexit means that something is wrong in Europe. But Brexit means also that something was wrong in Britain.

If someone complains about Europe from Monday to Saturday, then nobody is going to believe him on Sunday when he says he is a convinced European.

This was a continent of divisions, of wars, of conflicts, of divergences, differences... When I am in Asia, in Africa, people admire what we have managed to do. Europe is beautiful seen from other continents.

We do not attract Russian money to Luxembourg with high interest rates.

I put my money on Brexit. The EU Financial Stability Commissioner, Jonathan Hill from Britain, still owes me a pound.

For my generation, the monetary union has always been about forging peace.

When it becomes serious, you have to lie.

In politics, there are different categories of friendship. My friendship with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, for example .

God understands more about the financial markets than many who write about them.

The problem is: When two governments or institutions in Europe hold differing opinions, it is immediately a crisis.

With their charm and legendary sense of humor, the British directly or indirectly paved the way for a large number of European compromises.

I have met in my life two big destroyers: Gorbachev, who destroyed the Soviet Union, and Cameron, who destroyed the United Kingdom to some extent, even if there is no wave of Scotland to become independent.

After 30 years in Brussels, I can tell you: The relationship between the Commission and the Parliament has probably never been as good as it is now.

The European family may well be anything but perfect. But it is the best thing that we have for bringing the countries of Europe around the same table and for forging compromises so that people here can live in peace, freedom, and prosperity.

Our idea is to make the U.K. a privileged partner of the E.U.

We shouldn't persuade people that we can simply conjure up the sun and the moon: at the most, we can deliver a telescope.

The populists themselves are dangerous, but they are far more dangerous when the traditional, classic parties adopt their harmful proposals.

My main concern is to protect people from detriment.

In 1913 many believed that there would never again be a war in Europe. The great powers of the continent were so closely intertwined economically that the view was widespread that they could no longer afford to have military confrontations.

I believe that if we don't offer legal ways of emigrating to Europe and immigrating within Europe, we will be lost. If those who come - who are, generally speaking, the poor and needy - are no longer able to enter the house of Europe through the front door, they'll keep making their way in through the back windows.