Quotes from Tony Blair

The public think the politicians don't know or care about their lives; and the politicians feel misunderstood.

Be a doer and not a critic.

I don't like it, to be honest, when politicians make a big thing of their religious beliefs, so I don't make a big thing of it.

There will be no peace in our world without an understanding of the place of religion within it.

There are millions of young children being educated to a very narrow-minded view of religion. And it's out of that education of large numbers of young people that you then get this extremism.

Ideals survive through change. They die through inertia in the face of challenge.

The great advantage of the Lib Dems is precisely that no-one knows what they stand for.

If you are trying to take a difficult decision and you're weighing up the pros and cons, you have frank conversations. Everybody knows this in their walk of life.

Whatever the dangers of the action we take, the dangers of inaction are far, far greater.

So actually I only got a mobile phone the day after I left being Prime Minister.

In Downing Street they called me 'Boss'. Civil servants would always call me 'Prime Minister'.

It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that fails to choose.

Genetic modification has many different areas, for example in medicine, and Britain is at the leading edge of this new technology. I don't know, but people tell me, it could indeed by the leading science of the 21st century. All I say to people is: 'Just keep an open mind and let us proceed according to genuine scientific evidence.'

The emphasis placed by more and more companies on corporate social responsibility, symbolises the recognition that prosperity is best achieved in an inclusive society.

Our task is not to fight old battles, but to show that there is a third way, a way of marrying together an open competitive society and successful economy with a just and decent society.

Human progress has never been shaped by commentators, complainers or cynics.

But in terms of how people live together, how we minimize the prospects of conflict and maximize the prospects of peace, the place of religion in our society today is essential.

When Europe and America stand together the world is a better and more prosperous place.

In April 1991, after the Gulf war, Iraq was given 15 days to provide a full and final declaration of all its WMD.

You only require two things in life: your sanity and your wife.

But as I always say to people I'm essentially a public service person.

My teachers used to call me a failure

In no relationship at the top of any walk of life is it always easy, least of all in politics which matters so much and which is conducted in such a piercing spotlight.

I can only go one way. I've not got a reverse gear.