Quotes from Shirley Williams

We really shouldn't be running education like a supermarket where you compare prices.

The saddest illusion of the revolutionary is that revolution itself will transform the nature of human beings.

The British civil service ... is a beautifully designed and effective braking mechanism.

We have run out of creativity for children and teachers alike in the name of pushing up standards.

We have to say now we think the character of the party has changed so far it will take something very exceptional, something really out of the ordinary line to make us be convinced there's a chance of winning back the party.

There are hazards in anything one does but there are greater hazards in doing nothing.

The danger of any new party at a time of disillusion with the old parties, is that it becomes all things to all men.

The doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty has become the doctrine of the executive in Parliament....

The Catholic Church has never really come to terms with women. What I object to is being treated either as Madonnas or Mary Magdalenes.

If the Labour party goes back to reasserting its socialist and democratic beliefs, that's where I belong.

society, while willing to make room for women, is not willing to make changes for them.

I am not interested in a third party. I do not believe it has any future.