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I had discovered long ago the first lesson of political courage: to think anew. I had then learned the second: to be prepared to lead and to decide. I was now studying the third: how to take the calculated risk. I was going to alienate some people, like it or not. The moment you decide, you divide.

Tony Blair

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Tony Blair
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: May 6
Autobiographer
Diplomat
Former Prime Minister Of The United Kingdom
Lawyer
Politician
Edinburgh
Scotland
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair
Anthony Blair
Rt. Hon. Anthony Charles Lynton Blair
Think
Moment
Prepared
Divide
Thinking
Moments
Lessons
Studying
Like
Political
Lead
Divides
People
Firsts
Courage
Lesson
First
Second
Discovered
Take
Risk
Third
Alienate
Going
Learned
Thirds
Calculated
Long
Study
Decide
Anew

More quotes by Tony Blair

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If we are going to carry on growing, and we will, because no country is going to forfeit its right to economic growth, we have to find a way of doing it sustainably.
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I think we've, again, got to be extremely careful otherwise we'll misunderstand what's going on in Iraq and in Syria today. Of course, you can't say that those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation in 2015.
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What I don't know is whether there is a way politically that you can beat away these, some of these populist movements because in the end I don't think they really do provide answers. They ride the anger. But they don't really have the answers. Or whether this is an experiment we're just going to have to go through first.
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The appalling details of the campaign of intimidation - which include grave-robbing - show the depths to which the animal extremists are prepared to stoop.
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Moreover, for decades we have been prone to far greater swings in the economic cycle than our continental counterparts. It has been boom and bust....Under this Government, there is an entirely new framework for economic management in place.
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Our ultimate weapon is not our guns but our beliefs...The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defense and our first line of attack.
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I would've loved to have been in a band, but sadly I just wasn't good enough.
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How do we deal with not just the acts of violence, but the extremist ideology that lies behind them? Because though the numbers of fanatics that go and join and kill for a group like ISIS are measured in tens of thousands, those that support the wider ideology, I'm afraid, you measure in tens of millions or more.
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A challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence... There is no doubt that the time to act is now.
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Enough of talking: It is time now to do.
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If we take all this actions and if it turns out not be true, we have reduced pollution and have better ways to live, the downside is very small. The other way around, and we don’t act, and it turns out to be true, then we have betrayed future generations and we don’t have the right to do that.
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My view is that we're entering into a situation of enormous instability, insecurity, fragility.
Tony Blair
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Times are tough but they are tough because the government is trying to do the right thing, whether on public service reform, education, health, anti-social behaviour and welfare, or in counter-terrorism.
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That's the art of leadership. To make sure that what shouldn't happen, doesn't happen.
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Terrorist threats are not happening just in this country, but in every European country and every country across the globe. As a result of that, we do sometimes have to take measures we would rather not take in order to give us the security we need.
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You know, the media and politicians are always gonna be in a bit of tension with one another and probably most of the time that's healthy and indeed even creative. But it's where - it's really when news organisations are used as kind of instruments of politics that it gets tricky.
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Education, education, education
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I actually did trouble to read Marx first hand. I found it illuminating in so many ways in particular, my perception of the relationship between people and the society in which they live was irreversibly altered.
Tony Blair
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Surely we have the wit and will to develop economically without despoiling the very environment we depend upon
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The relationship between Britain and the US is fantastically important when confronting terrorism.
Tony Blair