Top 24 Quotes by Douglas Hurd

Margaret Thatcher, growing up in a bombed and battered Britain, derived a distrust which has grown with the years not just of Germany but of all continental Europe.

There is nothing false or arrogant about German pride in German technical and business skills.

It was essentially for self defence that we went to war in Afghanistan and would go to war in Iraq.

It is normal for politicians in all countries to profess themselves the pupils of history, anxious to draw the right lessons from her teaching.

We, Britain and Germany, can neither of us be happy about our handling of the Iraq war.

But Germany will always suffer, I fear, from the intensely dramatic character of the crimes of the Third Reich.

No military timetable should compel war when a successful outcome, namely a disarmed Iraq may be feasible without war, for example by allowing more time to the UN inspectors.

History provides no precise guidelines.

There is no consensus even today on the merits of Napoleon - and certainly no agreement on the rights and wrongs of the origins of the First World War.

The tragedy of 9/11 galvanised the American superpower into action, leaving us in Europe divided in its wake.