The Good Quote
Open menu
Quotes
Authors
Topics
More
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
Home
Authors
Ferdinand Mount
British
Writer
About the author
Something is happening to Britain and the British. Or has happened. We are said to be passing through a transition, or a turning point, or a transformation; nobody is quite sure which.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
What the world needs now is more Americans. The U.S. is the first nation on earth deliberately dedicated to letting people choose what they want and giving them a chance to get it.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Want
#Now
#People
#Chance
#World
#Earth
#Needs
#First
#Americans
#Nation
#Giving
We want a system that will improve consistency and steadiness in the quality of government.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Want
#Will
#Government
#Quality
#Consistency
We criticize, copy, patronize, idolize and insult but we never doubt that the U.S. has a unique position in the history of human hopes.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Insult
#History
#Doubt
The president is being denounced for not taking the kind of pre-emptive action in Afghanistan that he has been so passionately denounced for taking in Iraq. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Action
#Being
#President
#Iraq
#Afghanistan
Sexual relations, of course, have existed, exist, and will exist. However, this is in no way connected with the indispensability of the existence of the family.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Will
#Family
#Existence
One of the unsung freedoms that go with a free press is the freedom not to read it.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Freedom
#Press
Of course great politicians are always liable to be wrong about something, and the more people tell them they are wrong, the more stubbornly they defend their error.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#People
#Wrong
#Error
#Politicians
No constitution is or can be perfectly symmetrical, what it can and must be is generally accepted as both fair and usable.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Constitution
America slept because most Americans preferred it that way.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#America
#Americans
We are also further than ever from equality of opportunity.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Opportunity
#Equality
It's true that I'm taking a break from writing a regular column to do other things but it's got nothing to do with what dear Simon has or has not written.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Nothing
#Writing
A majority in all parties do, I think, want to see local government recover its old vigour and independence.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Want
#Independence
#Old
#Government
#Majority
All the research shows that being married, with all its ups and downs, is by far the most effective way of making young men law-abiding and giving them a sense of purpose and self-worth.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Being
#Law
#Men
#Purpose
#Research
#Sense
#Self
#Giving
According to Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism chief, Bush was so obsessed with Iraq that he failed to take action against Osama Bin Laden despite repeated warnings from his intelligence experts.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Action
#Iraq
#Osama bin laden
#Intelligence
#Experts
Defenders of the status quo will argue that this system has served us well over the centuries, that our parliamentary traditions have combined stability and flexibility and that we should not cast away in a minute what has taken generations to build.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Will
#Traditions
#Stability
#Generations
#Flexibility
For all its terrible faults, in one sense America is still the last, best hope of mankind, because it spells out so vividly the kind of happiness that most people actually want, regardless of what they are told they ought to want.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Want
#Hope
#People
#Sense
#America
#Happiness
#Mankind
#Faults
For the first half of this century, High Court judges have been cautious to the point of timidity in expressing any criticism of governmental action; the independence of the judiciary has been of a decidedly subordinate character.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Action
#Character
#Independence
#First
#Judges
#Criticism
#Court
#Timidity
I think it's a pity that in many people's minds constitutional reform and PR have come to mean much the same thing.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#People
#Reform
#Pity
In real terms, there is a greater disparity of earnings between the very rich and the very poor.
Ferdinand Mount,
British
Writer
#Poor