Paddy Ashdown Quotes & Sayings

“I don't think Bosnia is ready for reconciliation, but I do think it is ready for truth.”

“Maybe it's legitimate criticism, though it can be hurtful. Maybe I haven't paid sufficient attention to the people with whom I would have a natural affinity as a liberal, and they feel let down by that.”

“It works both ways: there are victims of tragedy who come to me who have experienced grief of such magnitude that they cannot reconcile. Likewise, I cannot change the mentality of those who committed the crimes or the fools who followed them.”

“It was a superb agreement to end a war, but a very bad agreement to make a state. From now on, we have to part company with Dayton and try to build a modern democratic state, for which I have tried to lay the foundations.”

“The greatest failure is that although we have created institutions, we have not created a civil society.”

“I've had much nastier things said about me in the British press than in the Bosnian press.”

“People do not want politicians they know to be corrupt.”

“I was told there would be riots in the streets, but there were no riots.”

“Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.”

“Politics is compromise.”