“My second job has been to try to use my power to create institutions of a modern state that could enter the European Union, and there was very little time. The door was closing, and I wanted to get Bosnia through before it shut.”

— Paddy Ashdown

As quoted in "Farewell, Sarajevo" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/02/warcrimes.politics (1 November 2005), The Guardian

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Paddy Ashdown 5

British politician and diplomat 1941–2018

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Chap. 1 : The Legacy of War
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005)

“If you married me, it would be scandalous and innapropriate, and doors would be closed to you."
"Good God, woman, I let two of my sisters marry Gypsies. Those doors have already been closed, bolted, and nailed shut.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Married By Morning

“Each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens us. All we need to do is stop pounding on the door that just closed, turn around—which puts the door behind us—and welcome the largeness of life that now lies open to our souls. The door that closed kept us from entering a room, but what now lies before us is the rest of reality.”

Parker Palmer (1939) American theologian

Source: Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (1999), p. 54

“It is conceivable that at some point a truly united and powerful European Union could become a global political rival to the United States.”

Zbigniew Brzeziński book The Grand Chessboard

Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 3, The Democratic Bridgehead, p. 75.

“The greatest division this nation has ever seen were the conflicts of trade unions towards the end of a Labour Government…That trade union movement…used their power against their members. They made them come out on strike when they didn't want to. They loved secondary picketing. They went and demonstrated outside companies where there was no dispute whatsoever, and sometimes closed them down. They were acting as they were later in the coal strike, before my whole trade union laws were through of this Government. They were out to use their power to hold the nation to ransom, to stop power from getting to the whole of manufacturing industry to damage people's jobs, to stop power from getting to every house in the country, power, heat and light to every housewife, every child, every school, every pensioner. You want division; you want conflict; you want hatred. There it was. It was that which Thatcherism—if you call it that—tried to stop. Not by arrogance, but by giving power to the ordinary, decent, honourable, trade union member who didn’t want to go on strike. By giving power to him over the Scargills of this world.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

TV Interview for BBC1 Panorama (8 June 1987) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106647
Second term as Prime Minister

“My administration has a job to do as well. That job is to get this economy back on its feet. That's my job, and it's a job I gladly accept. I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, "Well this is Obama's economy." That's fine. GIVE IT TO ME. My job is to solve problems, not to stand on the sidelines and carp and gripe. So, I welcome the job. I want the responsibility.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

President Obama, July 14, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CQBSTomBWls
2009

“There are jobs I could work, temp jobs, call center jobs, tech support, if I had to. I have before, and I suspect that there will be times in my life when I have to get those jobs again, when I have to make ends meet. But I don't have another career waiting for me. I don't want another career.”

Joey Comeau (1980) writer

Interview with Hamilton Chu, Video Game Maker.
I Am Other People

“I resent when they talk about families like mine that I grew up in. I resent the fact that they think we're talking about envy: it's job envy, it's wealthy envy; that we don't dream. My mother believed and my father believed that if I wanted to be president of the United States, that I could be, I could be vice president! My mother and father believed that if my brother or sister wanted to be a millionaire, they could be a millionaire! My mother and father dreamed as much as any rich guy dreams! They don't get us! They don't get who we are!”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Criticizing Mitt Romney and the Republican Party, campaign speech http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/joe-biden-lays-into-romney-gop-they-dont-get-who-we-are/ in Youngstown, Ohio (May 16, 2012)
2010s

“The Catholic Church in Greece must play the game of the European Union, pushing for a secular, free, independent and modern state.”

Yannis Spiteris (1947) Roman Catholic archbishop

Why the Greek Orthodox Oppose Papal Visit https://zenit.org/2001/04/30/why-the-greek-orthodox-oppose-papal-visit/ (April 30, 2001)

“In my view, the novelist has no right to express his opinions on the things of this world. In creating, he must imitate God: do his job and then shut up.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

“My second job has been to try to use my power to create institutions of a modern state that could enter the European Union, and there was very little time. The door was closing, and I wanted to get Bosnia through before it shut.”

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