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Chris Patten
16 quotes
“at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Article in The Independent (9 April 1989). Reported in Robert Andrews (ed.) Cassell Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1996) p. 137
“In a democracy everybody has a right to be represented, including the jerks.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reported in Derrik Mercer (ed.) Chronicle of the Year 1991 (London: Chronicle Communications, 1992) p. 107. Dated May 1991 in The Hutchinson Encyclopedia (Oxford: Helicon, 1993) p. 308; "including" changed to "even
“There is a sort of exotic preposterousness about a lot of elections, the way arguments are made even cruder.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in The Observer (30 June 1991). Reported in Robert Andrews (ed.) Cassell Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1996) p. 140
“[M]y anxiety is not that this community's autonomy would be usurped by Beijing, but that it could be given away bit by bit by some people in Hong Kong.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (2 October 1996)
“As governor, I experienced the vitality of life in a booming and free Asian city, saw routinely the best and worst aspects of human nature, and was made to revisit some of the principles in which I have always believed but to which I had rarely given much thought previously. In the darker hours of occasionally fretful nights I found myself face to face with the moral dimensions of political action to a greater extent than ever before.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No other place has quite the same blend of East and West, ancient and modern, spectacular and humdrum.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not unusual for electorates to want contradictory things, and politicians often make promises accordingly.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[O]n July 1, 1997, Hong Kong became the only example of decolonization deliberately accompanied by less democracy and a weaker protection of civil liberties. This was a cause for profound regret, especially for the departing colonial power. But it was China's doing and China's decision. I am pleased that Britain narrowly avoided complicity in the dishonourable act of denying the citizens of free Hong Kong what they had been promised in 1984.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Asians...put more emphasis on order, stability, hierarchy, family and self-discipline than Westerners do.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those of us who had a perfectly happy childhood should be able to sue for deprivation of literary royalties.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Not Quite the Diplomat: Home Truths about World Affairs (London: Allen Lane, 2005) ch. 1, p. 4
“It's obviously an issue [democracy] which is hugely important to a new generation.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know perfectly well there have been attacks on the rule of law, on the independence of the judiciary; abductions around Hong Kong streets; suggestions that Hong Kong’s autonomy needs to be curtailed in the future; suggestions that the autonomy of Hong Kong’s tremendous universities is something that has to be looked at again; there is a sense that free speech is under threat.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in London to mark the 20th anniversary of the . Reported in Zuraidah Ibrahim and Stuart Lau, "Hong Kong ex-governors Patten and Wilson still upbeat about city’s democracy ... but say there's work to be done", …
“Xi Jinping and his court have regarded Hong Kong and Hong Kong's freedoms as an existential problem for them because Hong Kong represents so much of what they dislike.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It matters to everyone [sic] of us that the press tell it as it is, not as the government wants us to hear.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong (May 2020). Rachel Wong, "Ex-Hong Kong governor Chris Patten 'condemned to everlasting infamy' for 'meddling,' says Beijing spokesperson", Hong Kong Free Press (2…
“While we were allegedly taking part in a golden age of China, the head of the Chinese Communist Party was instructing party officials and government officials to engage in an intense struggle against all the things that we and other liberal democracies stand for: Rule of law, parliamentary democracy, universally valid human rights, historical inquiry, all those sorts of things.”
Chris Patten (born 1944) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview by the ABC. Roscoe Whalan, "China once declared the UK its 'best friend in the West'. But Hong Kong and the treatment of Uyghurs changed everything", ABC News, Australia (7 June 2021)
“[Nigel Farage] offers nothing for a healthy Conservative future. His saloon bar bluster, if translated into policy, would give us Liz Truss economics, Jeremy Corbyn foreign policy (which would be much loved by Putin) and an approach to our nation's identity akin to that of Tommy Robinson (albeit Tommy Robinson with a cravat).”
Chris Patten (born 1944) first seen 2024 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: My six-point plan to drag the Tories back from the abyss", The Independent (15 July 2024)