David Miliband Quotes

I've learnt that, sometimes, how others see you is not the same as how you see yourself. I've learnt about how you can be multitasking - and sometimes other people see that you're multitasking. And that's not very nice for them. ~ David Miliband

Thirty years ago, if you said the country was living beyond its means, people would have thought about economics. Now, if you talk about the country, or the planet living beyond its means, you think about the environment. We are taking out more than we are giving back. We are consuming energy, water, and other natural resources in a way that is leading to huge and often irreversible damage to the planet. So too are most other developed nations. And so too will China and India if they follow the same path of economic development as us ~ David Miliband

The big risk to British lives in 2013 is in Afghanistan. Our troops, diplomats and aid workers have made a big contribution there. But while there is an end date for Western engagement, 2014, there isn't a proper end game. ~ David Miliband

The window of opportunity to avoid dangerous climate change is closing more quickly than previously thought. ~ David Miliband

I've committed myself to serve my constituents in South Shields and I have committed myself to British politics. ~ David Miliband

My favourite poem is called 'Roots and Wings' - it's a very moving poem about how if you've got real roots you can fly. ~ David Miliband

The problems that the world faces - from nuclear proliferation to climate change - can't be tackled by the West alone. They need a coalition of not just West and East, but they need a coalition of Christian and Jew and Muslim. ~ David Miliband

And the truth is, those who are terrorists only have to succeed once, and those of us who are trying to build an inclusive society have to succeed every time. ~ David Miliband

People feel politics isn't about their lives. ~ David Miliband

In the future, every industry should be an environmental industry. In a world where energy and carbon emissions are constrained, every business must take resource productivity seriously ~ David Miliband

The wedding ring on my left hand was bought by my grandfather, Samuel Miliband, in Brussels in 1920. I never knew him, as he died when I was one. But his ring was kept by my aunt until it was placed on my finger by my wife Louise 32 years later. ~ David Miliband

I was always brought up that if you can make a difference, you should, and if you don't it's a waste. So we'll see if I can make a difference. ~ David Miliband

Grown-up politicians talk to each other across party lines. Over the last few weeks I have had lengthy conversations with Ed Miliband, David Miliband, with Tony Blair, with Peter Mandelson ... talking about Europe, talking about political reform. ~ Nick Clegg

Everything about my politics has been about the future. ~ David Miliband

You know, you only get to live life once, so there are two things that that yields. One is that there's no point in crying over spilt milk, but secondly you hate wasting time, energy, and whatever talent you've got. ~ David Miliband

I'm in agreement with David Miliband when he says our generation of Labour politicians are not willing to hand over the direction of the country without a serious electoral fight. ~ Douglas Alexander

I think the wonderment of seeing my two sons developing makes me incredibly optimistic about human potential. It makes you think: 'My goodness. It's a miracle that's going on here. What could the human race do together?' ~ David Miliband

Consuming three planets' worth of resources when in fact we have one is the environmental equivalent of childhood obesity - eating until you make yourself sick ~ David Miliband

My advice is very simple: if you can win a small battle, it gives you confidence in the political process to take on bigger battles, and so it is very much a bottom-up grass-roots way of doing politics. ~ David Miliband

One of the things about the modern world is that the public and the private - which is not the same as the public and the personal - but the public and the private ... it's very, very much harder than it used to be to have things that are private and things that are public. ~ David Miliband

In Britain, the centrally prescribed welfare to work system short-changes the young unemployed. Transport, housing and education are over centralised. ~ David Miliband

First, climate change is the greatest long-term threat faced by humanity. It could cause more human and financial suffering than the two world wars and the great depression put together. All countries will be affected, but the poorest countries will be hit hardest. Secondly, the costs of inaction far outweigh the costs of action ~ David Miliband

Today, the UK must be the pioneer of a new model of economic change, that integrates social and environmental consideration. This is not just a question of values and moral duty. It is about our economy's capacity to sustain itself ~ David Miliband

I mean, Britain is a country of successful Muslim businesspeople, teachers and educators, journalists. So, we have to say very strongly that the two million plus Muslims in Britain, the vast bulk of them make a huge contribution to our society, and they actually make it the vibrant society it is. ~ David Miliband

New Labour leader Ed Miliband announces plan to 'make this party slightly less unelectable by 2015'. He added: 'I am Ed, the Almighty One.'
Defeated brother David Miliband overheard muttering: 'Now I know how Wayne Christ felt after little Jesus came along. ~ Andy Zaltzman

The clearest evidence that we are living beyond environmental means is the threat of dangerous climate change. The scale of this threat, to human life and to the natural resources and assets on which it depends, for everything from oxygen and clean water to healthy soils and flood defence, means that this simply must be our top priority ~ David Miliband

But for me, my personal relations, my personal family relations, are very important, and we've always tried to make sure that the public and the private are kept separate. ~ David Miliband

Al Qaeda has no place in Pakistan. It's a threat to Pakistan. And there should be a convergence of interests between the Pakistani state and the West on security issues, but also on wider economic and social issues. ~ David Miliband

I abhor anything that constitutes torture. Water-boarding, it's perfectly clear to me it is torture. I never supported extraordinary rendition to torture, always said that Guantanamo should be closed. There is no clash of ideals and pragmatism there. ~ David Miliband

We are living as if we had three planets' worth of resources to live with rather than just one. We need to cut by about two-thirds our ecological footprint. For that we need one planet farming as well as one planet living - one planet farming which minimises the impact on the environment of food production and consumption, and which maximises its contribution to renewal of the natural environment ~ David Miliband

One thing that I feel very, very strongly is that we talk about Islamic countries, Islamic people, Islamic leaders, as either moderates or extremists. It's almost like there are only two categories of Muslims. And actually, that doesn't show respect. It shows lack of understanding of the diversity of Muslim thought. ~ David Miliband

I don't think I've ever been accused of being faddish. I'm more Marks & Spencer than Ted Baker. ~ David Miliband

In the end, human history is made up of all our decisions. ~ David Miliband

The 1970s - I was ten in 1975 - were a bad decade in all sorts of ways but the middle class had comfortable assumptions about the prospects for its children. The middle class was smaller then; it was a much less competitive Britain, less meritocratic. ~ David Miliband

What is the big political issue for Britain at the moment? Without wishing to sound portentous, it is about whether we can build a social democratic settlement, whether we can lay the political and cultural foundations for the next several years. ~ David Miliband

Good politics starts with empathy, proceeds to analysis, then sets out values and establishes the vision, before getting to the nitty-gritty of policy solutions. ~ David Miliband

The science is getting worse faster than the politics is getting better ~ David Miliband

I do not speak Hebrew, but I understand that it has no word for 'history.' The closest word for it is memory. ~ David Miliband

Communism was meant to be an alternative religion. ~ David Miliband

The whole of government needs to contribute to the shared goal of restructuring the British economy. But that means taking on the myth that the Treasury either knows best or can run it all. It just doesn't. ~ David Miliband

People want more power over their own lives. That's not just true in Britain, it's true around the world. ~ David Miliband

Today, Labour has a disruptive economic narrative - that Britain needs fundamental change in its market structure and culture to compete in the modern world. ~ David Miliband

There is a danger for Britain as we perceive ourselves, or as we are - less wealthy, facing economic austerity - that we essentially draw back. I think there is a recoil in parts of the country, and in parts of the government actually, from the multilateral system, and I think that's dangerous and wrong. ~ David Miliband

The American idea that everyone graduates high school at 18 is a good one. ~ David Miliband

The test of leadership for David Cameron was actually to bring the British Conservative Party back in to the mainstream. ~ David Miliband

We know there can be no justice in the Middle East without a Palestinian state. But there can be no security in the Middle East without a Palestinian state. ~ David Miliband

Successful economies in the modern world are not sheepish about the power and responsibility of the state. ~ David Miliband

Economic dynamism can be combined with environmental and social responsibility. High financial returns can go hand in hand with respect for human rights, and the preservation of the planet's natural resources ~ David Miliband

Our moments are music, and sometimes – just sometimes – we can catch them and put them into some lasting form. If we didn't have music, I don't think we could ever be truly happy, and if we didn't have special moments, we would never find music. ~ David Levithan

Polite conversationalists leave no mark save the scars upon the Earth that could have been prevented had they stood their ground. ~ David Brower

You can't bounce off the walls If there are no walls: outdoor schools make kids happier - and smarter ~ David Sobel

Apeshit has rarely enjoyed so literal a denotation. ~ David Foster Wallace

It is?classic Bill Clinton, sincere and deceptive at the same time, requiring a careful reading between the lines. ~ David Maraniss

If you put yourself in a group of people you cannot work with it's obviously going to be a disaster. ~ David Cronenberg

Student loans are destroying the imagination of youth. If there's a way of a society committing mass suicide, what better way than to take all the youngest, most energetic, creative, joyous people in your society and saddle them with, like $50,000 of debt so they have to be slaves? There goes your music. There goes your culture. There goes everything new that would pop out. And in a way, this is what's happened to our society. We're a society that has lost any ability to incorporate the interesting, creative and eccentric people. ~ David Graeber

Who would live in this rank old Paris if it was not for its gardens?" - John Sanderson ~ David McCullough

Modern Democrats aren't the first political party to abuse power - far from it. Obama isn'€t the first president to abuse executive power - not by a longshot. But he has to be the first president in American history to overtly and consistently argue that he's empowered to legislate if Congress doesn'€t pass the laws he favors. It's an argument that's been mainstreamed by partisans and cheered on by those in media desperate to find a morsel of triumph in this presidency. ~ David Harsanyi

For the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. ~ Henry David Thoreau

I've had a guide dog since 1969. Not the same one, of course: I've had five. ~ David Blunkett

I pick up a copy of Newsweek on the plane and immediately notice how biased, slanted, and opinionated all the U.S. newsmagazine articles are. Not that the Euro and British press aren't biased as well
they certainly are
but living in the United States we are led to believe, and are constantly reminded, that our press is fair and free of bias. After such a short time away, I am shocked at how obviously and blatantly this lie is revealed
there is the 'reporting' that is essentially parroting what the White House press secretary announces; the myriad built-in assumptions that one ceases to register after being somewhere else for a while. The myth of neutrality is an effective blanket for a host of biases. ~ David Byrne

They came looking for dark and terrible revelations and instead found out something even more dark and terrible: that their lives were trite and boring. I ~ David Wong

It may be that the seemingly intrinsic attraction that past time has for me is merely a desire for escapism, as I look out at the nation and world with little optimism. ~ David Souter

No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature, knowing himself for a man, and the equal of any and all governments. In that sense he was the most American of us all. ~ Henry David Thoreau

A spontaneous interview feels differently than anything else you see on television. ~ David Steinberg

They drove farther north like that. In perfect loving antagonism. It occurred to Ted that maybe Marty was like all the red and gold leaves he saw burning on the trees. In nature, it seems, things reached their most vibrant and beautiful right at the point of death, flaming out with all they had - why not natural man? His father was red, green, yellow, and gold, like a beautiful bird falling from the sky. Parodoxical undressing again. ~ David Duchovny

Any music can be healing if it inspires, relaxes, encourages or creates enthusiasm for life in you. ~ David Simon

There should be absolutely no 'Separation of Church and State' in America. ~ David Barton

This was the beginning. The end is easily foreseen; for, given a young man of Dick's temperament, longing
for companionship, and another young man of Charlie's make−up, with a legitimate business to bring the two
together, and only a friendship of the David and Jonathan order could result. ~ Harold Bell Wright

Sex," the driver said, "Has no one ever told you about it?"

I took the New York Times from my carry-on bag and pretended to read, an act that apparently explained it all.

"Ohhh," the driver said, "I understand. You do not like pussy. You like the dick. Is that it?" I brought the paper close to my face, and he stuck his arm through the little window and slapped the back of his seat. "David," he said, "David, listen to me when I am talking to you. I asked do you like the dick?"

"I just work," I told him. "I work, and then I go home, and then I work some more." I was trying to set a good example, trying to be the person I'd imagined him to be, but it was a lost cause.

"I fucky-fuck every day," he boasted. "Two women. I have a wife and another girl for the weekend. Two kind of pussy. Are you sure you no like to fucky-fuck?"

If forced to, I can live with the word "pussy," but "fucky-fuck" was making me carsick. "That is not a real word," I told him. "You can say fuck, but fucky-fuck is just nonsense. Nobody talks that way. You will never get ahead with that kind of language."

Traffic thickened because of an accident, and, as we slowed to a stop, the driver ran his tongue over his lips. "Fucky-fuck," he repeated. "I fucky-fucky-fucky fuck. ~ David Sedaris

God has a lot of things to teach us in Heaven, things we didn't learn in this life. ~ David Berg

We needn't be saddened with the impossible weight of managing the entire biosphere, but we must meet the challenge of living in balance with the sacred elements. ~ David Suzuki

The truth is a bully we all pretend to like ~ Gregory David Roberts

This afternoon, being on Fair Haven Hill, I heard the sound of a saw, and soon after from the Cliff saw two men sawing down a noble pine beneath, about forty rods off. I resolved to watch it till it fell, the last of a dozen or more which were left when the forest was cut and for fifteen years have waved in solitary majesty over the sprout-land. I saw them like beavers or insects gnawing at the trunk of this noble tree, the diminutive manikins with their cross-cut saw which could scarcely span it. It towered up a hundred feet as I afterward found by measurement, one of the tallest probably in the township and straight as an arrow, but slanting a little toward the hillside, its top seen against the frozen river and the hills of Conantum. I watch closely to see when it begins to move. Now the sawers stop, and with an axe open it a little on the side toward which it leans, that it may break the faster. And now their saw goes again. Now surely it is going; it is inclined one quarter of the quadrant, and, breathless, I expect its crashing fall. But no, I was mistaken; it has not moved an inch; it stands at the same angle as at first. It is fifteen minutes yet to its fall. Still its branches wave in the wind, as it were destined to stand for a century, and the wind soughs through its needles as of yore; it is still a forest tree, the most majestic tree that waves over Musketaquid. The silvery sheen of the sunlight is reflected from its needles; it still affords an inaccessible crot ~ Henry David Thoreau

I know with certainty, that [an honest man] is not to put his hand into the fire, and hold it there, till it be consumed: And thisevent, I think I can foretell with the same assurance, as that, if he throw himself out at the window, and meet with no obstruction, he will not remain a moment suspended in the air. ~ David Hume

You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. ~ David Foster Wallace

The character of a child is formed largely during the first twelve years of his life. He spends 16 times as many waking hours in the home as in the school, and 126 times as many hours in the home as in the church. Each child is, to a great degree, what he is because of the ever-constant influence of home environment and the careful or neglectful training of parents. Home is the best place for the child to learn self-control, to learn that he must submerge himself for the good of another. It is the best place in which to develop obedience, which nature and society will later demand. ~ David O. McKay

And yes, Holden would keep those kids from falling off the cliff, but WHO WOULDN'T? Does she think I would just fold my arms or give them a pat on the back before they sailed headfirst to the ground? We are all catchers, and it's sad that she doesn't see it. Instead she sees the PHONINESS, she deplores the world even after I point out that I am in it. ~ David Levithan

The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Fierce, and what capitalists sometimes call 'ruinous' competition tends, therefore, to produce leap-frogging innovations that more often that not lead capitalists to fetishise technological and organisational innovations as the answer to all their prayers ~ David Harvey

I would not run round a corner to see the world blow up. ~ Henry David Thoreau

I understand the need for conformity. Without a concise set of rules to follow we would probably all have to resort to common sense. Discipline is the key to conformity, and it is important that we learn not to question authority at an early age. ~ David Thorne

If you were given to thinking of numbers as having human-like qualities, you might picture e^i*pi as a guru into transcendental meditation who'd achieved infinite enlightenment. But there's a problem with that-Euler's formula shows that e^i*pi can never free itslef from worldly concerns. Recall, e^i*pi is really -1 in disguise, and -1 is just a mathism for owing a dollar to your friend, Steve. One hand clapping. ~ David Stipp

if people weren't sinners, every intelligence network would be out of business ~ David Morrell

I saw one movie in theatres in the first 18 years of my life. ~ David A.R. White

I think the best restaurants in America should be in California. ~ David Chang

Mimbrates are the bravest people in the world
probably because they don't have brains enough to be afraid of anything. Garion's friend Mandorallen is totally convinced that he's invincible."
"He is," Ce'Nedra said in automatic defense of her knight. "I saw him kill a lion once with his bare hands."
" ... I heard him suggest to Barak and Hettar once that the three of them attack an entire Tolnedran legion."
"Perhaps he was joking."
"Mimbrate knights don't know how to joke," Silk told him.
"I will not sit here and listen to you people insult my knight," Ce'Nedra said hotly.
"We'renot insulting hi, Ce'Nedra," Silk told her. "We're describing him. He's so noble he makes my hair hurt."
"Nobility is an alien concept to a Drasnian, I suppose," she noted.
"Not alien, Ce'Nedra. Incomprehensible. ~ David Eddings

It sounds formulaic now, but at the time, I was interested in the difference between the thing and the representation of the idea of the thing - the space between the two. ~ David Salle

Everyones always asking me when Apple will come out with a cell phone. My answer is, Probably never. ~ David Pogue

Messi is the world's best and gets physically attacked every game but all he ever does is get up and get on with it. ~ David Moyes

I said I hated life. You said you hated life. We decided to hate it together. ~ David Levithan

I was a huge 'Deadwood' fan because I'm a huge David Milch fan, so I've always wanted to play something like Calamity Jane on 'Deadwood' and just be the biggest Western tomboy girl, ever. ~ Emily Rose

As you see, you can follow our guidelines and still enjoy eating. In fact, if you like to eat, you should have extra incentive to live longer. Just think -if you add only five years to your life- that means you get to eat at least 5,500 more meals. ~ David A. Kekich

The First Rule of Parenting states that you never wake a peacefully sleeping child. ~ David Mitchell

No wonder we cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke: that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from the horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home. ~ David Foster Wallace

Decades of research has shown that play is crucial to physical, intellectual, and social-emotiona l development at all ages. This is especially true of the purest form of play: the unstructured, self-motivated, imaginative, independent kind, where children initiate their own games and even invent their own rules. ~ David Elkind

It's hard to see what the problem is. Language speakers and writers have always been inventive, and texting is just one further example of human creativity. As David Crystal has expressed it: 'it..is the latest manifestation of the human ability to be linguistically creative... In texting, we are seeing, in a small way, language in evolution... ~ Jean Aitchison