Boris Johnson citations (119 citations, Page 2)

Boris Johnson: 119 citations0 J'aime

Boris Johnson: Citations en anglais

“Unlike the current occupant of the White House, he has no difficulty in orally extemporising a series of grammatical English sentences, each containing a main verb.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

endorsing Barack Obama, Telegraph Column, October 21, 2008
2000s, 2008

“Howard is a dynamic performer on many levels. There you are. He sent me to Liverpool. Marvellous place. Howard was the most effective Home Secretary since Peel. Hang on, was Peel Home Secretary?”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

Ben Macintyre, "'Hello, I'm your MP. Actually no, I'm your candidate. Gosh'", The Times, 19 April 2005, p. 23.
On Michael Howard.
2000s, 2005

“The President is a cross-eyed Texan warmonger, unelected, inarticulate, who epitomises the arrogance of American foreign policy.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

Unsigned editorial entitled "Infantile resentment" in The Spectator, 22 November 2003, p. 7.
On George W. Bush.
Attributed

“It is vital now to see this [Brexit] moment for what it is. This is not a time to quail, it is not a crisis, nor should we see it as an excuse for wobbling or self-doubt, but it is a moment for hope and ambition for Britain. A time not to fight against the tide of history, but to take that tide at the flood, and sail on to fortune.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

During the announcement that he would not run to become Britain's prime minister. A reference to Brutus's "There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune" in Julius Caesar. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/world/europe/britain-conservative-party.html (June 30, 2016) 2010s, 2016

“I lost the job. Well the honest truth is that this has been embellished by, probably by me, in the sense that there were two of us who were taken on as trainees, and this was in the 80s, I think it was the late 80s, and it was him or me who was going to get the job at the end of, at the end of, eight months or nine months. It was mano-a-mano and of course it was him who got it.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

Interviewed on Desert Island Discs http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00935b6, first broadcast on 30 October 2005, about his early journalistic career working for The Times and then as Brussels correspondent for The Daily Telegraph. In fact, rather than failing to beat another trainee to win a permanent position, he was sacked for falsifying a quotation http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6901161.stm. 2000s, 2005

“Chinese cultural influence is virtually nil, and unlikely to increase… Indeed, high Chinese culture and art are almost all imitative of western forms: Chinese concert pianists are technically brilliant, but brilliant at Schubert and Rachmaninov. Chinese ballerinas dance to the scores of Diaghilev. The number of Chinese Nobel prizes won on home turf is zero, although there are of course legions of bright Chinese trying to escape to Stanford and Caltech… It is hard to think of a single Chinese sport at the Olympics, compared with umpteen invented by Britain, including ping-pong, I’ll have you know, which originated at upper-class dinner tables and was first called whiff-whaff. The Chinese have a script so fiendishly complicated that they cannot produce a proper keyboard for it.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

Have I Got Views for You, p277
2000s, 2006

“And when we have that drink together which we both so richly deserve, I hope we can discover a way in which the mayoralty can continue to benefit from your transparent love of London, a city whose energy conquered the world and which now brings the world together in one city.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

2000s, 2008, First Speech As London Mayor (May 3, 2008)

“Try as I might, I could not look at an overhead projection of a growth profit matrix, and stay conscious.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

Beth Pearson, "Has Howard got news for Boris?", The Herald (Glasgow), 13 November 2004, p. 15.
Explaining why he quit after a week as a management consultant.
2000s, 2004

“And as for those who voted for me, I know there will be many whose pencils hovered for an instant before putting an X in my box and I will work flat out to repay and to justify your confidence.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

Source: 2000s, 2008, First Speech As London Mayor (May 3, 2008)

“The Lib Dems are not just empty. They are a void within a vacuum surrounded by a vast inanition.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

"The least said about Lib Dems, the better", Daily Telegraph, 25 September 2003, p. 24.
2000s, 2003

“It was a stellar performance. I may as well give up now and make way for an older man.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

Hickey, The Express, 12 May 2004.
On his father Stanley's appearance on Have I Got News For You.
2000s, 2004

“If Amsterdam or Leningrad vie for the title of Venice of the North, then Venice - what compliment is high enough? Venice, with all her civilisation and ancient beauty, Venice with her addiction to curious aquatic means of transport, yes, my friends, Venice is the Henley of the South.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

"Paying through the Doge for Europe", Daily Telegraph, 11 March 2004, p. 22.
2000s, 2004

“Old Man Howard, that Old Man Howard, he just keeps rolling, just keeps rolling.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

Andrew Pierce, "Boris on a roll", The Times, 29 April 2005, p. 40.
When asked by The Oxford Student whether he sees anyone amongst his younger colleagues who would one day replace Howard.
2000s, 2005

“I don't see why he's any less of a candidate for the than Barack Obama.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

Source: Boris Johnson: Why Trump could deserve Nobel Peace Prize http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-44034266/boris-johnson-why-trump-could-deserve-nobel-peace-prize (7 May 2018)

“The meat in the sausage has got to be Conservative”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

BBC News Interview http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8668036.stm with Jeremy Paxman, BBC News, 7 May 2010 Johnson on the possibility of a coalition after the United Kingdom general election, May 2010. Johnson: Whatever type of Wall's sausage is contrived by this great experiment, the dominant ingredient has got to be conservatism. The meat in the sausage has got to be Conservative, I would say. With plenty of bread and other bits and pieces. Paxman: The question is whether it's a chipolata or a Cumberland sausage, I suppose, is it? Johnson: This is fantastic to listen to. Enough of this gastronomic metaphor! Paxman: You started it! Johnson: Well, I've had enough of it! Paxman: Haven't you got a city to run? Johnson: I have got a city to run and that's exactly the point! The government of London will carry on irrespective of the temporary difficulties in providing a national government. Thank you. Paxman: Bye bye, Boris! 2010s, 2010

“I forgot that to rely on a train, in Blair's Britain, is to engage in a crapshoot with the devil.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

"A horse is a safer bet than the trains", Daily Telegraph, 3 July 2003, p. 22.
2000s, 2003

“I can't remember what my line on drugs is. What's my line on drugs?”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

"The Genelection Game", Sunday Mirror, 24 April 2005, p. 19.
During the campaign trail of the 2005 general election.
2000s, 2005

“I would like to thank first the vast multitudes who voted against me - and I have met quite a few in the last nine months, not all of them entirely polite.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

2000s, 2008, First Speech As London Mayor (May 3, 2008)

“Nothing excites compassion, in friend and foe alike, as much as the sight of you ker-splonked on the Tarmac with your propeller buried six feet under.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

" Trust me, being sacked isn't all bad http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/12/02/do0202.xml", Daily Telegraph, 2 December 2004, p. 26. On being sacked from the Tory front bench. 2000s, 2004

“Any seat would be mad not to take him. He's a terrific chap.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

"Keeping it in the family", Daily Telegraph, 23 January 2004, p. 29.
On his father, Stanley Johnson's plans to become an MP.
2000s, 2004

“Not even Mr Blair has been able to erode the unions conviction that we all have a “right” to a minimum wage… Both the minimum wage and the Social Charter would palpably destroy jobs.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson livre Lend Me Your Ears

Lend Me Your Ears, p387
2000s, 2003

“Nor do I propose to defend the right to talk on a mobile while driving a car, though I don't believe that is necessarily any more dangerous than the many other risky things that people do with their free hands while driving - nose-picking, reading the paper, studying the A-Z, beating the children, and so on.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

"To the lady who berated me, I say: on your bike", Daily Telegraph, 1 August 2002, p. 21.
2000s, 2002

“Now can I ask you a question," "Why is it that we're lucky to have so many Chinese students? Is it because of the weather? Is it because we have so many French restaurants? Is it because we have so many communist bicycles?"”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

2010s, 2013

“Putin’s proxy army was almost certainly guilty of killing the passengers on the Malaysia Airlines jet that came down in eastern Ukraine. He has questions to answer about the death of Alexander Litvinenko, pitilessly poisoned in a London restaurant. As for his reign in Moscow, he is allegedly the linchpin of a vast post-Soviet gangster kleptocracy, and is personally said to be the richest man on the planet. Journalists who oppose him get shot. His rivals find themselves locked up. Despite looking a bit like Dobby the House Elf, he is a ruthless and manipulative tyrant.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

"Let’s deal with the Devil: we should work with Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad in Syria" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/12036184/Lets-deal-with-the-Devil-we-should-work-with-Vladimir-Putin-and-Bashar-al-Assad-in-Syria.html, The Telegraph (05 Dec 2015) 2010s, 2015

“I’m very attracted to it. I may be diverting from Tory party policy here, but I don’t care.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

Andrew Pierce, The Times, 30 April 2005, p. 42.
When asked about the 24 hour drinking legislation.
2000s, 2005

“They are like glistening wet otters frolicking.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

Telegraph column, 31 July 2012
On woman's beach volleyball at the 2012 Olympic Games.
2010s, 2012

“Look the point is … er, what is the point? It is a tough job but somebody has got to do it.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

Toby Helm, "Boris Johnson named shadow arts minister", Daily Telegraph, 7 May 2004, p. 12.
On being appointed Shadow Arts Minister.
2000s, 2004

“There is absolutely no one, apart from yourself, who can prevent you, in the middle of the night, from sneaking down to tidy up the edges of that hunk of cheese at the back of the fridge.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

"Face it: it's all your own fat fault", Daily Telegraph, 27 May 2004, p. 24.
On the dangers of obesity.
2000s, 2004

“Something mysterious happened when Barack Obama entered the Oval Office in 2009. Something vanished from that room, and no one could quite explain why. It was a bust of Winston Churchill – the great British war time leader. It was a fine goggle-eyed object, done by the brilliant sculptor Jacob Epstein, and it had sat there for almost ten years. But on day one of the Obama administration it was returned, without ceremony, to the British embassy in Washington. No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision. Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender. Some said that perhaps Churchill was seen as less important than he once was. Perhaps his ideas were old-fashioned and out of date. Well, if that’s why Churchill was banished from the Oval Office, they could not have been more wrong.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

In a column for The Sun newspaper http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/7095695/UK-and-America-can-better-friends-than-ever-Mr-Obama-if-we-LEAVE-the-EU-says-Boris-Johnson.html, 22 April 2016. 2010s, 2016

“I could not fail to disagree with you less.”

Help us translate this quote

Boris Johnson

2004 winner of the Foot in Mouth Award from the Plain English Campaign, for his comment on the 12 December 2003 edition of Have I Got News For You http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/footinmouth.html 2000s, 2003