Nicola Sturgeon Quotes

Here, we’ve compiled a list of the best Nicola Sturgeon Quotes. Let’s look at these pieces of wisdom. We definitely have something to learn from them!

1
Many hard working people in low paid jobs get housing benefit.
Nicola Sturgeon
2
I won’t say I’ve never felt in Alex Salmond’s shadow, but latterly, when Alex was leader, I didn’t. It’s more about my awareness of the fact I became First Minister during a parliamentary term. That means you’re First Minister, but you haven’t been elected in your own right as First Minister.
Nicola Sturgeon
3
For me, personally, it has been humbling since I became First Minister to speak to women and girls and have them tell me how much it means to them to have a woman in the top job in politics in Scotland.
Nicola Sturgeon
4
Our opposition to Trident is very clear, very firm, very long-standing, very principled, and we would seek to build an alliance to prevent the renewal of Trident.
Nicola Sturgeon
5
Because of lower life expectancy in Scotland – something that we are working hard to improve – the average woman will get £11,000 less in pension payments than counterparts in the rest of the U.K., even though she will pay exactly the same in contributions.
Nicola Sturgeon
6
I don’t cook very often. Actually, I’d go further: I can’t cook.
Nicola Sturgeon
7
Glasgow is a great city.
Nicola Sturgeon
8
Voting Labour in the past hasn’t protected Scotland against Tory governments.
Nicola Sturgeon
9
As a veteran of many campaigns, I know how important it is not let up in the last few days.
Nicola Sturgeon
10
An independent Scotland could afford pensions full stop – after all, it is our taxes and national insurance contributions that fund them now.
Nicola Sturgeon
11
I consider myself a selfie specialist.
Nicola Sturgeon
12
Scotland almost invented the modern world. I mean, all of these televisions, telephones, penicillin, we all – all of these things were invented in Scotland.
Nicola Sturgeon
13
An independent Scotland – like all countries – will face challenges, and we will have our ups and downs. But the decisions about how we use our wealth will be ours.
Nicola Sturgeon
14
The importance of education is ingrained in Scottish history.
Nicola Sturgeon
15
It still annoys me when I read really derogatory things about how a woman looks because you would usually not read these things about a man, and that still has the potential to put women off public life.
Nicola Sturgeon
16
People don’t want to go back to the days, pre-referendum, when the Westminster establishment sidelined and ignored Scotland. They want Scotland’s voice to be heard.
Nicola Sturgeon
17
The Scottish Government will continue to do all it can to get people into work.
Nicola Sturgeon
18
We’ve chosen to stay part of the Westminster system, but we don’t want to be a forgotten, sidelined part of it.
Nicola Sturgeon
19
As First Minister, I will always act in the best interests of the country. As party leader, I will always act in the best interests of the party, and if that sometimes means taking difficult, unpalatable decisions, I will never shy away from that.
Nicola Sturgeon
20
I’m a politician, and as you know, politicians are rarely very funny.
Nicola Sturgeon
21
American companies based in Scotland employ large numbers of people – in fact, we are the best performing part of the U.K., outside London and the southeast of England when it comes to attracting foreign direct investment.
Nicola Sturgeon
22
Vote SNP for a party that always stands up for Scotland, that is stronger for Scotland, and a government that will keep the country moving in the right direction.
Nicola Sturgeon
23
Twitter’s probably my bad habit.
Nicola Sturgeon
24
I desperately want Scotland to be an independent country. I cannot, though, sit here and tell you definitively that it will happen, and that it will happen on this timescale, because I have to respect the opinion of the people of Scotland.
Nicola Sturgeon
25
The decision on whether there is another referendum is down to the Scottish people.
Nicola Sturgeon
26
I came into politics because of my opposition to what a Tory Government was doing to the community I grew up in.
Nicola Sturgeon
27
Of course, aid is only one small part of international development. Some of the greatest benefits to the world’s poorest can be achieved through policy changes by developed countries.
Nicola Sturgeon
28
There’s nothing in my background that would have said I was destined to be a senior politician.
Nicola Sturgeon
29
The debate around the ageing population should, in my view, focus much more on how we grow the active, working population.
Nicola Sturgeon
30
I worry about the direction of the U.K. and U.K. politics and governance in the event of a Brexit.
Nicola Sturgeon
31
If there is a ‘Leave’ vote in England and across the U.K. as a whole, then we see the reins of power being seized by politicians who are on the right of the Conservative party.
Nicola Sturgeon
32
One of the attributes Glasgow is best known for all over the world is the friendliness of her people.
Nicola Sturgeon
33
Too often in the past, Scotland has been sidelined and ignored in the Westminster corridors of power, but that doesn’t have to be the case anymore.
Nicola Sturgeon
34
Clearly, any issues about breaching of expenses rules should be properly investigated.
Nicola Sturgeon
35
I’m manifestly not the same as Alex Salmond. I’m a different gender, for example… I’m being flippant, but maybe this is a partly gender-driven difference: I’m very keen that we find a way of reaching out across party divides to find things we agree on, as well as the things we disagree on.
Nicola Sturgeon
36
If you have a Tory government at Westminster that takes us out of Europe against our will, there may be people in Scotland who think, ‘You know what, we might be better off independent.’
Nicola Sturgeon
37
This government and the party that I lead will continue to argue an alternative to the Tory-Labour austerity.
Nicola Sturgeon
38
Personally, I can think of no greater privilege than to lead the party I joined when I was just 16.
Nicola Sturgeon
39
I believe we should support people to live, and I am therefore in favour of good quality palliative care.
Nicola Sturgeon
40
Our MPs will take decisions on how they’re voting on a day-to-day basis. But I’m the leader of the party, and in terms of our overall strategy and how we vote on key issues, then ultimately, those decisions will be mine.
Nicola Sturgeon
41
I wish we lived in a world where how you looked or what you wore wasn’t an issue for men or women, and it’s by and large not an issue for men, so I wish it wasn’t an issue for women, but it is.
Nicola Sturgeon
42
For parents – women in particular – good quality, affordable childcare is vital.
Nicola Sturgeon
43
The U.K.’s debt belongs legally to Westminster, so Scotland, by definition, can’t default on it.
Nicola Sturgeon
44
My message is a simple one – the E.U. is not perfect, but Scotland’s interests are best served by being a member.
Nicola Sturgeon
45
I stand here today as the first woman first minister of our country. Every day I hold this office, I will work to ensure that every woman, every wee girl across this country, gets a chance to do what I’ve done and follow their dream.
Nicola Sturgeon
46
The fact that healthier lifestyles and advances in medicine mean that we are living longer is actually something to be celebrated.
Nicola Sturgeon
47
I’ve not had a deliberate image makeover.
Nicola Sturgeon
48
Tax credits are designed to help people who work hard but who, through no fault of their own, don’t earn enough to keep their families out of poverty.
Nicola Sturgeon
49
For the Scottish government, the practice of having meetings in different parts of the country is well established, but for the U.K. government, it is a much rarer event.
Nicola Sturgeon
50
I’ve never had a voice coach, but I am about to name drop horrendously here: I did once get some advice on how to project my voice from Sean Connery, which was lovely. It’s all about where you breathe. That’s my claim to fame.
Nicola Sturgeon
51
I don’t feel we need to be independent for me to feel confident in my Scottish identity. I think Scotland is pretty comfortable in its identity. We won’t need independence to preserve it… if we don’t become independent, it won’t disappear; it isn’t under existential threat.
Nicola Sturgeon
52
I think Scotland will become an independent country. I’ve always believed that. It means that if I’m right on that, there has to be another referendum at some stage. But the timing and circumstances of that will require careful judgment.
Nicola Sturgeon
53
A good education is the most important gift we can give our young people.
Nicola Sturgeon
54
Poverty is on the increase – due to welfare cuts – and demand for food banks has rocketed.
Nicola Sturgeon
55
I think the Tories are doing – and are intent on doing – damage to things I hold dear.
Nicola Sturgeon
56
I feel comfortable in a position of leadership, but that’s not to say I feel complacent about it. I take it incredibly seriously.
Nicola Sturgeon
57
The total impact of the Tory/Liberal tax, welfare and public spending changes has hit the poorest 10% in society disproportionately hard – and women have been affected even more badly than men.
Nicola Sturgeon
58
I think the fact that people are even talking about the prospect of the Tories coming second is less about anything the Tories have done and more about the failures of Labour to set out, in any kind of coherent sense, what it’s for anymore.
Nicola Sturgeon
59
Scotland is not a region of the U.K.; Scotland is a nation, and if we cannot protect our interests within a U.K. that is going to be changing fundamentally, then that right of Scotland to consider the options of independence has to be there.
Nicola Sturgeon
60
True gender equality in Scotland – and elsewhere – is still some way off.
Nicola Sturgeon
61
Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, it is possible for other parties to change the direction of a government without bringing a government down.
Nicola Sturgeon
62
Most politicians come into politics because they want to make a difference; we just have different ideas how to do it.
Nicola Sturgeon
63
If there are healthy – and growing – numbers of people working and paying taxes, we are better able to pay the costs of people living longer.
Nicola Sturgeon
64
Sometimes things happen in life, sometimes they don’t. Don’t get me wrong: I have no regrets – if I could turn the clock back 10 or 20 years, I wouldn’t want to fundamentally change the path my life has taken.
Nicola Sturgeon
65
I feel sorry for generations of Labour voters and supporters who must look and wonder what on earth has gone wrong and what Labour is for.
Nicola Sturgeon
66
I do not want to see, for any reason, the Tories resurgent in any way.
Nicola Sturgeon
67
I know you’ve got to earn people’s trust, and you’ve got to earn it day after day after day.
Nicola Sturgeon
68
I love talking to the public, I love hearing what people have got to say.
Nicola Sturgeon
69
As a young woman in politics, with few women around, you start to subconsciously behave like men in politics. That comes across as quite hard, tough and humorless, but you’re trying to be taken seriously.
Nicola Sturgeon
70
I do struggle to identify an occasion when I was held back because I’m a woman… You don’t think about it at the time, but looking back at it, of course.
Nicola Sturgeon
71
Tory governments are bad for Scotland.
Nicola Sturgeon
72
I’ve not hidden and I’ll never hide the fact that I want Scotland to be an independent country. But as long as we’re part of the Westminster system, it’s really important to people in Scotland that we get good decisions coming out of Westminster. So we’ve got a vested interest in being a constructive participant.
Nicola Sturgeon
73
Scottish politics, U.K. politics, is not really like American politics in this respect. Not everybody is absolutely obsessed with image. I’m not saying the United States is obsessed with image.
Nicola Sturgeon
74
The assumption that people sometimes make is that I have made a cold, calculated decision to put my career ahead of having family, and that’s not true.
Nicola Sturgeon
75
I’m the leader of the SNP. I think you would expect me to say I would vote SNP in whatever constituency I lived in.
Nicola Sturgeon
76
Maybe its time for politicians to fight back a little bit in terms of this notion that politicians are all in it for themselves, we’re all the same, we’re not driven by sincere motives. Because the fact of the matter is the vast majority are.
Nicola Sturgeon
77
I think you should always aim for more.
Nicola Sturgeon
78
I am quite driven. I know what I think, and I know what I want to achieve, but I also hope that people who are asked to describe me would describe me as pretty down-to-earth, loyal, friendly. The more experience I have got in politics, I think the more I have allowed me to shine through.
Nicola Sturgeon
79
I want there to be another independence referendum at some stage. I want Scotland to be independent, but I wouldn’t choose to have it happen because England votes to come out of the E.U.
Nicola Sturgeon
80
It would be a very serious mistake for the U.K. to vote to leave the European Union, and I think it would be democratically indefensible for Scotland, if we had voted to stay in, to face the prospect of being taken out.
Nicola Sturgeon
81
The truth of the matter is that countries the world over have deficits. Let us remember this about Scotland’s deficit: it was not created in an independent Scotland; it was created on Westminster’s watch.
Nicola Sturgeon
82
My pledge to you is that the SNP will put women and gender equality right at the heart of the Westminster agenda.
Nicola Sturgeon
83
To every woman out there who thinks that they might like to get involved in politics or stand for parliament, I say go for it. If I can do it, so can you.
Nicola Sturgeon
84
A minority government can’t govern without support from other parties.
Nicola Sturgeon
85
I am quite a shy person. You say that to people, and they say, ‘You do interviews, speeches. How can you be shy?’ But, fundamentally, I am.
Nicola Sturgeon
86
Ed Balls has made it crystal clear that, left to its own devices, a Labour government would simply carry on with the same budget policies as the Tories.
Nicola Sturgeon
87
Labour’s support in Scotland depends on their ability to be electable. If they are divided and unelectable, what’s the point?
Nicola Sturgeon
88
If something can be proven to work, we should try it… Making sure that our young folk get the best education is the only thing that matters to me, and if something can be shown to work in doing that or if something’s worth trying to do that, then I’ll certainly be in the market for it.
Nicola Sturgeon
89
There is nothing in your background that inherently holds you back or means you can’t achieve what others can achieve. You are the master of your own fate, and if you work hard, you can do what you want.
Nicola Sturgeon
90
We already know that social security is more affordable in Scotland than it is in the rest of the U.K. – spending on social protection takes up a smaller share of our economic output and our tax revenues than is the case in the U.K. as a whole.
Nicola Sturgeon
91
It is one of the little known facts about modern Scottish politics that it is not quite as cut-throat as people think it is.
Nicola Sturgeon
92
Polls can change; people’s opinions can change. Voting intentions can change, and I think it would be a silly leader, a silly political party, that would assume that we have it sewn up.
Nicola Sturgeon
93
If your pal or neighbour is in the SNP, you’re more likely to listen to them than if you just turn on the telly and see me or Alex. The growth of membership is building a politically engaged community base that hasn’t been there in my lifetime.
Nicola Sturgeon
94
I and Alex Salmond are not in competition – we are on the same side; we are on the same team, working together.
Nicola Sturgeon
95
Would I love to think that one day I would be First Minister of an independent Scotland? Of course.
Nicola Sturgeon
96
Governments in countries across the world have a duty to do everything possible to keep the public safe from terrorist attacks.
Nicola Sturgeon
97
It’s very much the currency of discourse on social media where political disagreements very quickly become very personalised.
Nicola Sturgeon
98
My political awakening, if I can be as grand as to call it that, was all about what was happening around me. It wasn’t some romantic, patriotic vision of Scotland going back to what it had been 300 years previously.
Nicola Sturgeon
99
I admire Obama.
Nicola Sturgeon
100
Let us put the normal divisions of politics aside. Let us come together as one country; let us seize this historic moment to shift the balance of power from the corridors of Westminster to the streets and communities of Scotland.
Nicola Sturgeon
101
In particular, I want to set a challenge to public bodies and private companies to improve gender balance on their own boards.
Nicola Sturgeon
102
Instead of an end to austerity, Labour has made clear that it wants to impose more austerity cuts.
Nicola Sturgeon
103
It’s not opinion polls that determine the outcome of elections, it’s votes in ballot boxes.
Nicola Sturgeon
104
Not once in my life has the Tory Party come anywhere close to winning an election in Scotland, and yet, for more than half my life, we have had a Tory government. That is wrong and undemocratic.
Nicola Sturgeon
105
I hope nobody in England is afraid of the SNP – there is absolutely no need to be.
Nicola Sturgeon
106
Labour long ago realised it could no longer automatically assume that it would win elections in Glasgow and other places where it has taken people’s votes for granted for decades – as we have seen across Scotland at local council and Holyrood elections.
Nicola Sturgeon
107
I am quite hot-headed; I am quite impulsive. Fortunately, it doesn’t last very long.
Nicola Sturgeon
108
I have said repeatedly I do want to take longer to eliminate the deficit than the other parties. Because I want to see us have the ability to invest more in our economy, in our public services, and in lifting people out of poverty.
Nicola Sturgeon
109
The Scottish Government’s international development work began in 2005 with a £3 million budget focused solely on Malawi, reflecting the historic links between our two countries.
Nicola Sturgeon
110
We will never vote for the renewal of Trident; that’s a decision which will fall to be made in the next Westminster parliament. We will never vote for that.
Nicola Sturgeon
111
I don’t know Ed Miliband as a person particularly well.
Nicola Sturgeon
112
Parties that win elections should form the government, not parties that lose elections.
Nicola Sturgeon
113
It is hard to overstate the economic importance of the U.S.A. to Scotland, and that makes it essential that we engage with companies and potential investors and get the message across that we are open for business.
Nicola Sturgeon
114
The fact is Scottish Labour has lost its way.
Nicola Sturgeon
115
I am privileged to count many Muslims among my friends – some are amongst my closest friends.
Nicola Sturgeon
116
A whole range of things are done to ensure services remain safe and sustainable because that is the absolute paramount duty of the health board.
Nicola Sturgeon
117
Scotland has been re-energized, and people all over the country have become involved in – and informed about – politics and government in a way that I have never known before. In short, we have put ourselves firmly in control of our country.
Nicola Sturgeon
118
I’m quite hypercritical of myself. It’s a very Scottish thing, always thinking that you’ve got to be that bit better than everyone else to be good enough.
Nicola Sturgeon
119
The U.K. needs a strong opposition, and Labour shows no signs of being capable of being that. The SNP is filling that void and will go on seeking to do that.
Nicola Sturgeon
120
People who think of a nationalist party sometimes think ‘inward-looking and parochial.’ The kind of nationalism I represent is the opposite of that.
Nicola Sturgeon
121
There was nothing in my childhood that said, ‘She’s going to be first minister of the country one day.’
Nicola Sturgeon
122
Scotland never voted for Margaret Thatcher.
Nicola Sturgeon
123
U.K. welfare cuts are pushing more children into poverty; that is beyond dispute.
Nicola Sturgeon
124
Thatcher was the motivation for my entire political career. I hated everything she stood for.
Nicola Sturgeon
125
My early years as a political activist were dominated by the poll tax.
Nicola Sturgeon
126
Talent is really important in politics, but experience is also really important.
Nicola Sturgeon
127
The fact is that co-operation between independent countries – to our mutual advantage – is the way of the modern world.
Nicola Sturgeon
128
Any politician or campaigner trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public won’t get very far.
Nicola Sturgeon
129
London has a centrifugal pull on talent, investment and business from the rest of Europe and the world. That brings benefits to the broader U.K. economy.
Nicola Sturgeon
130
One of Ed Miliband’s shadow ministers has said he would never vote for the renewal of Trident.
Nicola Sturgeon
131
The U.K. government sets a cap on how much can be spent on discretionary housing payments.
Nicola Sturgeon
132
I was fascinated, long before I joined the SNP, in the world around me; current affairs really interested me.
Nicola Sturgeon
133
There are lots of jobs and investment in Scotland dependent on our membership of the E.U. single market.
Nicola Sturgeon