Michael Gove Quotes

We have the opportunity not just to choose our job or profession, but also to choose the sort of life we want to live and the imprint we will leave on others.

- Michael Gove

I think, instead of the pessimism of the Remain campaign, we have an opportunity to think of the next generation. If we have faith in their talent, in their generosity, in their hard work, we can, if we leave the E.U., ensure the next generation makes this country once more truly great.

- Michael Gove

We have, in the E.U., a market rigged in favour of the rich and stacked against the poor, and I think that's wrong.

- Michael Gove

Hanging may seem barbarous, but the greater barbarity lies in the slow abandonment of our common law traditions.

- Michael Gove

Democratic self-government has manifestly brought benefits to India, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, South Africa, South Korea, and scores of nations all making their way in the world.

- Michael Gove

The decision to trigger Article 50 is in the hands of the next prime minister. If that is me, I will make a judgement as to when is right for Britain, and I won't be hurried or hassled by anyone into pressing that button or triggering that article until I believe it is right for this country.

- Michael Gove

Learning a foreign language, and the culture that goes with it, is one of the most useful things we can do to broaden the empathy and imaginative sympathy and cultural outlook of children.

- Michael Gove

In England, more than in any comparable country, those who are born poor are more likely to stay poor, and those who inherit privilege are more likely to pass on privilege. For those of us who believe in social justice, this stratification and segregation are morally indefensible.

- Michael Gove

I have a different starting premise from those 100 academics who are so heavily invested in the regime of low expectations and narrow horizons which they have created.

- Michael Gove

There are great things that Britain can do in the future as a progressive beacon. By voting Leave, we have that opportunity.

- Michael Gove

I found reading Alan Bennett striking because you have this sudden flash of recognition when you read about a boy who has intellectual interests utterly different from his parents.

- Michael Gove

Our security and sovereignty stand together.

- Michael Gove

Jamie Dimon and J.P. Morgan are contributing millions to the Remain campaign because they do very nicely, thank you, out of the E.U.

- Michael Gove

Scottish nationalism has grown since we entered the European Union.

- Michael Gove

The economic basis on which Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish nationalists made the case for separation was based on an oil price much higher than it is at the moment, so there will be no case for it.

- Michael Gove

There wasn't a Scottish nationalist MP elected at any general election when we were outside the E.U.

- Michael Gove

One of the problems we've had is that the ICT curriculum in the past has been written for a subject that is changing all the time. I think that what we should have is computer science in the future - and how it fits in to the curriculum is something we need to be talking to scientists, to experts in coding and to young people about.

- Michael Gove

I think the people in this country have had enough of experts with organisations from acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.

- Michael Gove

I think overall our national security is strengthened if we are able to make the decisions that we need and the alliances that we believe in outside the current structures of the European Union.

- Michael Gove

I know myself, from my own background, the E.U. depresses employment and destroys jobs. My father had a business destroyed by the common fisheries policy.

- Michael Gove

Labor, under their current leadership, want to be the Downtown Abbey party when it comes to educational opportunity. They think working class children should stick to the station in life they were born into - they should be happy to be recognized for being good with their hands and not presume to get above themselves.

- Michael Gove

Unfortunately, the real achievements of children on the ground became debased and devalued because Labor education secretaries sounded like Soviet commissars praising the tractor production figures when we know that those exams were not the rock-solid measures of achievement that children deserve.

- Michael Gove

In this fallen world, I suspect we will never achieve perfection. But that won't stop me trying.

- Michael Gove

You wouldn't tolerate an underperforming surgeon in an operating theatre, or a underperforming midwife at your child's birth. Why is it that we tolerate underperforming teachers in the classroom?

- Michael Gove

It is vital that teachers can be paid more without having to leave the classroom. This will be particularly important to schools in the most disadvantaged areas as it will empower them to attract and recruit the best teachers.

- Michael Gove

When I talk to teachers they tell me the things they'd most like from any government are a reduction in bureaucracy, support to help ensure good discipline and a reformed Ofsted.

- Michael Gove

I think it's time that we said to people who are incapable of acknowledging that they've ever got anything wrong: 'I'm sorry, you've had your day.' Unelected, unaccountable elites, I'm afraid it's time to say, 'You're fired. We are going to take back control.'

- Michael Gove

You come home to find your 17-year-old daughter engrossed in a book. Which would delight you more - if it were 'Twilight' or 'Middlemarch?'

- Michael Gove

If we, in the future, have confidence in ourselves, then there's no limit to what we can achieve, and I think the depressing litany... that we hear from the Remain side is not the type of approach we should take into the future.

- Michael Gove

I believed and hoped that we would be able to secure a deal with Europe which would enable us to amend free movement.

- Michael Gove

Anyone who's working in manufacturing here should know they will have increased opportunities if we leave the European Union.

- Michael Gove

If events had taken a different course, I could have been one of those children going to a school without the sorts of opportunities that I've subsequently had.

- Michael Gove

The ability to choose who governs us, and the freedom to change laws we do not like, were secured for us in the past by radicals and liberals who took power from unaccountable elites and placed it in the hands of the people.

- Michael Gove

Making promises and then saddling yourself with a political system and a political union that means that you cannot deliver those promises, I fear, doesn't contribute to an atmosphere of trust and confidence in politics.

- Michael Gove

It's the invincible arrogance of Europe's elites that gets me. These are people who have seen the euro collapse. These are people who are presiding over a migration crisis on their borders, and yet do they ever acknowledge that they need to change? No. They say they need more integration, more of our money, more control over this country.

- Michael Gove

One thing is undeniable. If we are going to continue to have support for migration, we need to be able to control the numbers.

- Michael Gove

One of the reasons why Australia and Canada have support for migration is because they control the numbers.

- Michael Gove

I am in favour of migration; I simply want to control the numbers.

- Michael Gove

There is no prospect of any of us being able to kick out any of the presidents of Europe; they operate in a sphere and a realm well away from and out of reach of and out of touch with the people.

- Michael Gove

Too many people go to university.

- Michael Gove

At the moment, I'm afraid that the discipline system doesn't give teachers the support that they need. One thing that I've been struck by is that the number of violent assaults on teachers increased last year. We need to be clear that teachers have the power they need in order to impose discipline.

- Michael Gove

The current leadership of the Labor party react to the idea that working-class students might study the subjects they studied with the same horror that the Earl of Grantham showed when a chauffeur wanted to marry his daughter.

- Michael Gove

I see education in the U.K. as a civil rights struggle.

- Michael Gove

My sister and I know our lives could have been different - radically, unthinkably, irretrievably different - if we had not been adopted. We might have found ourselves in homes without love, stability or kindness. We might have found ourselves in care for much longer, without the secure attachment that being cradled in a mother's arms brings.

- Michael Gove

The common fisheries policy essentially gave other European Union nations unfettered access to our fish stocks and - I would hope - that if we leave the European Union, we can once more see the ports of Peterborough and Fraserhead and Grimsby flourishing, because we will take back control of our territorial waters.

- Michael Gove

Were I ever alone in the dock, I would not want to be arraigned before our flawed tribunals, knowing my freedom could be forfeit as a result of political pressures. I would prefer a fair trial, under the shadow of the noose.

- Michael Gove

If you vote to leave the E.U.... we will have additional flexibility to help industries who really need it.

- Michael Gove

It's critical that children spend time before they arrive in school in a warm, attractive and inclusive environment, where they can learn through play, master social skills and prepare for formal schooling.

- Michael Gove

I prefer to take the view of businesspeople who are actually generating jobs and creating wealth.

- Michael Gove

Don't belittle the hurt that has been caused by the job-destroying machine that is the European Union.

- Michael Gove

There aren't many contemporary Christian leaders who are both energetic in their condemnation of the crimes of communism and robust in their analysis of the evil of Islamism, but Justin Welby stands out.

- Michael Gove

Children themselves know they are being cheated. Ultimately we owe it to our children. They are in school for 190 days a year. Every moment they spend learning is precious. If a year goes by and they are not being stretched and excited, that blights their life.

- Michael Gove

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Conservative cabinet was called Hotel Cecil.

- Michael Gove

The people who are backing the Remain campaign are people who have done very well, thank you, out of the European Union.

- Michael Gove

I absolutely haven't set out to burnish a reputation as a macho figure by picking fights.

- Michael Gove

I want people to be the authors of their own life story.

- Michael Gove

I want people to concentrate not on my job but on their jobs.

- Michael Gove

The people I admire most are those doing outstanding things for the poorest children, such as Michael Wilshaw at Mossbourne academy, Dan Moynihan and all those at the Harris academies, and those at chains such as Ark and the Haberdashers, who are driving up standards in the poorest areas.

- Michael Gove

My view is that those challenges will be easier to meet, those risks will be less if we vote to leave because we will have control of the economic levers; we will have control over money we send to the European Union. We will have control over our own laws, and as a result, we will be able to deal with whatever the world throws at us.

- Michael Gove

The majority people in this country are suffering because of our membership of the E.U.

- Michael Gove

No-one is forced to stand for Parliament; no-one is compelled to become a minister. If you take on those roles, which are great privileges, you also take on big responsibilities.

- Michael Gove

I sometimes think that the In campaign appears to be operating to a script written by George R.R. Martin and Stephen King - Brexit would mean a combination of 'A Feast for Crows' and 'Misery.'

- Michael Gove

Well I've been crystal clear that we should not have schools which are set up by extremists whether they're Christian fundamentalists, Islamic fundamentalists or any other sort of outrageous and beyond the pale organization.

- Michael Gove

I love my parents in the way most children would: for having been there at every point in my youth and childhood, ready to pick me up when I fell and support me when I stumbled.

- Michael Gove

I have specifically argued that we need to change our relationship with the European Union by fundamentally reforming not just our relationship but the European Union itself.

- Michael Gove

It is literally the case that learning languages makes you smarter. The neural networks in the brain strengthen as a result of language learning.

- Michael Gove

There is a slam-dunk case for extending foreign language teaching to children aged five. Just as some people have taken a perverse pride in not understanding mathematics, so we have taken a perverse pride in the fact that we do not speak foreign languages, and we just need to speak louder in English.

- Michael Gove

It's often the case that successful people invite criticism.

- Michael Gove

As long as there are people in education making excuses for failure, cursing future generations with a culture of low expectations, denying children access to the best that has been thought and written, because Nemo and the Mister Men are more relevant, the battle needs to be joined.

- Michael Gove

Teachers themselves know if there's a colleague who can't keep control or keep the interest of their class, it affects the whole school.

- Michael Gove

There are all sorts of people who will say disobliging things about me. I don't mind that. I would rather people said, 'This is a man that sticks to his principles, not a man who's worried about popularity.'

- Michael Gove

My parents adopted me, and then, by the age of four or five, I was asking all sorts of questions, and they found themselves with a son who was interested in the sorts of things that they valued but weren't natural to them.

- Michael Gove

The next leader of this country needs to be someone who believes heart and soul that Britain should be outside the European Union.

- Michael Gove

The accumulation of cultural capital - the acquisition of knowledge - is the key to social mobility.

- Michael Gove

The Government wants to give young people from every community the chance to learn about the heroism and sacrifice of our great-grandparents, which is why we are organising visits to the battlefields of the Western Front.

- Michael Gove

People should vote for democracy, and Britain should vote for hope.

- Michael Gove

When we vote to leave, I think a majority of people in Scotland will also vote to leave as well.

- Michael Gove

I can't influence how other parties choose to vote.

- Michael Gove

Whether we vote to leave or remain, there are risks to our future; there are challenges in the global economy.

- Michael Gove

Optimists - people who believe in Britain, who believe in democracy - they're the people I believe who will vote for us to leave and take back control.

- Michael Gove

I don't think there will be a recession as a result of a vote to leave.

- Michael Gove

My judgment about what is right for this country will always guide me.

- Michael Gove

I don't want to have anyone else as Prime Minister other than David Cameron, and if people spend their time thinking about some of this stuff, then they are getting in the way of two things: one, a fair, open, fact-based referendum debate; and two, the Conservative government continuing afterwards in a stable and secure fashion.

- Michael Gove

I think the depressing litany of projections about World War Three and global Brexit recession we hear from the Remain side is not the sort of approach we should take into the future.

- Michael Gove

I think it's appropriate that we simplify, clarify and strengthen, so instead of this nebulousness, we have clarity and authority invested in teachers once more.

- Michael Gove

The first thing I would like to say is that I don't think folk at Westminster - or for that matter at Holyrood - constitute an elite. They are representatives who are elected and who are at the service of voters who can fire them.

- Michael Gove

I won't criticise anyone else's statements, and the public will make up their own minds. And if the public think that any side or any individual has strayed too far away from what's expected of public representatives, then they'll make that judgement.

- Michael Gove

Traditional Anglicans - whether in Nigeria or Nottingham - have been wary, at best, of the acceptance and welcome given to gay men and women and their sexual choices by secular society.

- Michael Gove

I just think it is entirely normal for the United Kingdom to be an independent nation state.

- Michael Gove

I believe that the decisions which govern all our lives, the laws we must all obey, and the taxes we must all pay should be decided by people we choose and who we can throw out if we want change.

- Michael Gove

Barack Obama would never accept a court in Mexico decreeing what the law in the United States would be.

- Michael Gove

A coalition with Tories and Liberal Democrats together is a golden opportunity to create the sort of planning reform that means not only can we have more environmentally sensitive planning, but we can have more homes and more schools.

- Michael Gove

I can't foretell the future, but I don't believe that the act of leaving the European Union would make our economic position worse; I think it would make it better.

- Michael Gove

I believe that there are better opportunities to keep people safe if we are outside the European Union.

- Michael Gove

I'm one of many who have seen their parents and their friends lose their jobs, lose their income, lose their livelihood because of the European Union.

- Michael Gove

What's a fact is that we give more than £350 million to the European Union and hand over control of that money to the European Union every week.

- Michael Gove

A lot of schools benefit from parents who are first- or second-generation immigrants, who expect the best for their children.

- Michael Gove

Adopting means opening your home, and heart, to a life you've never known. But there is nothing as richly rewarding as being an adoptive parent.

- Michael Gove

I have a brother-in-law who lives in Spain.

- Michael Gove

The First World War may have been a uniquely horrific war, but it was also plainly a just war.

- Michael Gove

I'm not interested in defending the position of those who already have money, power and privilege.

- Michael Gove

I was a union member in my youth as well and I went on strike, and I don't think it solved anything. It only made the situation worse for everyone involved.

- Michael Gove

Ed Balls keeps saying that we are committed to scrapping the EMA. I have never said this. We won't.

- Michael Gove

I'm a decentralizer. I believe in trusting professionals.

- Michael Gove

You know you don't see hospital consultants going on strike, and I don't believe that teachers and head teachers should. It's within their rights, it's a civil right, but I think it is wrong in terms of the reputation of the profession.

- Michael Gove

What we're doing now is we're saying that individual schools can spend the money on their own priorities, so that head teachers can decide what's truly important, because the big shift in approach on education that we're taking - which is different from what happened before - is that we trust teachers and we trust heads.

- Michael Gove

The big shift in approach on education that we are taking - which is different from what happened before - is that we trust teachers and we trust heads.

- Michael Gove

Life would have been easier for me if I had taken the path of least resistance.

- Michael Gove

I wanted to put the national interest before my personal interests.

- Michael Gove

I absolutely think that David Cameron should stay, whatever the result of the referendum, and I hope that he will stay for the full second term which he was elected to serve.

- Michael Gove

In my view, our immigration policy means that we have some people who can come into this country - who we might want to say no to - and others, who we might want to attract, who can't currently come in.

- Michael Gove

Ever since going up to university, I have accumulated new debt, and new means of becoming indebted.

- Michael Gove

Proper history teaching is being crushed under the weight of play-based pedagogy which infantilises children, teachers and our culture.

- Michael Gove

What I think is wrong is spending £9m of taxpayers' money on one particular piece of one-sided propaganda.

- Michael Gove

I'm clear that we do need to improve what's happening in our schools.

- Michael Gove

Children in dysfunctional homes at risk of abuse are kept in danger for too long because politically correct rules mean we won't challenge unfit parents.

- Michael Gove

I was encouraged to stand for Parliament by David Cameron, and he has given me the opportunity to serve in what I believe is a great, reforming government. I think he is an outstanding Prime Minister.

- Michael Gove

The single most important thing in a child's performance is the quality of the teacher. Making sure a child spends the maximum amount of time with inspirational teachers is the most important thing.

- Michael Gove

I don't think I'm a revolutionary, and I'd certainly be an unlikely one.

- Michael Gove

I recognise that fishing is perhaps not the most high-employment industry in this country, but it's a symbol of what we lost when we entered the E.U.: control over national resources that, if we retained them, we could have husbanded in our interest and, indeed, in the interest of others.

- Michael Gove

I think the principal purpose of education is to allow each of us, when we become adults, to shape our own future.

- Michael Gove

Many more schools can be outstanding.

- Michael Gove

Good schools should be left alone.

- Michael Gove

I put my country and my principles first.

- Michael Gove

I think more and more respect has been accorded to teachers, and quite rightly so.

- Michael Gove

The reason why I'm in Parliament is not really to see my colleagues win power; it is to see us at last in a position where we can give it up.

- Michael Gove

I will do exactly as the Prime Minister asks me.

- Michael Gove

The free market is not a god; we have to do everything we can to make the market competitive.

- Michael Gove

I was very lucky in that I had a couple of teachers who were particularly supportive.

- Michael Gove

I'm not asking the public to trust me; I'm asking the public to trust themselves.

- Michael Gove

There are economic risks if we leave, economic risks if we remain.

- Michael Gove

One of the problems we have is children are not in school long enough in the day and during the year.

- Michael Gove