Vaclav Klaus Quotes

Successful reform requires a long-term vision, driven by political leadership.

If at the end of May we don't, we'll reform, regroup, decide how we're going to go about it, but if the task force can't come up with the bill, I'm going to push mine, and go ahead and make the changes in it that we've been working on now for a year or two and just go for it.

Too often reform involves the mechanics of change rather than the underlying values.

Most governments and people want reform. It’s the prospect of change that makes reform rare.

You can engineer change.

When the president and the prime minister decide to implement reforms, they have all the measures they need to pass them and enforce them.

In any campaign you make a lot of promises and you talk about a wide range of issues. When you're elected, the work of accomplishing those goals has to be sequenced. You can't do everything at once.

Reforms are not an end in itself. Reforms must have a concrete objective.

Not only are there no free lunches, but there are no free systemic changes either.

A revolution has taken place within the government but it has not yet penetrated civil society.

You get few chances to make really transformational institutional change.

One man of tolerable Abilities may work great Changes, and accomplish great Affairs among Mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and … makes the execution of that same plan his sole Study and Business.

I have presidential size policy ambition. I just don't have presidencial size personal ambition.

The Way of an enlightened ruler is to make it so that no minister may make a proposal and then fail to match it with actions and results.

When a president doesn't know the policy, it doesn't make for a very effective leader.

During a term in office there are highs and lows, but what counts is that the goal is set as well as the means to achieve it, and the force we put into getting results.

The idea was never for me to be a career bureaucrat or career technocrat; it was more about where I could implement ideas and reform programs.

All Labour supporters and politicians know that winning elections is extremely difficult, but my first year as mayor of London has taught me that governing - driving change and delivering results - is even harder.

I have always been saying that while - the legislative reforms are good, but there are so many low-hanging fruits that we have look for by taking executive decisions. I think the government is actually moving in the right direction.

I'm all in favour of grand important speeches, but the president then has to link his sermons to a strategy.

As chief of staff, I was responsible for running a multibillion-dollar organization with over 34,000 employees, and working on everything from health care to transportation.

Given my earlier experience as the longest served CM of the erstwhile undivided A.P., I focused on choosing right people in the right place with clear priorities in the departments that were vital to attract large-scale investments into the state.

There's no cultural revolution by mistake.

Today, we should look for people with great organizational skills to run a government - not just leaders, who are good with people.

I don't think it's my job, single-handedly, to fix anything. I think it's my job to have a vision and have a plan that is reasonable and workable and get as many people to the table to effect change as possible.