Great Throughts Treasury

"Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt. (On relations with the US)"

"Luck, that's when preparation and opportunity meet."

"My life is one long curve, full of turning points."

"My only response was that I had been called worse things by better people."

"Mr. L‚vesque was saying that part of my name was Elliott and since Elliot was an English name, it was perfectly understandable that I was for the No side, because, really, you see, I was not as much of a Quebecer as those who are going to vote Yes. That, my dear friends, is what contempt is?. It means saying that the Quebecers on the No side are not as good Quebecers as the others and perhaps they have a drop or two of foreign blood, while the people on the Yes side have pure blood in their veins.? Of course my name is Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Yes, Elliott was my mother's name. It was the name borne by the Elliotts who came to Canada more than 200 years ago. It is the name of the Elliotts who, more than 100 years ago, settled in Saint-Gabriel de Brandon, where you can still see their graves in the cemetery. That is what the Elliotts are. My name is a Quebec name ? but my name is aCanadian name also."

"People are more interested in ideas than dress."

"Paddling a canoe is a source of enrichment and inner renewal."

"Of course a bilingual state is more expensive than a unilingual one ? but it is a richer state."

"So long, trained seals!"

"Oh, for Christ's sake shut up. Obviously the New Democratic Party is not only misinformed but uninterested in the subject."

"Power only tires those who don't exercise it."

"Some things I never learned to like. I didn't like to kiss babies, though I didn't mind kissing their mothers."

"Society must take every means at its disposal to defend itself against the emergence of a parallel power which defies the elected power"

"Some things I never learned to like. I didn't like to kiss babies, though I didn't mind kissing their mothers. I didn't like to slap backs or other parts of the anatomy. I liked hecklers, because they brought my speeches alive. I liked supporters, because they looked happy. And I really enjoyed mingling with people, if there wasn't too much of it."

"Sorry, you're on the no-fly list. You can't board the plane."

"The best thing you can possibly do for a friend is to be his friend."

"The community of man should be treated in the same way you would treat your community of brothers or fellow citizens."

"The Jesuits were good educators, exceptional teachers. In an era and in a society where freedom of speech was not held in high regard, of course, that the discourse be focused on what they were teaching, but we were able to go beyond this framework without incurring too great a risk."

"The federal government is the balance wheel of the federal system, and the federal system means using counterweights."

"The French won't take us over and neither will the Pope, although he's not the menace he used to be."

"The state has an active role to play in ensuring that there is equilibrium between the constituent parts of the economy, the consumers and the producers."

"The next time you see Jesus Christ, ask Him what happened to the just society He promised 2,000 years ago."

"There is no such thing as a model or ideal Canadian. What could be more absurd than the concept of an "all Canadian" boy or girl? A society which emphasizes uniformity is one which creates intolerance and hate."

"The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation."

"There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation."

"We aimed far and high, but we did not miss the mark."

"We peer so suspiciously at each other that we cannot see that we Canadians are standing on the mountaintop of human wealth, freedom and privilege."

"Well, why should I sell the Canadian farmers' wheat?"

"Well, I am trying to put Quebec in its place ? and the place of Quebec is in Canada, nowhere else."

"Well there are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed. But it's more important to keep law and order in the society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of a solder."

"What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature."

"What is wonderful about a university like LSE is that you not only receive teaching of very high quality, you also learn where to find the knowledge you are seeking. And you make unexpected discoveries; it was a Marxist professor who introduced me to the work of Cardinal Newman, a great master of English prose as well as theology."

"When I had been appointed to the Cabinet in 1967, I had been struck by the amateurism that reigned in the upper echelons of the federal government."

"You just cannot cut a country in two any more than you can cut a human being in two. If you do, you do not have two human beings; you have a corpse."