Great Throughts Treasury

"Ever so often in the history of human endeavour, there comes a breakthrough that takes humankind across a frontier into a new era. ... today's announcement is such a breakthrough, a breakthrough that opens the way for massive advancement in the treatment of cancer and hereditary diseases. And that is only the beginning."

"Every so often, I feel I should graduate to classical music, properly. But the truth is, I'm more likely to listen to rock music."

"Every time I've ever introduced a reform in government, I wish in retrospect I had gone further."

"Examine the legacy that we inherited and what we did. We had boom-and-bust economics and a doubled national debt."

"Everyone who knew John Smith knew he was someone of enormous strength and authority and he would have been a tower of strength to this country."

"For the moment, let me say this: Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also."

"Freedom of information: Three harmless words. I look at those words as I write them, and feel like shaking my head till it drops off my shoulders. You idiot. You na‹ve, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop."

"Fanaticism is not a state of religion but a state of mind."

"Global warming is too serious for the world any longer to ignore its danger or split into opposing factions on it."

"Fifteen years ago, if you said business will help save the environment people would have laughed at you. Today, I believe this is a serious proposition"

"He wants a Bill of Rights for Britain drafted by a Committee of Lawyers. Have you ever tried drafting anything with a Committee of Lawyers?"

"However much he dances around the ring beforehand he will come in reach of a big clunking fist and, you know what, he'll be out on his feet, carried out of the ring."

"How do we deal with not just the acts of violence, but the extremist ideology that lies behind them? Because though the numbers of fanatics that go and join and kill for a group like ISIS are measured in tens of thousands, those that support the wider ideology, I'm afraid, you measure in tens of millions or more."

"Genetic modification has many different areas, for example in medicine, and Britain is at the leading edge of this new technology. I don't know, but people tell me, it could indeed by the leading science of the 21st century. All I say to people is: 'Just keep an open mind and let us proceed according to genuine scientific evidence.'"

"However much I dislike the idea of abortion, you should not criminalize a woman who, in very difficult circumstances, makes that choice."

"Human progress has never been shaped by commentators, complainers or cynics."

"I abhor Saddam's regime, but the basis has to be disarmament."

"I also, as I think most people do, have a healthy instinct that if we upset the balance of nature, we are in all probability going to suffer a reaction. With world growth, and population as it is, this reaction must increase"

"I always say, when they ask me about American politics, is for you guys to decide who you elect."

"I actually did trouble to read Marx first hand. I found it illuminating in so many ways; in particular, my perception of the relationship between people and the society in which they live was irreversibly altered"

"I am a pretty straight sort of guy."

"I am absolutely confident that the mechanisms for judging my fallibility are infallible."

"I am a Socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, Socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for co-operation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality, not because it wants people to be the same but because only through equality in our economic circumstances can our individuality develop properly."

"I am absolutely delighted to give my full support to Gordon as the next leader of the Labour Party and as prime minister and to endorse him fully."

"I am an optimist about Britain; and the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is not that the optimist believes the world is wonderful and the pessimist believes it's beset by challenges; the difference is the pessimist believes we will be defeated by them; the optimist thinks the challenges can be overcome."

"I am not sure that we would always want 16-year-olds to do all the things they can do. I am afraid that I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman on the voting age. I think that it should remain as it is."

"I am absolutely up for it ..."

"I am unable to satisfy the desire even of some of my supporters, who would like me to say: it was a mistake but one made in good faith. Friends opposed to the war think I'm being obstinate; others, less friendly, think I'm delusional. To both I may say: keep an open mind."

"I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong. That's your call.... I have been very lucky and very blessed. This country is a blessed nation. The British are special, the world knows it, in our innermost thoughts, we know it. This is the greatest nation on Earth. It has been an honour to serve it."

"I bear the scars on my back after two years in government."

"I believe a referendum is right so that people can decide what is the best electoral system for the country."

"I believe Mrs. Thatcher's emphasis on enterprise was right."

"I believe the bicentenary offers us a chance not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was - how we condemn its existence utterly and praise those who fought for its abolition - but also to express our deep sorrow that it could ever have happened and rejoice at the better times we live in today"

"I can't stand politicians who wear God on their sleeves."

"I can only go one way, I've not got a reverse gear."

"I couldn't live with myself if I thought that these big strategic choices for my generation were there, and I wasn't even making them ? or I was making them according to what was expedient rather than what I actually thought was right."

"I can stand here today, leader of the Labour Party, Prime Minister, and say to the British people: you have never had it so... prudent."

"I did sit down with them at one point and I explained that this was going to be extremely difficult and it was possible that the thing could go against me."

"I cannot think of any circumstances in which a government can go to war without the support of parliament."

"I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country."

"I did not join the Labour Party to protest. I joined it as a party of government and I will make sure that it is a party of government."

"I do not want to end up with an American style of politics, with us going out there beating our chest about our faith. Politics and religion - it is not that they do not have a lot in common, but if [religion] ends up being used in the political process, I think that is a bit unhealthy."

"I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honour, but sometimes it is the price of leadership and the cost of conviction."

"I don't concede it at all that the intelligence at the time was wrong."

"I don't ever stop being prime minister."

"I don't like it, to be honest, when politicians make a big thing of their religious beliefs, so I don't make a big thing of it."

"I feel like everyone else in this country today. I am utterly devastated."

"I don't think there Is a way politically to beat "Insurgent Movement Of Populism"."

"I don't think it's surprising we will have to look for them. I'm confident that when the Iraq Survey Group has done its work we will find what's happened to those weapons because he had them."

"I fear my own conscience on Africa. I fear the judgement of future generations, where history properly calculates the gravity of the suffering. I fear them asking: but how could wealthy people, so aware of such suffering, so capable of acting, simply turn away to busy themselves with other things? What greater call to action could there be? Did they really know and yet do nothing? I feel that judgement of the future alongside the now. It gives me urgency. It fills me with determination."