Great Throughts Treasury

"I understand there is a need for a stable and orderly transition to that leadership, but that people should give me the space to ensure that happens and that this debate is not best conducted in the pages of the Mail on Sunday."

"I want a Britain that is one nation, with shared values and purpose, where merit comes before privilege, run for the many not the few, strong and sure of itself at home and abroad."

"I was born in 1953, a child of the Cold War era, raised amid the constant fear of a conflict with the potential to destroy humanity. Whatever other dangers may exist, no such fear exists today. Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war. That is a prize beyond value."

"I will do what it takes to help Ed Miliband win general election"

"I want my son to grow up in a place where the people are more powerful than the government and not the other way around."

"I would never do anything to harm the country or anything improper. I think most people who have dealt with me think I'm a pretty straight sort of guy, and I am."

"I want to see a publicly-owned railway, publicly accountable."

"Ideals survive through change. They die through inertia in the face of challenge."

"I would've loved to have been in a band, but sadly I just wasn't good enough."

"I will have no truck with a European superstate. If there are moves to create that dragon I will slay it."

"If I am elected, I would serve a full third term. I do not want to serve a fourth term - I don't think the British people would want a prime minister to go on that long. But I think it's sensible to make plain my intention now."

"I will never know precisely what made Dr David Kelly take his own life. Who can ever know the reason behind these things? It was so sad, unnecessary and terrible."

"If I did seem to be enjoying it, then it was a supreme instance of acting. I hated it."

"If I'd proposed solving the pension problem by compulsory euthanasia for every fifth pensioner I'd have got less trouble for it."

"If people in the end think that you can't do something in a way which is acceptable then it won't fly. The only way you get anything like this done is if people think, 'I understand why it is being done.'"

"If we are wrong, we will have destroyed a threat that, at its least is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering. That is something I am confident history will forgive."

"If we don't act now, then we will go back to what has happened before and then of course the whole thing begins again and he carries on developing these weapons and these are dangerous weapons, particularly if they fall into the hands of terrorists who we know want to use these weapons if they can get them."

"If we don't act now, we can't keep those people down there forever. We can't wait forever. If we don't act now, then we will go back to what has happened before and then of course the whole thing begins again and he carries on developing these weapons and these are dangerous weapons, particularly if they fall into the hands of terrorists who we know want to use these weapons if they can get them."

"If there are further steps to European integration, the people should have their say at a general election or in a referendum."

"If we are going to carry on growing, and we will, because no country is going to forfeit its right to economic growth, we have to find a way of doing it sustainably."

"If there is one thing Britain should learn from the last 50 years, it is this: Europe can only get more important for us."

"If we take all this actions and if it turns out not be true, we have reduced pollution and have better ways to live, the downside is very small. The other way around, and we don?t act, and it turns out to be true, then we have betrayed future generations and we don?t have the right to do that."

"If we want a world ruled by law and by international co-operation then we have to support the UN as its central pillar. But we need to find a new way to make the UN and its Security Council work if we are not to return to the deadlock that undermined the effectiveness of the Security Council during the Cold War. This should be a task for members of the Permanent Five to consider once the Kosovo conflict is complete."

"If we want to contrast what we have done in the past few years on delivery with what the right hon. and learned Gentleman delivered, let us remember the interest rates at 10 per cent. to 15 per cent., the 1.5 million fewer people in work, the boom and the bust and the borrowing at 8 per cent."

"If you don't see the Internet as an opportunity, it will become a threat. In two or three year's time, the Internet will become as commonplace in the office as the telephone."

"If you are trying to take a difficult decision and you're weighing up the pros and cons, you have frank conversations. Everybody knows this in their walk of life."

"I'm the f***ing Prime Minister!"

"I'm the prime minister that's supposed to be the great reader of public opinion. After the events of two weeks ago, it's no wonder the Government has taken a knock. It happened on my watch and I take responsibility."

"If what the science tells us about climate change is correct, then unabated it will result in catastrophic consequences for our world"

"If you've got communities that feel they've been left behind, if you've got - as you do in Britain at the moment, you have communities that believe they're being changed by immigration, that they don't have job opportunities, and that they're disregarded and that they don't - they've got no stake in a future which embraces globalization, you've got to address that issue."

"I'm afraid I stopped taking his calls. Poor Jon [an adviser] would come in and say: "The chancellor really wants to speak to you." I would say: "I am really busy, Jon." And he would say: "He is really demanding it." Then I would say: 'I'll call him soon." And Jon would say: "Do you really mean that, prime minister?" And I would say: "No, Jon.""

"I'm not going to beg for my character."

"I'm an avowed centrist, and I believe that - centrism is often - it's almost the wrong word to use, because it's often seen as sort of splitting the difference between right and left."

"If you're interested in politics and you're not following it, then it's a little bizarre."

"I'm a Labour politician, but, you know, I can see decent Tories with good ideas."

"I'm not prepared to have someone tell me there is only one view of what Europe is. Europe isn't owned by any of them, Europe is owned by all of us."

"Immigration is good for a country. It brings fresh energy."

"Immigration was probably the driving thing behind Brexit."

"In Downing Street they called me 'Boss'. Civil servants would always call me 'Prime Minister'."

"In retrospect, the Millennium marked only a moment in time. It was the events of September 11 that marked a turning point in history, where we confront the dangers of the future and assess the choices facing humankind."

"In April 1991, after the Gulf war, Iraq was given 15 days to provide a full and final declaration of all its WMD."

"In government you carry each hope; each disillusion. And in politics it's always about the next challenge."

"In this day and age if you've got the technology then it's vital to use that technology to track people down. The number on the database should be the maximum number you can get."

"In 1997, we faced daunting challenges. Boom and bust economics... Now, for all that remains to be done, dwell for a moment on what has been achieved."

"In no relationship at the top of any walk of life is it always easy, least of all in politics, which matters so much and which is conducted in such a piercing spotlight. But I know New Labour would never have happened, and three election victories would never have been secured, without Gordon Brown. He is a remarkable man. A remarkable servant to this country. And that is the truth."

"Isn't it extraordinary that the Prime Minister of our country can't even urge his Party to back his own position. Weak! Weak! Weak!"

"It does not mean forgetting the pain of the past but it does mean recognising it's time to move on."

"It [the intelligence service] concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population; and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability."

"It has been an unrelenting, but, I have to accept, at least partly successful campaign to persuade Britain that Europe is a conspiracy aimed at us, rather than a partnership designed for us and others to pursue our national interest properly in a modern, interdependent world. It is right to confront this campaign head on. Provided that the treaty embodies the essential British positions, we shall agree to it as a Government. Once agreed ? either at the June Council, which is our preference, or subsequently ? Parliament should debate it in detail and decide upon it. Then, let the people have the final say."

"It has been a remarkable and historic victory for my party but I am in no doubt at all as to what it means. It is a mandate for reform and for investment in the future and it is also very clearly an instruction to deliver."