Pierre Trudeau quotes:

I bear solemn witness to the fact that NATO heads of state and of government meet only to go through the tedious motions of reading speeches, drafted by others, with the principal objective of not rocking the boat.

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.

Luck, that's when preparation and opportunity meet.

Canada is a country whose main exports are hockey players and cold fronts. Our main imports are baseball players and acid rain.

As against the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith, there has to be a visible hand of politicians whose objective is to have the kind of society that is caring and humane.

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

Canada will be a strong country when Canadians of all provinces feel at home in all parts of the country, and when they feel that all Canada belongs to them.

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

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

A country, after all, is not something you build as the pharaohs built the pyramids, and then leave standing there to defy eternity. A country is something that is built every day out of certain basic shared values.

Canada regards herself as responsible to all mankind for the peculiar ecological balance that now exists so precariously in the water, ice and land areas of the Arctic archipelago. We do not doubt for a moment that the rest of the world would find us at fault, and hold us liable, should we fail to ensure adequate protection of that environment from pollution or artificial deterioration.

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

We wish nothing more, but we will accept nothing less. Masters in our own house we must be, but our house is the whole of Canada.

The essential ingredient of politics is timing.

There are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just dont like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is go and bleed It is more important to keep law and order in society than to be worried about weak-kneed people Society must take every means at its disposal to defend itself against the emergence of a parallel power which defies the elected power.

Bilingualism is not an imposition on the citizens. The citizens can go on speaking one language or six languages, or no languages if they so choose. Bilingualism is an imposition on the state and not the citizens.

The Canadian community must invest, for the defence and better appreciation of the French language, as much time, energy, and money as are required to prevent the country from breaking up

Vive la France libre.

Canadians should realise when they are well off under the Monarchy. For the vast majority of Canadians, being a Monarchy is probably the only form of government acceptable to them. I have always been for parliamentary democracy and I think the institution of Monarchy with the Queen heading it all has served Canada well.

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

The past is to be respected and acknowledged, but not worshipped; it is our future in which we will find our greatness.

Let us overthrow the totems, break the taboos. Or better, let us consider them cancelled. Coldly, let us be intelligent.

I remember thinking that walking on the beach as a free man is pretty desirable.

I would have to point out in the strongest terms the autocracy of the Liberal structure and the cowardice of its members. I have never seen in all my examination of politics so degrading a spectacle as that of all these Liberals turning their coats in unison with their Chief, when they saw the chance to take power.

What is considered sinful in one of the great religions to which citizens belong isn't necessarily sinful in the others. Criminal law therefore cannot be based on the notion of sin; it is crimes that it must define.

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.

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.

Perhaps the rediscovery of our humanity, and the potential of the human spirit which we have read about in legends of older civilizations, or in accounts of solitary mystics, or in tales of science fiction writers - perhaps this will constitute the true revolution of the future. The new frontier lies not beyond the planets but within each one of us.

Americans should never underestimate the constant pressure on Canada which the mere presence of the United States has produced. We're different people from you and we're different people because of you. 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 effected by every twitch and grunt. It should not therefore be expected that this kind of nation, this Canada, should project itself as a mirror image of the United States.

As does every young man studying philosophy, I naturally asked myself questions about the truth of all this, and about the meaning of freedom, predestination, and liberty of choice and so on. But to have asked questions of yourself about it, I think is not too important. Let's say - I remain - I remained a believer.

Because I am a deep believer in the civil society, I think we should be prepared to pay the consequences of breaking the law and that is either paying the penalty for it, or leaving the country.

Canada is not a country for the cold of heart or the cold of feet.

Canada is seen to some as a confederation of shopping centres.

Democracy demands that elected members be able to realize fully the role for which they have been chosen.

Every time I have a political rally I meet some people who say, "I need a job."

For my part...I am a realist but, somehow, optimism always keeps breaking out.

Freedom can flow from order. That is not to say that freedom always flows from order because you can have a totalitarian order and you can have an undemocratic order from which freedom will not flow, but that surest way to destroy freedom is to have chaos.

Harvard was an extraordinary window on the world.

I am peaceful but I am not a pacifist in the philosophical sense.

I believe a constitution can permit the co-existence of several cultures and ethnic groups with a single state.

I believe in God, and I'm a Christian.

I believe military force can be used to redress or change the balance of power in the world, but I think that that's always a losing operation if you're not trying to do it in a way which corresponds to the basic desires of the people on whom you are acting.

I believe that Canada cannot, indeed, that Canada must not survive by force. The country will only remain united - it should only remain united - if its citizens want to live together in one civil society.

I can see that in certain political situations you have to use force to overthrow police states.

I do object to the sensationalism or even the voyeurism of doing things in church or out of church.

I don't believe you can contain ideas by military force.

I don't see any easy way of disqualifying people on the basis that they decide not to work.

I feel perhaps I didn't deal with the question of violence in depth.

I feel religion is basically and essentially a communication between a man and his God and I think it is the most personal thing of all and I don't think it concerns too many people.

I feel very deeply for Canada, and l believe most Canadians do.

I honestly don't know what they mean by a devout Catholic.

I just think you Westerners should take over this country if you are so smart.

I know the usual answer of Christ using violence to get the sellers out of the temple, but to me this was impatience rather than violence.

I must say that "Give Peace a Chance" has always seemed to me to be sensible advice.

I never actually got around to taping conversations with my guests, but there are a lot of things you can learn from a man like Nixon.

I recognize that in some cases it's more important to have freedom and justice than to have peace.

I saw the charter as an expression of my long-held view that the subject of law must be the individual human being; the law must permit the individual to fulfil himself or herself to the utmost.

I think it's good that you test the reality that surrounds you in your neighbourhood with the reality as it is in other parts of the world; you come up with a better judgment. I'm not meaning that literally you can only do that and not go to school at all but in terms of enrichment of a personality I think it's a fabulous thing.

I think that as the guardian of justice elected by the people it's our duty to use whatever forms of force, police, army, to make sure that at least the freedom of choice is preserved.

I think that more and more young people are discovering that gainful employment isn't the only thing in life. That they can perhaps be just as useful to society and themselves by travelling across the land or around the world, learning more about humanity and going through the various experiences which will make their adulthood more productive.

I think that religions must seek peace and love and therefore be pacifist.

I think that the history of the past hundred years has shown us that, by and large, the one linguistic group to whom separatism is being preached is not moved by the arguments which are used.

I think that the only ultimate guide we have is our conscience, and if the law of the land goes against our conscience I think we should disobey the law.

I think the sense of exclusivity that tended to be associated with religions in past times has now disappeared. At least it has disappeared in its political and social manifestations as far as I can see.

I think theoretically if a man is young and healthy society should not give him a basic income. He should not be given dole. He should not be eligible for welfare. If he can work and if there is work available, he should take his choice. If he wants to be a hermit or beggar, that's fine. If he wants to move with the sun and live off the land, that's fine. If he is in a society which has work for him I don't think he should theoretically be eligible for welfare.

I think violence is counter-productive and it is bad in democratic societies.

I think we have to realize that Canada is not immortal. But if it is going to go, let it go with a bang rather than a whimper.

I want to separate sin from crime. You may have to ask forgiveness for your sins from God, but not from the Minister of Justice. There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.

I was inclined to judge the validity of a man's faith more by the depth of his roots in reality and brotherhood and love. So I felt more at home, shall we say with some Zoroastrians in the Far East, than I did with some Catholic missionaries.

I was shaken to the extent that people who criticized me used to say that I was Protestant more than a Catholic because I like to impose constraints on myself, but I don't like them to be imposed from the outside.

I was too busy doing my job and living my life to spend time keeping notes for some future volume of memoirs.

I will use all my strength to bring about a just society to a nation living in a tough world.

I, for one, will be convinced that the Canada we know and love will be gone forever. But, then, Thucydides wrote that Themistocles' greatness lay in the fact that he realized Athens was not immortal. I think we have to realize that Canada is not immortal; but, if it is going to go, let it go with a bang rather than a whimper.

If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

If I found in my own ranks that a certain number of guys wanted to cut my throat, I'd make sure that I cut their throats first.

If there is anything that puzzles me in this game, it is that the longer that you are in the job of prime minister, the harder you have to work to do your job. With anything else ....you get to know the ropes pretty well and it becomes easy. I feel the more you know, the more you have to know and the more problems come at you. It is certainly not because I do not delegate.

If you live in a society where those who govern society and determine its path do not respect freedom of speech and freedom of religion, freedom of choice, freedom of assembly, and if there is no democratic process and no way to change the order of things by reason and peace and love and so on, and if, as a result of that, certain ideas in which you believe are being crushed, then I think the only way you can defend yourself against this violence is in using violence of your own.

I'm far from believing that we've solved the problem of violence in the 20th century and that's why I'm not discouraged that we still have the Biafras and the Northern Irelands and the East Pakistans and, for that matter, violence in American or Canadian cities.

I'm impatient not with the House of Commons as an institution, but with the way in which it is operated. This doesn't prove I don't believe in participatory democracy.

I'm sometimes impatient with young people who demonstrate at my meetings and who don't want an argument, but who just want to go on television as having been there and made a fuss. This doesn't mean I don't believe in participatory democracy.

I'm sure in a few years it will be unthinkable to say there were 20 years when we didn't recognize the People's Republic of China. And then we'll have to explain what the political constraints were and why it didn't happen earlier.

In academic life you seek to state absolute truths; in politics you seek to accommodate truth to the facts around you.

In my formative years the people who influenced me most were the Christian existentialists, I mean men like Munier and Kierkegaard and perhaps most of all Nicholas Berdyaev and in my travels I looked for one thing more than anything. I rarely discussed, probably mainly because of language difficulties, metaphysics with the various religious people of other groups I'd meet with. But I'd very much try to see how they were incarnated, how their particular soul was incarnated or took roots into reality.

In my political philosophy I think that there sometimes is room for violence.

In my religion I really cannot think of cases where violence is justified.

In specific terms I don't think I could make any suggestions, but in general terms I believe that it is because Canadians have been under the good influences of their churches that they are a tolerant people, an understanding and patient people, so that there has been little backlash against the excesses which have happened over the decades in French and in English Canada which might turn either group off.

It is wonderful to be despised, if, deep down, we know we are right.

It seems to me it would be pretty awful if Canadians came to choose political leaders not for their political ideas and actions, but because of their adherence or their devotedness to one faith or another.

I've always lived in a democratic society.

I've been called worse things by better people.

Le raison avant la passion - Reason over passion.

Liberalism is the philosophy for our time, because it does not try to conserve every tradition of the past, because it does not apply to new problems the old doctrinaire solutions, because it is prepared to experiment and innovate and because it knows that the past is less important than the future.

Obviously I prefer freedom, but I know, and I think all history has told us, that freedom cannot flow from anarchy and disorder.

Obviously, the state's responsibility should be to legislate rules for a well-ordered society. It has no right or duty to creep into the bedrooms of the nation.

Our hopes are high. Our faith in the people is great. Our courage is strong. And our dreams for this beautiful country will never die.

People are more interested in ideas than dress.

Society is responsible for its social organization, and if it can't provide the wherewithal for men to be gainfully employed then it should pay the penalty and give them welfare.

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.

Sometimes you must live in a violent world in order to get greater justice.

The attainment of of a just society is the cherished hope of civilized men.

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

The churches must realize that when they take a position on a political event that they must accept the rules of the game.

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

The die is cast in Canada: there are two ethnic and linguistic groups; each is too strong and too deeply rooted in the past, too firmly bound to a mother culture, to be able to swamp the other. But if the two will collaborate inside of a truly pluralist state, Canada could become a privileged place where the federalist form of government, which is the government of tomorrow's world, will be perfected.

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

The most beautiful missionaries I saw were those who talked less about religion but who were very generous in their approach.

The new frontier lies not beyond the planets but within each one of us.

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

The politicians, who once stated that war was too complex to be left to the generals, now act as though peace were too complex to be left to themselves.

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 state has no place in the nation's bedrooms.

There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation. What's done in private between adults doesn't concern the Criminal Code.

This is the beauty of the democratic process: it permits that subjective view of justice - which everyone holds - permits that subjective way to express itself peacefully through discussion, through reason and through the voting process.

We are in the extreme centre, the radical middle. That is our position.

We don't think every man should be free to pass on everything to his descendants.

We must now establish the basic principles, the basic values and beliefs which hold us together as Canadians so that beyond our regional loyalties there is a way of life and a system of values which make us proud of the country that has given us such freedom and such immeasurable joy.

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.

What shall we do about the Abortion Bill?" A: "Pay it!