Whether at home or abroad, the task of statesman is to work with human nature warts and all, and to draw on instincts and even prejudices that can be turned to good purpose. It is never to try to recreate Mankind in a new image.

Naturally, it is with some temerity that the pupil speaks before the master, because you know more about the Common Market than anybody.

I went to Oxford University - but I've never let that hold me back.

There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors... I mean it.

The truths of the Judaic-Christian tradition, are infinitely precious, not only, as I believe, because they are true, but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone can lead to that peace, in the true meaning of the word, for which we all long. . . . There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves.

Personal virtue is no substitute for political hard-headedness.

I came to office with one deliberate intent: to change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society - from a give-it-to-me, to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain.