I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

It used to be about trying to do something. Now it's about trying to be someone.

When you've spent half your political life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment, it's exciting to have a real crisis on your hands.

It is always important in matters of high politics to know what you do not know. Those who think they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge.

Communist regimes were not some unfortunate aberration, some historical deviation from a socialist ideal. They were the ultimate expression, unconstrained by democratic and electoral pressures, of what socialism is all about. ... In short, the state [is] everything and the individual nothing.

Economics are the method; the object is to change the soul.

I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.