Encouragement is the most important thing in the world for young people, rather than league tables, which demoralise everyone.

Making mistakes is how you learn.

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.

Cabinet members are soon overwhelmed by the insistent demands of running their departments. On the whole, a period in high office consumers intellectual capital; it does not create it....The less ministers know at the outset, the more dependent they are on the only sources of available knowledge; the permanent officials.

It is obvious I shall have to abandon my hopes of getting the Queen's head off the stamps.

I think there are two ways in which people are controlled - first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them.

People in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don't vote. They always say that that everyone should vote but I think that if the poor in Britain or the United States turned out and voted for people that represented their interests there would be a real democratic revolution.