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" As prime minister, the pastoral lease question was a very vexing and torrid one for me. "

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" The great changes in civilisation and society have been wrought by deeply held beliefs and passion rather than by a process of rational deduction. "

" The more we view the country through the prism of Aboriginality, the more likely we are to get the angle right. "

" Geoffrey Tozer's death is a national tragedy. For the Australian arts and Australian music, losing Tozer is like Canada having lost Glenn Gould, or France, Ginette Neveu. It is a massive cultural loss. The kind of loss people felt when Germany lost Dresden. "

" Politicians come in three varieties: straight men, fixers, and maddies. "

" Nobody wants to have in their CV in the upper echelons of the American economic family that they nationalised major banks. "

" Russia alone has the capacity to obliterate the United States. "

" You see, before I became prime minister, the Australian prime minister only attended ever two meetings in the world: the British Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and the South Pacific Forum. "

" I try to use the Australian idiom to its maximum advantage. "

" You see, psychologically, Australia must understand it has to live in the region around it. Australia must find its security in Asia; it cannot find its security from Asia. "

" I used to say in the cabinet room, 'confidence is not like a can of Popeye spinach - you can't take the top off and swallow it down.' You know, confidence has to be earned. "

" When the Berlin Wall came down the Americans cried, 'Victory,' and walked off the field. "

" I think the Australian people are very conscientious. During the 1980s and 1990s we proved they will respond conscientiously to necessary reforms. They mightn't like them but they'll accept them. But reforms have to be presented in a digestible format. "

" I always believed in burning up the government's political capital, not being Mr Safe Guy, you know? "

" I've always held the view that great states need strategic space. I mean, George Washington took his space from George III. Britain took it from just about everybody. Russia took all of Eastern Europe. Germany's taken it from everywhere they can, and China will want its space too. "

" If one takes pride in one's craft, you won't let a good thing die. Risking it through not pushing hard enough is not a humility. "

" What distinguished the First World War from all wars before it was the massive power of the antagonists. "

" One of the inevitable aspects of debates about euthanasia is the reluctance on the part of advocates to confront the essence of what they propose. "

" The First World War was a war devoid of any virtue. It arose from the quagmire of European tribalism: a complex interplay of nation-state destinies overlaid by notions of cultural superiority peppered with racism. "

" The great curse of modern political life is incrementalism. "

" When we were actually in the Keating reform era, the Business Council was of no help. "

" Well, Australians should speak for the national interests of Australia, and whatever role former Australian prime ministers may have, one of the things you do is speak frankly about the country as you see the country's best interests, you know? "

" What the Anzac legend did do, by the bravery and sacrifice of our troops, was reinforce our own cultural notions of independence, mateship, and ingenuity. Of resilience and courage in adversity. "

" I think Australia has to be a country which has the 'Welcome' sign out. "

" The only reward in a public life is public progress. You stand back and say, 'What did I get out of it?' You look around, and the place is better, and that's it. "

" The First World War not only destroyed European civilisation and the empires at its heart; its aftermath led to a second conflagration, the Second World War, which divided the continent until the end of the century. "

" Well, I think that - I think leadership's always been about two main things: imagination and courage. "

" When one has been touched by the stellar power and ethereal playing of a sublime musician, one is lifted, if only briefly, to a place beyond the realm of the temporal. "

" Truth is, of its essence, liberating, as it is possessed of no contrivance or conceit - that it provides the only genuine basis for progress and that the future can only be found in truth. "

" My claim has always been that defeatism pervaded the conservative parties in the 1930s and that it was the defining characteristic of Menzies and his first period as prime minister. "

" You get one chance to do something about native title. You get perhaps one chance in your life to do something about a republic. You get one chance, your chance, to build a piece of the political architecture in the Pacific. I wasn't going to give those up. "