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

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

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

" The United States being in Asia is unambiguously a good thing for the region. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" I have said before, you don't expect conservative parties to believe in much, but you do expect them to believe in thrift. "

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

" You know, in the WikiLeaks cables, the Chinese discovered that Kevin Rudd was urging the Americans to keep the military option open against them. This is hardly a friendly gesture. "

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

" I have long believed, especially after the unprovoked Western attack on Iraq and the ransacking of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, that North Korea would not desist from the full development of its nuclear weapons program, despite threats and sanctions from the West and even from China. "

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

" 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. "

" 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 essence of leadership is essentially taking the responsibility of trying to interpret the future to the present. "

" 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. "

" At its best, Aboriginal art has been effective in translating an entire culture and the understanding of an entire continent. Indeed, the more we interpret Australia through Aboriginal eyes, through the experience of their long and epic story, the more we allow ourselves to understand the land we share. "

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

" 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. "

" What we have to do is make our way in Asia ourselves with an independent foreign policy. Our future is basically in the region around us in South East Asia. "

" Countries get one chance in history of putting into place a savings retirement scheme on the scale of the Australian superannuation system. "

" I think the rise of China is one of the great events of all economic and human history, and I think this will be overwhelmingly a positive thing for the region and the world. "

" Politicians never fade away; they just keep carrying on, you know, their class. "

" 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. "

" A more worldly and competent foreign and defence policy is by far the preferred first line of defence - rather than the default position of relying on expensive but problematic hardware. "