Aviators

"Such is the end of Empire."

"After my speech, the President detached himself from the group of appalling old waxworks who accompanied him and took his place at the lectern. He then gave a kind of "propaganda" speech which was loudly cheered by the bussed-in party faithful at the suitable moment in the text."

"These bloody people. I can't bear that man. I mean, he's so awful, he really is."

"Islamic culture in its traditional form has striven to preserve this integrated spiritual view of the world in a way we have not seen fit to do in recent generations in the West.[...] There is the potential for establishing new and valuable links between Islamic civilisation and the West. Perhaps, for instance, we could begin by having more Muslim teachers in British schools, or by encouraging exchanges of teachers. Everywhere in the world people are seemingly wanting to learn English. But in the West, in turn, we need to be taught by Islamic teachers how to learn once again with our hearts, as well as our heads."

"Jonathan Dimbleby: Understandably, when your marriage collapsed, you form close friendships, you re-establish close friendships, of whatever character that friendship is. Were you, did you try to be, faithful and honourable to your wife when you took on the vow of marriage? Charles, Prince of Wales: Yes, absolutely. Dimbleby: And you were? Charles: Yes, until it became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried."

"Mrs. Parker Bowles is a great friend of mine...a friend for a very long time. She will continue to be a friend for a long time."

"There is a persistent current that flows along undermining the integrity and motives of individuals, organisations and institutions. An insidious impression is thereby created that, for instance, the police are corrupt, British justice is flawed, the BBC is moribund and public servants are time-serving wasters of taxpayers' money. Can we really believe the fashionable theorists in the English faculties of our universities who have tried to tear apart many of our wonderful novelists, poets and playwrights because they do not fit their abstruse theories of the day?"

"There is perhaps an inherent danger from those who love to parade a kind of dogmatic arrogance without listening to the views of ordinary people. All around us we see the evidence, day after day, of the short-lived theories and fashions which can undermine our individuality, undermine our confidence and take too mechanical or untrusting a view of human nature. The result can be damaging—sometimes devastatingly so—to our confidence and the way we behave... The misnamed fashion for what people call "political correctness" amounts to testing everything, every aspect of life, every aspect of society, against a predetermined, preordained view... The intimidation is palpable. Any questioning, in a perfectly polite way, of the current fashions, usually elicits a vitriolic response—whether it is a wish to teach people the basic principles of English grammar and to rescue the idea that there is a vast difference between good and bad English, or suggesting that in certain circumstances it may be necessary and sensible to administer a smack to your child."

"Medieval Islam was a religion of remarkable tolerance for its time, allowing Jews and Christians the right to practise their inherited beliefs, and setting an example which was not, unfortunately, copied for many centuries in the West. The surprise, ladies and gentlemen, is the extent to which Islam has been a part of Europe for so long, first in Spain, then in the Balkans, and the extent to which it has contributed so much towards the civilisation which we all too often think of, wrongly, as entirely Western. Islam is part of our past and our present, in all fields of human endeavour. It has helped to create modern Europe. It is part of our own inheritance, not a thing apart."

"I now appreciate that Arabs and Jews were all a Semitic people originally + it is the influx of foreign, European Jews (especially from Poland, they say) which has helped to cause great problems. I know there are so many complex issues, but how can there ever be an end to terrorism unless the causes are eliminated? Surely some US president has to have the courage to stand up and take on the Jewish lobby in US? I must be naive, I suppose!"

"Instead of designing an extension to the elegant facade of the National Gallery which complements it and continues the concept of columns and domes, it looks as if we may be presented with a kind of municipal fire station, complete with the sort of tower that contains the siren. I would understand better this type of high-tech approach if you demolished the whole of Trafalgar Square and started again with a single architect responsible for the entire layout, but what is proposed is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend."

"A large number of us have developed a feeling that architects tend to design houses for the approval of fellow architects and critics, not for the tenants."

"I would suggest that the whole imposing edifice of modern medicine, for all its breathtaking successes is, like the celebrated Tower of Pisa, slightly off balance."

"Perhaps we just have to accept it is God's will that the unorthodox individual is doomed to years of frustration, ridicule and failure in order to act out his role in the scheme of things, until his day arrives and mankind is ready to receive his message: a message which he probably finds hard to explain, but which he knows comes from a far deeper source than conscious thought."

"I have often thought that one of the less attractive traits of various professional bodies and institutions is the deeply ingrained suspicion and outright hostility which can exist towards anything unorthodox or unconventional."

"Anthony Carthew (ITN): And, I suppose, in love? Lady Diana Spencer: Of course! Charles, Prince of Wales: Whatever 'in love' means."

"When people are uncertain about what is right and what is wrong, and anxious about being considered old-fashioned, it seems to be worse than folly that Christians are still arguing about doctrinal matters which can only bring needless distress to a number of people."

"I, Charles, Prince of Wales, do become your liege man of life and limb and of earthly worship and faith and truth I will bear unto you to live and die against all manner of folks."

"You have got to choose somebody very carefully who could fulfill this particular role, because people like you, perhaps, would expect quite a lot from somebody like that and it has got to be somebody pretty special."

"I think it's something that dawns on you with the most ghastly, inexorable sense. I didn't suddenly wake up in my pram one day and say 'Yippee, I —', you know. But I think it just dawns on you, you know, slowly, that people are interested in one, and slowly you get the idea that you have a certain duty and responsibility."

"For remember that until one has given all, one has given nothing."

"I've got to continue the process with some candidates, some very strong candidates that are left. Let's get rid of the no-hopers. No chance. Don't waste my time. (to Ella Jade Bitton after firing Sarah Dales before the first ever triple firing in the series)."

"Robert, I don't like people who bottle out. So Robert - You're fired. (to Robert Goodwin when he was fired before the final boardroom in the second task)"

"My disposals get taken away in the back of a taxi! (referring to the task in week 6, which centred around waste disposal and where Edna eventually fired)."

"A message needs to go back. Vincent - you're also fired!"

"All I've heard from you so far is a lot of hot air, so in the interests of climate change you're fired... (to Stuart Baggs in the boardroom)."

"We've got two very despondent gentlemen, we've got Claire, she will get her 500 rounds of bullshit out and stick it in her AK47 and deafen us all in here. (Episode 9)."

"Sian Lloyd – what was she doing there? Why did you cast and pay for a kind of celebrity for your advert? You know, I could understand if your advert was based on weather, I could understand if your advert was based on her being upset because her boyfriend blew her out for a cheeky girl, right and she's crying, but I can't understand this. She's not even a mother, what's the point? (Episode 9)."

"OK, because if you're unsure, you can always pull your trousers down and we can check. (On whether or not Michael Sophacles is Jewish)."

"You were devastated when you got a B in your GCSE French. You're gonna be even more devastated now, because you've got the big F – you're fired! (firing Nicholas de Lacy-Brown in episode 1)."

"Your back's against the wall and you're almost done for – it's Dunkirk all over again! (The Apprentice (To Paul, the ex-army Lieutenant before he is fired.))."

"I tell you what, if any of you survive here, I promise you this: As sure as I have a hole in my bloody arse, when it gets down to the two of you, all these people who are saying nice things about you at the moment, will not! So start thinking about yourself!"

"But you were in the restaurant business before?? Marco-Pierre White or something....The Titanic – well here's another bloody disaster you're in now! (To Syed before Alexa is fired after the infamous catering task when the Invicta team lose because they bought an excessive number of chickens to make pizzas)."

"Syed, SHUT UP! (Lord Sugar speaking to Syed Ahmed)."

"But I've sat here four times, and there is a message coming from above....not that I am a believer in the Lord or anything.... (Immediately before Jo Cameron's firing)."

"Most of the people I do business with are mature businessmen like me, and they are not going to take kindly to being spoken to like a wash woman in the street!! (to Saira Khan during a boardroom showdown)."

"When it comes to bullshit, they [advertising agencies] have forgotten what you haven't already learnt about all this crap! (To Rachel - shortly before her firing, when her supposed expertise in advertising results in the failure of the advertising task)."

"Now Matthew, you are an awkward character - I'm sorry to say that to you but you are an awkward character. It seems you can't help yourself...you need confrontation! That worries me, that worries me a lot! (To Matthew Palmer, shortly before his firing)."

"If you take care of your character, your reputation will take care of itself."

"I came from an environment where I needed to succeed. There was no wealth or anything like that in the family. Not that we were paupers, but we had to fend for ourselves. Kids today are not as hungry as I was. They don’t understand how tough my generation was."

"I don’t believe in God and all that. But I am Jewish, and very proud to be so, very proud of the culture."

"My history of lending money from banks is that they want to know the ins and outs of the backside of a duck."

"Pan Am takes good care of you. Marks & Spencer loves you. Securicor cares. I.B.M. says the customer is king. At Amstrad, we want your money!"

"If there was a market in mass-produced portable nuclear weapons, we'd market them, too."

"If you want excellence, you must aim at perfection. It has its drawbacks but being finicky is essential."

"Road to Social Justice. The first and perhaps the most important of the factors which have contributed to our failure to make real impact on poverty expressed in terms of total number who live below the poverty line has clearly been the uncontrolled growth of our population...First, we must, at all costs, make a much more earnest effort at controlling the growth of our population. As it is, we are running out of time and there is no longer any possibility of preventing it from exceeding 1,000 million souls by the end of the century."

"At the Crossroads.The effective execution of a Plan is what counts and not mere planning on paper; it is not what we put on our plate or even what we eat that provides nourishment and growth, but what we digest."

"The Psychology of Delay. Some of the causes of delay in coming to economic decisions in our country seem to lie in the psychological realm. There is such a thing as the psychology of power which motivates people: power of control and patronage, power to delay an application, power to hold up a file, power to keep people waiting in an ante-room, all of which are consciously or subconsciously treated as symbols of prestige and hallmarks of importance."

"There is today hardly any country in the world outside the communist bloc which does not have a mixed economy. In fact, even countries which call themselves socialist would object to theirs not being described as a mixed economy, for it would imply that it was a totalitarian one, while countries like Germany or Japan, usually thought of as having typically free enterprise economies, would do the same; for, otherwise, it would imply that theirs was a nineteenth century laissez-faire economy."

"The essence of air transport is speed, and speed is unfortunately one of the most expensive commodities in the world, principally because of the disproportionate amount of the power required to achieve high speed and to lift loads thousands of feet into the air. This is strikingly illustrated by the fact that while an average cargo ship, freight train and transport aeroplane are each equipped with engines totalling about 2,500 H.P., the ship can carry a load of about 7,000 tons, the train 800 tons and the plane only two and a half tons."