people-from-west-lothian

"War is an evil thing."

"The removal from among us of a public man of exceptional capacity and marked personality still in the prime of life, is at any time a tragedy. The sense of loss on personal and public grounds, and the inevitable diminution of the effective influence which at all times so essentially depends on the winning personality of the individual, are keen and real."

"We are living in troubled times. None can see far into the future, or can pretend to guess what new order, social, political or economic, may emerge for the world in the next few years. At such a time individuals, communities, nations, and all mankind are in desperate need of the virtues of courage, self-confidence, mutual trust and understanding, which alone can lead the peoples of the world to build again what has been shattered, and bind themselves together more strongly in a spirit of unity, brotherhood and goodwill."

"We have, I suspect, a long way to go yet. We may have to face many very difficult and awkward situations. It may well be that the real test still lies ahead of us."

"I well know that there are many people who press for swifter and more radical solutions of the problems before us."

"I do not question the sincerity or the good intentions of those who feel that way."

"Art never thrives, though its seeds may continue to live, during a period of intellectual complacency or of political chaos, such as, those which followed the disintegration of the Roman Empire and the end of the Mughal Period. Greek Art of the Periclean Age and the Art of the Italian Renaissance rose out of a trough of conventionalism on the uprising of a great wave of fresh ideas and new values, of bold and courageous experiment."

"I am optimistic enough to believe that out of the struggle in which we are engaged today a new world will be born; a world of security, confidence, prosperity and co-operation; a world in which the arts of peace can flourish. Let us hope so, at any rate for, paradox though it may seem, that is what we are fighting for."

"Advice can never take the place of experience. That which advice can sometimes do is to make experience more fruitful of good; to help us the better to understand the lessons of life; and when those lessons are sharp and unwelcome, to bear them with an even and unruffled mind."

"Truth is the only foundation of honour, and the surest source of a man's influence with his fellow-men. When you come across someone of whom those who know him say "so-and-so told me such and such a thing, so it must be true"– you are dealing, believe me, with a man to be reckoned with. But there are other aspects of Truth not quite so obvious as those with which I have been dealing. We have been thinking about Truth as between ourselves and others. There is also, and just as important, the matter of Truth within ourselves."

"No one can possess what we call good judgement, which is about the same thing as an instinct for recognizing Reasonable Probabilities, whose mind is not trained to follow truth. And in many of the most important things of life. Reasonable Probabilities are our only guides."

"This is garbage from right-wing think-tanks stuffed with chicken-hawks -- men who have never seen the horror of war but are in love with the idea of war. Men like Cheney, who were draft-dodgers in the Vietnam war. This is a blueprint for US world domination -- a New World Order of their making. These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world. I am appalled that a British Labour Prime Minister should have got into bed with a crew which has this moral standing."

"[Tony Blair is] being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers. [...] I am fully aware that one is treading on cut glass on this issue and no one wants to be accused of anti-Semitism but, if it is a question of launching an assault on Syria or Iran... then one has to be candid."

"I am not going to be labelled anti-Semitic. My children worked on a kibbutz. But the time has come for candour."

"They very much have captured the ear of the President of the United States. I said [to Vanity Fair] I thought that Blair was very sympathetic to them. I cannot understand why."

"An actor who has never had a proper job."

"This is how Tam Dalyell is feeling — about the Belgrano, about Westland, the miners' strike, Libya, GCHQ, Zircon, the Peter Wright affair... this book is really just a cry of rage: "I was right — surely you can see — look, here is the evidence — let's go through it all carefully again — how can anyone disagree..?" But the thrust of the book, and the detailed evidence assembled, are for the most part familiar. Writing it all up, again, and publishing it in this way, is just one more try at persuading somebody (I don't think Mr Dalyell is quite sure whom) to say: "Yes, Tam, you were right. Off with Maggie's head!" How he loathes Mrs Thatcher. She is variously called pig-headed, a fishwife, and a mass murderess as the story proceeds. This element of personal vendetta seriously weakens his case because — for all that he rests it upon alleged facts — his gravest charges rely upon his imputing to her the worst imaginable motives consistent with those facts. One has to say — without denying that his allegations of facts need answering — that there is a certain sleight-of-hand here."

"Under the new Bill, shall I be able to vote on many matters in relation to West Bromwich but not West Lothian?"