"We must now establish the basic principles, the basic values and beliefs which hold us together as Canadians so that beyond our regional loyalties there is a way of life and a system of values which make us proud of the country that has given us such freedom and such immeasurable joy.""

"I walked until midnight in the storm, then I went home and took a sauna for an hour and a half. It was all clear. I listened to my heart and saw if there were any signs of my destiny in the sky, and there were none — there were just snowflakes."

"Our hopes are high. Our faith in the people is great. Our courage is strong. And our dreams for this beautiful country will never die."

"The essential ingredient of politics is timing."

"I, for one, will be convinced that the Canada we know and love will be gone forever. But, then, Thucydides wrote that Themistocles' greatness lay in the fact that he realized Athens was not immortal. I think we have to realize that Canada is not immortal; but, if it is going to go, let it go with a bang rather than a whimper."

"I was too busy doing my job and living my life to spend time keeping notes for some future volume of memoirs."

"The Jesuits were good educators, exceptional teachers. In an era and in a society where freedom of speech was not held in high regard, of course, that the discourse be focused on what they were teaching, but we were able to go beyond this framework without incurring too great a risk."

"Harvard was an extraordinary window on the world."

"What is wonderful about a university like LSE is that you not only receive teaching of very high quality, you also learn where to find the knowledge you are seeking. And you make unexpected discoveries; it was a Marxist professor who introduced me to the work of Cardinal Newman, a great master of English prose as well as theology."

"What is considered sinful in one of the great religions to which citizens belong isn't necessarily sinful in the others. Criminal law therefore cannot be based on the notion of sin; it is crimes that it must define."

"When I had been appointed to the Cabinet in 1967, I had been struck by the amateurism that reigned in the upper echelons of the federal government."

"Democracy demands that elected members be able to realize fully the role for which they have been chosen."

"I must say that "Give Peace a Chance" has always seemed to me to be sensible advice."

"I am sometimes also asked whether the October Crisis taught me anything about the art of governing, or about the means that were at my disposal for defusing the crisis. First of all, it taught me that you can be the prescient futurologist in the world, you can lay out the best-made plans and define your priorities with the utmost care, but if you show yourself to be incapable of managing a crisis when it arises, you will lose your right to govern and the whole thing will blow up in your face."

"Some things I never learned to like. I didn't like to kiss babies, though I didn't mind kissing their mothers. I didn't like to slap backs or other parts of the anatomy. I liked hecklers, because they brought my speeches alive. I liked supporters, because they looked happy. And I really enjoyed mingling with people, if there wasn't too much of it."

"The state has an active role to play in ensuring that there is equilibrium between the constituent parts of the economy, the consumers and the producers."

"As against the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith, there has to be a visible hand of politicians whose objective is to have the kind of society that is caring and humane. I worked to put this view of social justice into effect throughout my years in office."

"I never actually got around to taping conversations with my guests, but there are a lot of things you can learn from a man like Nixon."

"I believe a constitution can permit the co-existence of several cultures and ethnic groups with a single state."

"The community of man should be treated in the same way you would treat your community of brothers or fellow citizens."

"I remember thinking that walking on the beach as a free man is pretty desirable."