"I have always thought that one of the signs of natural leaders of men (and women) was their readiness to take the necessary pains to keep their followers with them."

"I took a hasty trip to Germany, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and England to talk to the officials of each Government about their pension provisions, and to talk to the responsible ministers in each country about the political "whys" of their legislation."

"Whenever Canada moves to protect its own industries and people, it is subjected to violent attacks in the U.S. Congress and to threats of economic retaliation."

"We were always expected to see Quebec's side of things, but there was damned little reciprocity."

"We had thought Mike the greatest; now we began to discover he was only human and, worse, we had our first dismaying confrontation with the fact that he would not back up his ministers."

"I had always assumed that if I made it to Parliament I would not remain a back bencher."

"Being a part of a political party is something like being a partner in a marriage - work at it and stay loyal to it, and when you can't stomach it any longer, leave it."

"Pity the Party without enough woman power - there will always be dreamers and leaders, but the dreams won't come true, nor will the leaders reach their goal, without the ready doers."

"Women understand that men must often be kept from soiling themselves with the dirty little details of life in order to accomplish the big shinny jobs unimpeded."

"One of the things that has always been my undoing in politics is my readiness to do whatever job has to be done."

"A government may only govern so long as the people, through their representatives, vote it the money to carry on."

"( I was the first, and to date, the only woman veteran ever elected, and there is a surprisingly low percentage of veterans in Parliament.)"

"I have served the Liberal cause for twenty-two years. That ought to be long enough for anyones lifetime."

"I did not spring, when I first entered Parliament, on November 15, 1960, "fully armed, with a mighty shout" from a breach in Lester B. Pearson's skull. like the Pallas Athena from the head of Zeus."

"The power of a government with so much money would be frightening. By controlling investment capital, it would be in a position to dominate business. We would then risk ending up with a sort of national socialism, as it was practiced in Nazi Germany."

"I'm not in the habit of looking back - I leave that till I get old."

"We need tolerant men. We must all give in a little."

"I did my own thinking … I have never given it out to be done by others as one gives out washing."

"I'm still at work with my hand to the plough and my face to the future. The shadows of evening … lengthen about me but morning is in my heart. … the testimony I bear is this: that the castle of enchantment is not yet behind me, it is before me still and daily I catch glimpses of its battlements and towers. The best of life is always further on. The real lure is hidden from our eyes, somewhere behind the hills of time."

"A man feels impelled to do something to keep awake."

"Watch every tendency towards militarism, for we know that preparation for war leads to war."

"Will probably go down to posterity as 'The man who did.'"

"In any democracy, there is always a tug-of-war between policies to achieve equality and policies to promote excellence. I am certain that Canada can achieve both equality and excellence."

"Democracy does not happen by accident."

"I'm not just in this race so you will remember my name at some future date. I'm not here now for some next time. I am not bidding now for your consideration for some vague convention in 1984- perhaps when I've mellowed a bit. My time is now and now is no time for mellow men!"

"We must never give up on this country! Never, never, never, never!"

"In opposition, there's not much one can do. One doesn't have the carrot and one doesn't have the stick. One can't promote and one can't fire. And persuasion has its limits."

"I think the issues happen to be so important for the future of Canada. (spoken over Brian Mulroney's objections) I happen to believe that you've sold us out...once any country yields its economic levers, once a country yields its investments, once a country yields its energy, once a country yields its agriculture, once a country opens itself to a subsidy war with the United States on terms of definition, then the political ability of this country to sustain the influence of the United States, to remain as an independent nation- that is lost forever!"

"I think the Canadian people have a right to know: Why, when your primary objective was to get unfettered and secure access into the American Market we didn't get it. Why you didn't put clauses in to protect our social programs in this negotiation we'll have on the definition of subsidies where the heavy weight of the American Republic will be put in against us. Why did that not happen? Why also, did we get a situation where we surrendered our Energy policy to the United States, something which they'd been trying to achieve since 1956? Why did we abandon our farmers? Why did we open our Capital Markets so that a Canadian Bank can be bought up and we don't have reciprocal rights into the American Market at all? And why did you remove any ability to control the Canadian ownership of our businesses? These are questions that Canadians deserve to have an answer to, and we have not had an opportunity in six hours to deal with them in a way that would make you come out of your shell!"

"I'm not going to allow Mr. Mulroney to sell out our birthright, I'm not going to let Mr. Mulroney destroy a great 120 year old dream called Canada."

"I've told you and I've told the Canadian people, Mr. Mulroney, that I had no option."

"What the masses want are monuments."

"The Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby."

"Let Toronto become Milan. Montreal will always be Rome."

"This is a grassy ghetto, and no home."

"And my tears, too, have stained this heirloomed ground, When reading in these treatises some weird Miracle, I turned a leaf and found A white hair fallen from my father's beard."

"The animals pale, the shine of the fur is lost, bleached are their living bones. About them watch as through a mist, the pious prosperous ghosts."

"For the tourist's brown pennies scattered at the old church door, the ragged papooses jump, and bite the dust."

"Where are the braves, the faces like autumn fruit, who stared at the child from the coloured frontispiece?"

"The fact that now we know well that there is proliferation of nuclear weapons and that many of the weapons that Saddam Hussein had, for example, we do not know where they are, so that means the terrorists have access to all that."

"Canada's position was Saddam Hussein should be disarmed. Now, to be quite honest, I had a lot of difficulty understanding how he was going to be disarmed without being replaced."

""I don't think there is any doubt, if there ever was . . . that Saddam Hussein does have weapons of mass destruction. Biological weapons that they discovered were very clear evidence of not only the fact that he had them, but that he had lied and that he is continuing to lie.”"

"I mean if there are going to be missiles that are going off and there are going to be going off over Canadian airspace whether we want it or not, no I don't think that is acceptable. I think that we want to be at the table."

"Put simply, we must always remember that separate but equal is not equal."

"I really think Canada should get over to Iraq as quickly as possible. There's a huge need for front-line medical professionals. There's a huge need for policing. And there's a huge need for infrastructure rebuilding."

"Je suis un homme de cause, je ne suis pas un individualiste et je pense en mon âme et conscience que je ne pourrais pas servir la société comme je voudrais le faire avec ce niveau d'appui."

"I want to govern provincially no more. I want national independence. […] I took time for this decision because I know all the perils of this mission. I want to ask you to struggle also in order that our country can be born in a close future."

"Tous les partis devraient être féministes!"

"Je suis un homme de causes, de collectivité, pas un individualiste."