27 quotes
He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.
Prime Minister (1964)
This party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.
I've been wading in shit for three months to allow others to indulge their conscience [on the EEC].
Leader of the Opposition (1970)
I have always said about Tony [Benn] that he immatures with age.
Overseas anti-democratic forces have conspired for years to undermine the political position of individuals and parties who have opposed apartheid.
We cannot accept that this is a little local matter within the control of South Africa's internal affairs. Oppression, apartheid, and racialism—those are crimes against humanity as a whole.
I know I speak for everyone in these islands, all parties, all our people, when I say to Mr. Smith tonight: "Prime Minister, think again".
Prime Minister (1964)
Hughie, get your tanks off my lawn.
Prime Minister (1964)
I'm like Baldwin. I'm here to give people a quiet life.
Leader of the Opposition (1970)
Britain's frontiers are on the Himalayas
Prime Minister (1964)
I get a little nauseated, perhaps, when I hear the phrase "freedom of the Press" used as freely as it is, knowing that a large part of our proprietorial Press is not free at all
Prime Minister (1974)
From now on, the pound abroad is worth 14 per cent or so less in terms of other currencies. That doesn't mean, of course, that the Pound here in Britain, in your pocket or purse or in your bank, has been devalued.
Prime Minister (1964)
There are three groups on the Left. There is what is now called the "soft" Left, to which you and I and Michael always belonged. There is a middle group and then there are the really vicious group.
Prime Minister (1974)
We have not been pushed around either abroad or at home and we are not going to be. This is government of the people; it is government for all the people, and the accent is on government.
Prime Minister (1964)
I have never been emotionally a Europe man. I have been and remain fundamentally a Commonwealth man. I therefore cannot ignore the fact that the vast majority of Commonwealth countries now want Britain to stay in.
Prime Minister (1974)
The lead Britain can give and is already giving rests on the fact that we are a world-minded people. Britain will give a lead in political attitudes and political developments in Europe. We cannot do that by taking our bat home and sinking into an off-shore island mentality.
Prime Minister (1974)
Begin, Shamir and Sharon were the evil three. Sharon is the most evil man I've run across in Israeli politics. [I regarded myself when Prime Minister as] the best friend Israel had in the Western world.
President Reagan is likely to be more successful in dealing with the Soviet Union than any recent American leader. ... he had been impressed with Mr Reagan's instincts and style.
Yet people who benefit from this now viciously defy Westminster, purporting to act as though they were an elected government, spending their lives sponging on Westminster and British democracy and then systematically assault democratic methods. Who do these people think they are?
Prime Minister (1974)
This odious doctrine of apartheid at 11-plus. ... We reject it because as a nation we cannot afford artificially to segregate three-quarters of our children, and virtually cut them off from the normal chance of higher education.
Leader of the Opposition (1963)