Pierre Trudeau Quotes

The past is to be respected and acknowledged, but not to be worshipped. It is our future in which we will find our greatness.

If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

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 state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.

You just cannot cut a country in two any more than you can cut a human being in two. If you do, you do not have two human beings; you have a corpse.

I've been called worse things by better people.

Let us overthrow the totems, break the taboos. Or better, let us consider them cancelled. Coldly, let us be intelligent.

I will use all my strength to bring about a just society to a nation living in a tough world.

Well, I am trying to put Quebec in its place - and the place of Quebec is in Canada, nowhere else.

Canada is a country whose main exports are hockey players and cold fronts. Our main imports are baseball players and acid rain.

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

Obviously I prefer freedom, but I know, and I think all history has told us, that freedom cannot flow from anarchy and disorder.

Luck, that's when preparation and opportunity meet.

The new frontier lies not beyond the planets but within each one of us.

Canada will be a strong country when Canadians of all provinces feel at home in all parts of the country, and when they feel that all Canada belongs to them.

I recognize that in some cases it's more important to have freedom and justice than to have peace.

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.

When they are 50 yards from Parliament Hill, they are no longer honourable members, they are just nobodies.

My life is one long curve, full of turning points.

I just think you Westerners should take over this country if you are so smart.

Paddling a canoe is a source of enrichment and inner renewal.

I don't see any easy way of disqualifying people on the basis that they decide not to work.

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

I want to separate sin from crime. You may have to ask forgiveness for your sins from God, but not from the Minister of Justice. There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.

We are in the extreme centre, the radical middle. That is our position.

Society is responsible for its social organization, and if it can't provide the wherewithal for men to be gainfully employed then it should pay the penalty and give them welfare.

We don't think every man should be free to pass on everything to his descendants.

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.

If I found in my own ranks that a certain number of guys wanted to cut my throat, I'd make sure that I cut their throats first.

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

I think that the only ultimate guide we have is our conscience, and if the law of the land goes against our conscience I think we should disobey the law.

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

We wish nothing more, but we will accept nothing less. Masters in our own house we must be, but our house is the whole of Canada.

Society must take every means at its disposal to defend itself against the emergence of a parallel power which defies the elected power.

In academic life you seek to state absolute truths; in politics you seek to accommodate truth to the facts around you.

The best thing you can possibly do for a friend is to be his friend.

Some things I never learned to like. I didn't like to kiss babies, though I didn't mind kissing their mothers.

We peer so suspiciously at each other that we cannot see that we Canadians are standing on the mountaintop of human wealth, freedom and privilege.

Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.

It is wonderful to be despised, if, deep down, we know we are right.

I think that as the guardian of justice elected by the people it's our duty to use whatever forms of force, police, army, to make sure that at least the freedom of choice is preserved.

The Canadian community must invest, for the defence and better appreciation of the French language, as much time, energy, and money as are required to prevent the country from breaking up

The next time you see Jesus Christ, ask Him what happened to the just society He promised 2,000 years ago.

I know the usual answer of Christ using violence to get the sellers out of the temple, but to me this was impatience rather than violence.

You know you have a lot of impatience with reality as you see it when you're a young man and full of dynamism and strength and ideals and so on.

I do object to the sensationalism or even the voyeurism of doing things in church or out of church.

People are more interested in ideas than dress.

I believe in God, and I'm a Christian.

I honestly don't know what they mean by a devout Catholic.

Harvard was an extraordinary window on the world.