I'm direct, I'm unpretentious and I'm pretty dogged, and I hope I've got a capacity to laugh at myself and not take myself too seriously.

It's too much to expect in an academic setting that we should all agree, but it is not too much to expect discipline and unvarying civility.

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, There's no place like home.

The most important civil liberty... is to stay alive and to be free from violence and death.

You are not prime minister of Australia because of some kind of process of divine selection. You are prime minister of Australia through the gift of the Australian people.

I'd like to be seen as an average Australian bloke. I can't think of... I can't think of a nobler description of anybody than to be called an average Australian bloke.

People who say they're too busy to have lunch have a false impression of their own importance.

Truth is absolute, truth is supreme, truth is never disposable in national political life.

For so long as we condone injustice by a small but powerful group, we condone the destruction of all social stability, all real peace, all trust in man's good intentions toward his fellow man.

I don't think there's any reason on Earth why people should have access to automatic and semiautomatic weapons unless they're in the military or in the police.

I thank all of those who weren't born in this country for coming here and making a contribution to Australia. We are the least discriminatory country in the world, in my view.

Many an injustice is presented as solution and gift.

An undiscovered genius has no value in the marketplace

There are places one comes home to that one has never been to.

We often make people pay dearly for what we think we give them.

Art is like ham-it nourishes people.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy - and Jill a wealthy widow.

We shouldn't penalize those that depend on fossil fuels for energy and the jobs they provide.

No matter how humble your work may seem, do it in the spirit of an artist, of a master. In this way you lift it out of commonness and rob it of what would otherwise be drudgery.

Space travel is utter bilge. I don't think anybody will ever put up enough money to do such a thing. . . . It is all rather rot.

The power of the people is much stronger than the people in power.