Separation and devolution are two completely different concepts which cannot be mixed together. One is not a stop on the way to the other.

I love hard political debate and I love beating somebody on a political point but what I'm more frustrated by is the politics where you play the man not the politics.

Scotland cannot be the only 'something for nothing' country in the world.

My Scottish Labour Party is a crusade - to fight poverty, inequality and injustice.

What I will say will not always please you, but what I say will always be honest and true and how I genuinely see it.

Telling the truth, and confronting the challenge, is what politics is about.

We shall seek debate without division or rancour.

My working life has always been wrapped up in doing my job to the best of my abilities and doing the best for my family. It is not a contest between the two.

I got a very strong sense from my mother, in particular, that we are all equal in the sight of God.

Schools are not exam factories for the rat race.

The Scottish Labour Party, while I have breath in my body, will listen to the views of trade unionists.

Even when your life is full of color, you still need to be reminded that things come in black and white.

Love, Hope, and Joy, fair pleasure's smiling train, Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of pain, These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd Make and maintain the balance of the mind.

For most people, the major hurdle in grasping modern insights into the nature of the universe is that these developments are usually phrased using mathematics.

One has to regard a man as a Master who can produce on average three uniquely brilliant and entirely original similes to every page.

I blast "Northern Sky," by the Capital Kings, on the way there, but at the gym, I totally zone out.

Over the years a photo-mania developed. At times, photographic images have signaled a way forward and gotten me out of a bind.

Give your hands to serve and your hearts to love.

The lives of people are like young trees in a forest. They are being choked by climbing vines. The vines are old thoughts and beliefs planted by dead men.

It's always coldest before the warm.

Always predict the worst, and you'll be hailed as a prophet.