In completing the task of quoting from all our country’s Prime Ministers – from Sir John A. to our current PM Stephen Harper – I now return to my favourite PM: John George Diefenbaker. Here’re 10 more musings from one of Canada’s most colourful and quotable leaders.
My abiding interest is your interest; my guiding [...]
If you want to be a government in a minority Parliament, you have to work with other people.
But I’m very libertarian in the sense that I believe in small government and, as a general rule, I don’t believe in imposing values upon people.
This party will not take its position based on public opinion polls. [...]
For years governments have been promising more than they can deliver, and delivering more than they can afford.
As a people, we know what we can do, we know how to do it, and we just want to get on with it. How? By ensuring that Canada’s place in the world is one of [...]
A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It’s a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it’s because it’s proven.
We are not going to change. We are going to continue defending our cause and our socialism.
When you’re a mayor and you have a problem you [...]
You had an option, sir. You could have said, ‘I am not going to do it. This is wrong for Canada, and I am not going to ask Canadians to pay the price.’ You had an option, sir–to say ‘no’–and you chose to say ‘yes’ to the old attitudes and the old stories of the [...]
We will not take this nation by storm, by stealth or by surprise. We will win it by work. - Joseph Clark
This is a very complicated country. You have to understand it, you have to respect it, and I think our most successful prime ministers have been people who have drawn together the diversity of [...]
My life is one long curve, full of turning points.
Luck, that’s when preparation and opportunity meet.
The essential ingredient of politics is timing.
In academic life you seek to state absolute truths; in politics you seek to accommodate truth to the facts around you.
We wish nothing more, but we will accept nothing less. Masters in our own [...]
And so the new Flag, joining and rising above the milestones of our history, today takes for the first time its proud place as the emblem of Canada, “The Maple Leaf Our Emblem Dear.” May the land over which this new Flag flies remain united in freedom and justice; a land of decent God-fearing [...]
I have done it by hard work and long hours, by making it evident that I was available for whatever was to be done; by welcoming every opportunity for new and more responsible duties; and by accumulating all the experience possible in all the varied aspects of my profession.
Politics is the skilled use of [...]
I don’t campaign. I just visit with the people.
Nothing I ever do is political.
I never say anything provocative.
I do not say that everything I did was right, but what I do say, Mr. Speaker, is that what I did was honest.
I was criticized for being too much concerned with the average Canadians. I can’t [...]