Those were the ideals that drove us to nationalization of the health service.

If you've got unemployment, low pay, that was just too bad. But that was the system. That was the sort of economy and philosophy against which I was fighting in the 1930s.

And that will increasingly dawn on people. The demand for controlling the commanding heights will grow.

What we set out to do was to ensure that this system of fair shares and the planning and controls continued after the war, and when we won, that's what we did.

He described how, as a boy of 14, his dad had been down the mining pit, his uncle had been down the pit, his brother had been down the pit, and of course he would go down the pit.

That was not what men and women fought for during the war.

It might have been offset for us if the revenue from our own oil and natural gas that was just developing had been available to the Labor Government, but the oil revenues were just coming in when Labor fell in '79.

I remember people who'd had a lot of hardship during the war. They'd thought we'd won.

Those were the ideals that drove us to nationalization of the health service.

And what always struck me about that war period was how even Churchill had to talk socialism to keep up people's morale.

It is true that they paid much more attention to the trade unions because the trade unions were after all speaking for the rights and conditions of working men and women in their employment.

Britain in the 1970s was undoubtedly an economic mess because of the oil price explosion.

In politics, guts is all.

There was no welfare state, and people had to rely mainly on the Poor Law - that was all the state provided. It was very degrading, very humiliating. And there was a means test for receiving poor relief.

Why not pool your resources? And so we broke into the concept of the sacredness of private property.

Another example of that was that even during the economic problems of the 1945 government, we managed to carry out other aspects of our policy and other ideals. Through the establishment of national parks, for instance.

And that had a powerful appeal, particularly to those who had been denied the choice to stay on at school, to go to university, to be something else, other than going down the pit.

You see, another reason for nationalization was that private ownership meant fragmentation.

It was very much a cry for democratic control at that time. Above all, breaking the accomplished power of a few people to rule the lives of everybody else.

I remember a big meeting with the hosiery trade in Harold's ministerial room.

Then, with lots of people doing that without ever looking over their shoulders to see how they were affecting anybody else, it couldn't work, and it didn't work, and it just came to a standstill.

Large motorway flyovers are the cathedrals of the modern world.

Even if you walk exactly the same route each time - as with a sonnet - the events along the route cannot be imagined to be the same from day to day, as the poet's health, sight, his anticipations, moods, fears, thoughts cannot be the same.

From dear, dear Gloria Swanson, I learned how to live long, happy and free of health problems. I owe her my life.

The greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with.

As patients and consumers, we are better informed today about our health care than any previous generation.

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

The surest way to return to the people's business is to listen to the people themselves: We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won't leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

On health care, virtually every political error that could be made was made.

Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.

Advances in science and medical research and public health policies have meant that life expectancy for Australians is one of the highest in the world.

Actually, I've been a fanatical health nut for five years.

Happiness, contentment, the health and growth of the soul, depend, as men have proved over and over again, upon some simple issue, some single turning of the soul.

I think health is another exceedingly important thing.

From this experience we have learned that in a big party it is important to have the necessary and often controversial discussions on policy issues such as the health system while in opposition.

A modern health and social care system has to be completely focussed on the needs of its users.

Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.

Any veteran can tell you it is already hard enough to see a doctor down at the VA and get the health care they were promised when they signed up to serve this country.

Obama's health care plan will be written by a committee whose head, John Conyers, says he doesn't understand it. It'll be passed by Congress that has not read it, signed by a president who smokes, funded by a Treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, overseen by a Surgeon General who is obese, and financed by a country that's nearly broke. What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing is more capable of troubling our reason, and consuming our health, than secret notions of jealousy in solitude.

People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who are hoarding a treasure which they have never spirit enough to enjoy.

The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.

If bringing up the next generation is important, why aren't they the best qualified, the best paid? Why aren't we as concerned about their career progression as we are about those who work in the education or health services?

During my nearly five years as director-general of WHO, high-level policymakers have increasingly recognized that health is central to sustainable development.

Those who enjoy their own emotionally bad health and who habitually fill their own minds with the rank poisons of suspicion, jealousy and hatred, as a rule take umbrage at those who refuse to do likewise, and they find a perverted relief in trying to denigrate them.

The U.S. routinely ranks lower than other countries in health outcomes such as infant mortality.

We have a country that wants to believe it is the best in everything, but until all of us embrace the idea that health care should be a right, not a privilege, our system cannot be glibly described as, quote, 'the best in the world.'

I have always detested any departure from reality, an attitude which I relate to my mother's poor mental health.