In politics, madame, you need two things: friends, but above all an enemy.

There are so many demands on your time, on your resources, and on the prestige of the government.

Whether the process proves to be Kyoto or something else, let's acknowledge the urgency of global warming.

You can't be chasing 15 rabbits. Otherwise, the public mind cannot follow you.

I am not denying anything I did not say.

In politics, madame, you need two things: friends, but above all an enemy.

You accumulate political capital to spend it on noble causes for Canada. If you're afraid to spend your capital, you shouldn't be there.

We decided that the environment was an integral part of our policies and the political thrust of our government. We gave it the priority and we sustained it with the money required to make it happen.

You cannot name a Canadian prime minister who has done as many significant things as I did, because there are none.

If everything is very important, then nothing is important.

The Conservatives over the years have done a great deal, from Sir John A, to Diefenbaker, and others.

And, of course, the fact that Maurice Strong, a Canadian, was in charge made it important for us to pull up our socks and become leaders in this field. Now, here is a field we should be a leader in!

It's my responsibility, and entirely my fault, Of course I regret it. It's the kind of locker-room conversation we all use, but as prime minister I shouldn't have used it.

When I appointed the Minister of the Environment to major cabinet status, the Planning and Priorities committee, the signals that that sent through Ottawa were major, because that's what the bureaucracy understands.

So that was Reagan's political problem. As a rancher in California, he was an environmentalist himself. But the President of the United States doesn't control everything that happens in Washington.

Every cabinet minister gets a mission statement from the Prime Minister.

Once you articulate an agenda, you have to follow it.

And look, I was a big, brassy guy who won and won big. I did what I wanted.

I think the government has to reposition environment on top of their national and international priorities.

First, President Reagan was not enthusiastic. But I built up a relationship with him in other areas and then persuaded him that this was important to us and to me, and that we had to at least be in the process of looking at this seriously.

Trudeau's contribution was not to build Canada but to destroy it, and I had to come in and save it.

We created the Cabinet Committee on the Environment to review the environmental implications of all government initiatives. I think what made us successful was the fact that it was a sustained approach. We did something new every year.

You have to spend your political capital on great causes for your country.

I can see now a vision emerging how Canada is going to profit in the future from our Arctic resources without destroying the environment on which it is all based.

For example, the Prime Minister earlier this year talked about the importance of the Arctic to our future. He's right. A hundred years from now, the strength of Canada is going to be coming from our resources in the Arctic.

I would go to them and I would explain this is the price of going forward. We're going to move ahead in all these other areas. We're moving ahead in tax reform and GST, we are moving ahead on trade, but this will not be done at the cost of the environment.

The biggest trading partner of the United States is not West Germany or Japan, it's right here.

If your only objective is to be popular, you're going to be popular but you will be known as the Prime Minister who achieved nothing.

Our military commanders have said over and over again that a timetable for withdrawal sends the wrong message to our troops, but more importantly to our enemy.

Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law.

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

There are a lot of people out there who think that I am their worst enemy, and I don't even care if these people exist.

By this time it was past six, and the enemy's van and ours were at too great a distance to engage, I perceived some of their ships stretching to the northward; and I imagined they were going to form a new line.

To me our bombing policy appears to be suicidal. Not because it does not do vast damage to our enemy, it does; but because, simultaneously, it does vast damage to our peace aim, unless that aim is mutual economic and social annihilation.

Especially today as we fight the war on terror - against an enemy that represents hatred, extremism and stands behind no flag - we need to remember the sacrifices that have gone into protecting our flag.

No enemy is worse than bad advice.

The soldier's main enemy is not the opposing soldier, but his own commander.

This bored fantastic woman, with her animal nature, giving herself the pleasure of seeing her enemy struck down, not a particularly keen one for her because she is so weary of having all her desires satisfied.

Reason is the enemy of faith.

Politics is the enemy of the imagination.

If I liken the Pacific War to a football match, I can say to you that the first half is over, we have kicked off after the interval, and we are going to carry the ball into enemy territory for a smashing victory.

Wine is a turncoat; first a friend and then an enemy.

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

Hatred is not contained in political thinking. Any hatred worked up against the public enemy is non-political, and always shows some weakness in the internal political situation.

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

I really didn't have any plans to record prior to doing My Own Best Enemy.

Whatever the number of a man's friends, there will be times in his life when he has one too few; but if he has only one enemy, he is lucky indeed if he has not one too many.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.