If one takes pride in one's craft, you won't let a good thing die. Risking it through not pushing hard enough is not a humility.

I try to use the Australian idiom to its maximum advantage.

If one takes pride in one's craft, you won't let a good thing die. Risking it through not pushing hard enough is not a humility.

I always believed in burning up the government's political capital, not being Mr Safe Guy, you know?

I think Australia has to be a country which has the 'Welcome' sign out.

I think the Australian people are very conscientious. During the 1980s and 1990s we proved they will respond conscientiously to necessary reforms. They mightn't like them but they'll accept them. But reforms have to be presented in a digestible format.

I think the rise of China is one of the great events of all economic and human history, and I think this will be overwhelmingly a positive thing for the region and the world.

I used to say in the cabinet room, 'confidence is not like a can of Popeye spinach - you can't take the top off and swallow it down.' You know, confidence has to be earned.

I've always held the view that great states need strategic space. I mean, George Washington took his space from George III. Britain took it from just about everybody. Russia took all of Eastern Europe. Germany's taken it from everywhere they can, and China will want its space too.

In the end, rational policy is always good.

Nobody wants to have in their CV in the upper echelons of the American economic family that they nationalised major banks.

One tires of combat, although I can still throw a punch, you know.

Politicians come in three varieties: straight men, fixers, and maddies.

The G7, just a European centric show, an Atlantic show, is fundamentally finished.

The United States being in Asia is unambiguously a good thing for the region.

The great changes in civilisation and society have been wrought by deeply held beliefs and passion rather than by a process of rational deduction.

The great curse of modern political life is incrementalism.

Well, Australians should speak for the national interests of Australia, and whatever role former Australian prime ministers may have, one of the things you do is speak frankly about the country as you see the country's best interests, you know?

Well, I think that - I think leadership's always been about two main things: imagination and courage.

When the Berlin Wall came down the Americans cried, 'Victory,' and walked off the field.

You get one chance to do something about native title. You get perhaps one chance in your life to do something about a republic. You get one chance, your chance, to build a piece of the political architecture in the Pacific. I wasn't going to give those up.

You know, in the WikiLeaks cables, the Chinese discovered that Kevin Rudd was urging the Americans to keep the military option open against them. This is hardly a friendly gesture.

You see, before I became prime minister, the Australian prime minister only attended ever two meetings in the world: the British Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and the South Pacific Forum.

You see, psychologically, Australia must understand it has to live in the region around it. Australia must find its security in Asia; it cannot find its security from Asia.

The more we view the country through the prism of Aboriginality, the more likely we are to get the angle right.

Good economics is good politics.

He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up

We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our minds, space has a reality outside our minds, so that we cannot completely prescribe its properties a priori.

Obedience to the word in humility of mind never confuses.

The people who abandon Jihad fall a victim to humility and degradation.

Humility is not my forte, and whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.

Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues.

What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.

When someone saves your life and gives you life, there's gratitude, humility; there's a time you've been so blessed you realize you've been given another chance at life that maybe you did or didn't deserve.

The beloved of the Almighty are: the rich who have the humility of the poor, and the poor who have the magnanimity of the rich.

Bush promised a foreign policy of humility and a domestic policy of compassion. He has given us a foreign policy of arrogance and a domestic policy that is cynical, myopic and cruel.

Judge yourself; if you do that you will not be judged by God, as St. Paul says. But it must be a real sense of your own sinfulness, not an artificial humility.

But when one believes that you've been appointed by God for a particular mission in history, you have to be very careful about that, how you speak about that. Where is the self-reflection in that? Where is the humility in that?

The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.

Too many people in government seem to think they are above regular folks, and I said I would expect humility in the way each member of my team served- that they would recognize that the taxpayer is boss.

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.

Humility is a necessary veil to all other graces.

Humility is a virtue, and it is a virtue innate in guests.

If I had any humility I would be perfect.

Power is dangerous unless you have humility.

Fairest and best adorned is she Whose clothing is humility.

Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.

With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.

Pride works frequently under a dense mask, and will often assume the garb of humility.