Pierre Trudeau Quotes - Page 5

The Canadian community must invest, for the defence and better appreciation of the French language, as much time, energy, and money as are required to prevent the country from breaking up

I think the sense of exclusivity that tended to be associated with religions in past times has now disappeared. At least it has disappeared in its political and social manifestations as far as I can see.

Canada is seen to some as a confederation of shopping centres.

In specific terms I don't think I could make any suggestions, but in general terms I believe that it is because Canadians have been under the good influences of their churches that they are a tolerant people, an understanding and patient people, so that there has been little backlash against the excesses which have happened over the decades in French and in English Canada which might turn either group off.

Power only tires those who don't exercise it.

In my religion I really cannot think of cases where violence is justified.

I believe in life after death.

The state has an active role to play in ensuring that there is equilibrium between the constituent parts of the economy, the consumers and the producers.

You know you have a lot of impatience with reality as you see it when you're a young man and full of dynamism and strength and ideals and so on.

I was too busy doing my job and living my life to spend time keeping notes for some future volume of memoirs.

I'm far from believing that we've solved the problem of violence in the 20th century and that's why I'm not discouraged that we still have the Biafras and the Northern Irelands and the East Pakistans and, for that matter, violence in American or Canadian cities.

I feel very deeply for Canada, and l believe most Canadians do.

I feel perhaps I didn't deal with the question of violence in depth.

Harvard was an extraordinary window on the world.

There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation. What's done in private between adults doesn't concern the Criminal Code.

The federal government is the balance wheel of the federal system, and the federal system means using counterweights.

I remember thinking that walking on the beach as a free man is pretty desirable.

I do object to the sensationalism or even the voyeurism of doing things in church or out of church.

I honestly don't know what they mean by a devout Catholic.

I'm impatient not with the House of Commons as an institution, but with the way in which it is operated. This doesn't prove I don't believe in participatory democracy.

I think violence is counter-productive and it is bad in democratic societies.

I think that religions must seek peace and love and therefore be pacifist.

I think that the history of the past hundred years has shown us that, by and large, the one linguistic group to whom separatism is being preached is not moved by the arguments which are used.

When the religious principles, like the philosophical, are translated into reality, sometimes the reality forces violence on you, and there is no escape from it, and then I don't think it's something you should try to hide your face from.

I've always lived in a democratic society.