Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
People learn from failure or from lack of success.
I've always been prepared to put my money where my mouth is.
You will never find a better friend to the United States than Australia.
I don't find myself in moral turmoil. I'm not given to turmoil of any kind.
There is nothing more important in business or politics than a deal is a deal.
Anyone who thinks it's smart to cut immigration is sentencing Australia to poverty.
Americans understand that they have no stronger ally, no better friend, than Australia.
The biggest review of taxation ever undertaken in this country, is now dead in the water.
China and India will take the global leadership on climate change: they are suffering for it.
I think Australians are more interested in what I am doing with their money than what I am doing with my own.
The way to lose weight is to eat less, so I ate a lot less for a month and lost a lot of weight pretty quickly.
Government will not nominate the former Labor prime minister [Kevin Rudd] to be the UN's next secretary-general.
you cannot maintain popular support for immigration policy, multiculturalism, unless you can control your borders.
Greece is an extreme case: a country where both the level of spending and the level of taxation were unsustainable!
I'm sick of the cover-ups, I'm sick of the lies, and so are the bloody veterans, that come out daily of the department's mouth.
On balance, after weighing the arguments, I believe that the time has come for Australia to create a new sovereign wealth fund.
There is a tendency to try to dumb everything down and turn everything into a one-paragraph press release or even less, just a slogan.
Everyone's got different views. I think you're better off staying within the party and prosecuting those views than stepping out of it.
You've got to remember that it's a two horse race. So when the Government is doing badly the Opposition is doing better and vice versa.
Everything we do as a government is focused on getting help and support for hard-working Australian families. We are standing up for them.
We learn from every natural disaster. Whether it's a fire or a flood, we learn something from it so we can respond to the next one better.
When politicians offer you something for nothing, or something that sounds too good to be true, it's always worth taking a careful second look.
It's really corny to say, but if you are happily married and have good kids, that is about 98 per cent of what you should be seeking to achieve.
Those who condemn gay marriage, yet are silent or indifferent to the breakdown of marriage and divorce, are, in my view, missing the real issue.
Nobody looks at opinion polls with more attention than politicians, but of course you've got to remember that a single poll is a snapshot in time.
While our energy efficiency is improving, there is a very high correlation, almost near perfect correlation, between GDP growth, and energy usage.
Honest people, knowledgeable people, really well-informed people can have very different views about what the right measures are on national security.
It is our job above all in politics to tackle the big issues and to explain them, and have the honesty to say to people, 'There are no easy solutions here.'
I have always been generous because I know that I have done well in life and I believe it is part of my duty to give back. So I am always been philanthropic.
But who knows, some years from now if there's a global emissions trading scheme agreement, as many have hoped for, then I'm sure Australia would be part of it.
We will certainly have to rethink the way in which we design and protect places where large numbers of Australians and indeed this will happen around the world.
The royal commissions are successful and effective when they have a focused terms of reference and can do the job quickly and report. And then action can be taken.
All Australians understand that high-quality, reliable and affordable broadband is a critical part of the infrastructure our nation needs to prosper in coming years.
If you try to come to Australia by boat, even if we think you are the best person in the world, even if you are a Nobel Prize winning genius, we will not let you in.
I believe that politicians should speak the truth all the time. Invariably there will be occasions when you make statements that are factually incorrect due to an error.
I love radio - its immediacy and especially its intimacy... it is part of your life, whispering into your ear. You can't see it, but equally importantly it can't see you.
In economics, one of the most important concepts is 'opportunity cost' - the idea that once you spend your money on something, you can't spend it again on something else.
It is unmanly. It is not some expression of macho virtue. It is the absolute antithesis of this. Real men don't bully women and children. Respect for women ... is so important.
The question of whether or to what extent human activities are causing global warming is not a matter of ideology, let alone of belief. The issue is simply one of risk management.
You cannot keep on saying oh, you know, talking about disrespecting women as just being politically correct or it's not a big deal or brushing things off. You've got to be aware of it.
Are not the gays who seek the right to marry, to formalise their commitment to each other, holding up a mirror to heterosexuals who are marrying less frequently and divorcing more often?
I've been around in public life for a long time. I think people know what I stand for. They know that I have strong convictions, committed principles and I'm prepared to stand up for them.
The proliferation of outlets that digital technology has enabled has itself contributed to the changing nature of what we regard as 'news' and the way in which many citizens perceive politics.
This is a very tough business, politics. It's easy to get resentful or full of bitterness ... (but) I think hatred hurts the hater more than the hated. So I'm looking back on my time positively.
I try to talk about policy issues intelligently, I try very hard to avoid thought bubbles. I make sure my speeches are well researched and footnoted. I make sure I am not talking through my hat.
It's not a 24-hour news cycle, it's a 60-second news cycle now, it's instantaneous. It has never been easier to get away with telling lies. It has never been easier to get away with the glib one liner.
Do the bishops seriously imagine that legalising gay marriage will result in thousands of parties to heterosexual marriages suddenly deciding to get divorced so they can marry a person of the same sex?
My commitment to the Republican movement was pure and simply patriotism, a love of Australia... a desire or passion that all of our national symbols should be unequivocally and unambiguously Australian.
Study after study has demonstrated that people are better off financially, healthier, happier if they are married, and indeed, I repeat, if they are formally married as opposed to simply living together.
We are already experiencing the symptoms of climate change, especially with a hotter and drier climate in southern Australia - the rush to construct desalination plants is an expensive testament to that.