Top 55 Paul Keating Quotes

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

When we were actually in the Keating reform era, the Business Council was of no help.

Russia alone has the capacity to obliterate the United States.

If you can’t imagine it, you sure as hell are never going to see it.

Geoffrey Tozer’s death is a national tragedy. For the Australian arts and Australian music, losing Tozer is like Canada having lost Glenn Gould, or France, Ginette Neveu. It is a massive cultural loss. The kind of loss people felt when Germany lost Dresden.

The First World War was a war devoid of any virtue. It arose from the quagmire of European tribalism: a complex interplay of nation-state destinies overlaid by notions of cultural superiority peppered with racism.

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

The First World War not only destroyed European civilisation and the empires at its heart; its aftermath led to a second conflagration, the Second World War, which divided the continent until the end of the century.

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

The death of Malcolm Fraser underwrites a great loss to Australia. Notwithstanding a controversial prime ministership, in later years he harboured one abiding and important idea about Australia – its need and its right to be a strategically independent country.

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.

Countries get one chance in history of putting into place a savings retirement scheme on the scale of the Australian superannuation system.

I have long believed, especially after the unprovoked Western attack on Iraq and the ransacking of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, that North Korea would not desist from the full development of its nuclear weapons program, despite threats and sanctions from the West and even from China.

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.

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

In the end, rational policy is always good.

The death of Malcolm Fraser underwrites a great loss to Australia. Notwithstanding a controversial prime ministership, in later years he harboured one abiding and important idea about Australia – its need and its right to be a strategically independent country.

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

In the end, rational policy is always good.

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.

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

When one has been touched by the stellar power and ethereal playing of a sublime musician, one is lifted, if only briefly, to a place beyond the realm of the temporal.

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

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.

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

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

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

I have said before, you don’t expect conservative parties to believe in much, but you do expect them to believe in thrift.

As prime minister, the pastoral lease question was a very vexing and torrid one for me.

What the Anzac legend did do, by the bravery and sacrifice of our troops, was reinforce our own cultural notions of independence, mateship, and ingenuity. Of resilience and courage in adversity.

When we were actually in the Keating reform era, the Business Council was of no help.

I have said before, you don’t expect conservative parties to believe in much, but you do expect them to believe in thrift.

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.

Geoffrey Tozer’s death is a national tragedy. For the Australian arts and Australian music, losing Tozer is like Canada having lost Glenn Gould, or France, Ginette Neveu. It is a massive cultural loss. The kind of loss people felt when Germany lost Dresden.

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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

A more worldly and competent foreign and defence policy is by far the preferred first line of defence – rather than the default position of relying on expensive but problematic hardware.

The essence of leadership is essentially taking the responsibility of trying to interpret the future to the present.

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

Politicians never fade away; they just keep carrying on, you know, their class.

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

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

The First World War not only destroyed European civilisation and the empires at its heart; its aftermath led to a second conflagration, the Second World War, which divided the continent until the end of the century.

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

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

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.

As prime minister, the pastoral lease question was a very vexing and torrid one for me.

Countries get one chance in history of putting into place a savings retirement scheme on the scale of the Australian superannuation system.

What distinguished the First World War from all wars before it was the massive power of the antagonists.

The only reward in a public life is public progress. You stand back and say, ‘What did I get out of it?’ You look around, and the place is better, and that’s it.

One of the inevitable aspects of debates about euthanasia is the reluctance on the part of advocates to confront the essence of what they propose.