Pierre Trudeau Quotes

88 Sourced Quotes

Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.

Pierre Trudeau
I bear solemn witness to the fact that NATO heads of state and of government meet only to go through the tedious motions of reading speeches, drafted by others, with the principal objective of not rocking the boat.

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

Pierre Trudeau
I am peaceful but I am not a pacifist in the philosophical sense.

Pierre Trudeau
I believe military force can be used to redress or change the balance of power in the world, but I think that that's always a losing operation if you're not trying to do it in a way which corresponds to the basic desires of the people on whom you are acting.

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

Pierre Trudeau
I recognize that in some cases it's more important to have freedom and justice than to have peace.

Pierre Trudeau
In my political philosophy I think that there sometimes is room for violence.

Pierre Trudeau
I can see that in certain political situations you have to use force to overthrow police states.

Pierre Trudeau
Society is responsible for its social organization, and if it can't provide the wherewithal for men to be gainfully employed then it should pay the penalty and give them welfare.

Pierre Trudeau
Sometimes you must live in a violent world in order to get greater justice.

Pierre Trudeau
I don't see any easy way of disqualifying people on the basis that they decide not to work.

Pierre Trudeau
I was shaken to the extent that people who criticized me used to say that I was Protestant more than a Catholic because I like to impose constraints on myself, but I don't like them to be imposed from the outside.

Pierre Trudeau
I think it's good that you test the reality that surrounds you in your neighbourhood with the reality as it is in other parts of the world; you come up with a better judgment. I'm not meaning that literally you can only do that and not go to school at all but in terms of enrichment of a personality I think it's a fabulous thing.

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

Pierre Trudeau
You just cannot cut a country in two any more than you can cut a human being in two. If you do, you do not have two human beings; you have a corpse.

Pierre Trudeau
Every time I have a political rally I meet some people who say, "I need a job."

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

Pierre Trudeau
I think that as the guardian of justice elected by the people it's our duty to use whatever forms of force, police, army, to make sure that at least the freedom of choice is preserved.

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

Pierre Trudeau
This is the beauty of the democratic process: it permits that subjective view of justice - which everyone holds - permits that subjective way to express itself peacefully through discussion, through reason and through the voting process.

Pierre Trudeau
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.

Pierre Trudeau
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.

Pierre Trudeau
I think that the only ultimate guide we have is our conscience, and if the law of the land goes against our conscience I think we should disobey the law.

Pierre Trudeau
For my part...I am a realist but, somehow, optimism always keeps breaking out.

Pierre Trudeau
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.

Pierre Trudeau
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.

Pierre Trudeau
I am sometimes also asked whether the October Crisis taught me anything about the art of governing, or about the means that were at my disposal for defusing the crisis. First of all, it taught me that you can be the prescient futurologist in the world, you can lay out the best-made plans and define your priorities with the utmost care, but if you show yourself to be incapable of managing a crisis when it arises, you will lose your right to govern and the whole thing will blow up in your face.

Pierre Trudeau
Some things I never learned to like. I didn't like to kiss babies, though I didn't mind kissing their mothers. I didn't like to slap backs or other parts of the anatomy. I liked hecklers, because they brought my speeches alive. I liked supporters, because they looked happy. And I really enjoyed mingling with people, if there wasn't too much of it.

Pierre Trudeau
The attainment of of a just society is the cherished hope of civilized men.

Pierre Trudeau