Quote

I believe that Canada cannot, indeed, that Canada must not survive by force. The country will only remain united - it should only remain united - if its citizens want to live together in one civil society.

Pierre Trudeau

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Pierre Trudeau
Age: 80 †
Born: 1919
Born: October 18
Died: 2000
Died: September 28
Diarist
Former Prime Minister Of Canada
Journalist
Judge
Lawyer
Memoirist
Politician
Montreal
Quebec
Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau
Cannot
Civil
Together
Survive
Live
Indeed
Country
Remain
Must
Citizens
Believe
Society
United
Force
Canada

More quotes by Pierre Trudeau

Image
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
Image
I can see that in certain political situations you have to use force to overthrow police states.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
Long live free France.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
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.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
Power only tires those who don't exercise it.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
The politicians, who once stated that war was too complex to be left to the generals, now act as though peace were too complex to be left to themselves.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
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
Image
Democracy demands that elected members be able to realize fully the role for which they have been chosen.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
When they are 50 yards from Parliament Hill, they are no longer honourable members, they are just nobodies.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
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.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
I think all of us, politicians and churchmen, should do our utmost to change the society so that there would be no need for violence.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
I think violence is counter-productive and it is bad in democratic societies.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
I believe in God, and I'm a Christian.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
Canada is seen to some as a confederation of shopping centres.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
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
Image
The state has no place in the nation's bedrooms.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
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
Image
In my political philosophy I think that there sometimes is room for violence.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
I, for one, will be convinced that the Canada we know and love will be gone forever. But, then, Thucydides wrote that Themistocles' greatness lay in the fact that he realized Athens was not immortal. I think we have to realize that Canada is not immortal but, if it is going to go, let it go with a bang rather than a whimper.
Pierre Trudeau
Image
I've always lived in a democratic society.
Pierre Trudeau