Pierre Trudeau
(1919-2000), Prime Minister of Canada
- We take the position that the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.
- comment upon decriminalizing homosexuality
- Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.
- commenting on the United States
- Trudeau: Yes, well there are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed. But it is more important to keep law and order in the society than to worry about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of—
CBC reporter (interupting): At any cost? How far would you go with that? How far would you extend that?
Trudeau: Well, just watch me.
- Let us overthrow the totems, break the taboos. Or better, let us consider them cancelled.
- I've been called worse things by better people.
- Fuck off.
- comment to an opposition MP in the House of Commons
- Fuddle-duddle.
- comment to the media, explaining what he told the MP
On Trudeau
- Irving Taylor: "In Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada has at last produced a political leader worthy of assassination."