If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?

Alliance - in international politics the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

When governments become large voters cannot exercise close oversight otherwise known as political power.

You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt.

Poetry brings all possible experience to the same degree: a degree in the consciousness beyond which the consciousness itself cannot go.

It is a happy thing that there is no royal road to poetry. The world should know by this time that one cannot reach Parnassus except by flying thither.

But I can only write what the muse allows me to write. I cannot choose I can only do what I am given and I feel pleased when I feel close to concrete poetry - still.

One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry.

There are men who can write poetry and there are men who can read balance sheets. The men who can read balance sheets cannot write.

Serious poetry deals with the fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved: we can state the conflicts rationally but reason does not relieve us of them.

I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point life itself takes over again.

If you cannot be a poet be the poem.

We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act... about the illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because and I am not making this up he had a pet cat.

Dachshunds are ideal dogs for small children as they are already stretched and pulled to such a length that the child cannot do much harm one way or the other.

You are not going to get peace with millions of armed men. The chariot of peace cannot advance over a road littered with cannon.

You cannot make peace with terrorists. The normal dividing lines between war and peace do not apply.

We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war we have to attack that way of life.

The link between peace and stability on the one hand and social and economic growth on the other is dialectic. Peace poverty and backwardness cannot mix in one region.

I cannot think of anything more difficult than to say something which would be worthy of this impressive and for me memorable occasion and of the ideals and purposes which inspired the Nobel Peace Award.

I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.

Peace is a never ending process... It cannot ignore our differences or overlook our common interests. It requires us to work and live together.

We cannot be both the world's leading champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war.

If you cannot find peace within yourself you will never find it anywhere else.

Peace cannot be kept by force it can only be achieved by understanding.