Bob Hawke Quotes & Sayings

While society cannot provide employment for its members, the production/work/income nexus has to be abandoned as a justification for our present parsimony to the unemployed. An assumption cannot be used to justify making second-class citizens of those who are unfortunate enough to constitute living proof of the inaccuracy of that assumption. — Bob Hawke

I just loved him and he loved me ... He was a most humble man, the most decent man I've ever met in my life and he always looked for the best in people to find positives and he said something to me that always remained with me. He said if you believe in the fatherhood of God you must necessarily believe in the brotherhood of man, it follows necessarily and even though I left the church and was not religious, that truth remained with me. — Bob Hawke

The things which are most important don't always scream the loudest. — Bob Hawke

My point was that the war was intrinsically wrong, and as a result of our participation we haven't improved Australia's security but created a greater danger at home and abroad. — Bob Hawke

In sum, the truth is that we luxuriate in the comfortable assertion that women enjoy equality. We have salved our consciences by eliminating the more obvious discriminations like unequal rates of pay for work of equal value. But, in fact, we have not eliminated the inheritance of the millennia that women are lesser beings, an inheritance which still manifests itself in a whole range of prejudice and other forms of discrimination. — Bob Hawke

The world will not wait for us. — Bob Hawke

There is no doubt that this government and this country are benefiting from the reforms that we brought in the 1980s, and that couldn't have been done without the co-operation of the trade union movement. — Bob Hawke

The essence of power is the knowledge that what you do is going to have an effect not just an immediate but perhaps a lifelong effect on the happiness and wellbeing of millions of people and so I think the essence of power is to be conscious of what it can mean for others. — Bob Hawke

I find a fence a very uncomfortable place to squat my bottom. — Bob Hawke

By 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty. — Bob Hawke

Do you know why I have credibility? Because I don't exude morality. — Bob Hawke

I think it is just stupid economics for a government to approach economic management from a strand of thinking regarding unions as enemies. — Bob Hawke

Peoples have come to experience that political structures and divisions of power are not immutable. Nor will they perceive the distribution of wealth and resources between nations to be unalterably ordained by heaven and incapable of drastic rearrangement by the less than gentle manipulation of man. — Bob Hawke

We will not allow to become a political issue in this country the question of Asianisation. — Bob Hawke

Unless and until something concrete is done about addressing the Israeli-Palestinian issue you won't get a real start on the war against terrorism. — Bob Hawke