The 'Robben Island Bible' has arrived at the British Museum. It's a garish thing, its cover plastered with pink and gold Hindu images, designed to hide its contents. Within is the finest collection of words generated by human intelligence: the complete works of William Shakespeare.

Nobody likes a smart alec. Which is why it's always better for your career to be wrong and in company rather than right and on your own.

That's the problem with very high taxes - they don't redistribute wealth; they redistribute people.

A minister is supposed to be there to remind his permanent officials that they work for the rest of us. If, instead, he becomes the cabinet champion and public spokesman for his department, democracy is vitiated.

I think it is what you do with your wealth that is important. I don't believe in accumulating money for money's sake. It's one of the reasons I want to do more about helping women.

I say the law should be blind to race, gender and sexual orientation, just as it claims to be blind to wealth and power. There should be no specially protected groups of any kind, except for children, the severely disabled and the elderly, whose physical frailty demands society's care.

I think everything is a motive for money. Every thought, every belief, everything we're taught in school.

Kindness eases everything almost as much as money does.