Scotland cannot be the only 'something for nothing' country in the world.

Separation and devolution are two completely different concepts which cannot be mixed together. One is not a stop on the way to the other.

I love hard political debate and I love beating somebody on a political point but what I'm more frustrated by is the politics where you play the man not the politics.

My Scottish Labour Party is a crusade - to fight poverty, inequality and injustice.

What I will say will not always please you, but what I say will always be honest and true and how I genuinely see it.

Telling the truth, and confronting the challenge, is what politics is about.

We shall seek debate without division or rancour.

My working life has always been wrapped up in doing my job to the best of my abilities and doing the best for my family. It is not a contest between the two.

I got a very strong sense from my mother, in particular, that we are all equal in the sight of God.

Schools are not exam factories for the rat race.

The Scottish Labour Party, while I have breath in my body, will listen to the views of trade unionists.

In every voyage, be fully present.

It is not through fighting the opposition that will win you dignity. It is when you fight the fear in yourself that asks you why you don't feel you have it, regardless if you win or lose.

Breakfast - which I didn't mind skipping; if the eggs had been any runnier and the bacon a little less fatty, I could have raced them against each other around my plate.

Nor are we the culmination of evolution, except in the sense that there has never been another species so bizarrely ingenious that it could create both iambic pentameter and plutonium.

The Ethiopian cannot change his skin nor the leopard his spots.

I'm pretty careful about the things I say ahead of time. I'm thoughtful about not going too far. The only thing you can do occasionally is be too much.

Lack of prayer says you've brought into the lie that life is manageable and you've got everything under control

A lot of the Beatles albums were very various, and we did it on purpose: We didn't want the next track to sound like the last one.

When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them. When settled, make them move.

If we want to find the manna hidden in our vocation, let us restrict and confine all our desires within it.